Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Nov 18: Even as the Telangana chief minister K Chandraskhear Rao launched an all-out attack on the BJP accusing the party of “creating communal tensions” during the elections, Sikhs in Haryana came to the rescue of the Muslims prevented by the BJP sympathisers from offering namaz in the designated open places.
The Gurdwara association of Sadar Bazar in Gurugram has decided to offer its premises for Friday prayers following objections over the offering of namaz in public and open places.
“It’s ‘Guru Ghar’, open for all communities with no discrimination. There shouldn’t be any politics here. Basement is now open for Muslim brothers who want to offer ‘Jumme ki namaz’,” said Sherdil Singh Sidhu, President, Gurdwara Guru Singh Sabha, Sadar Bazar.
“If there’s an open space, Muslims should be allowed to offer namaz. We shouldn’t fight over such petty issues. People who were offering namaz in open sought administration’s permission and those who had problems should have approached the administration before attacking them,” he added.
Earlier, the Gurugram administration had withdrawn permission to offer namaz at eight out of 37 designated sites because of the objections from some local people believed to supporters of the right wing party. In several open grounds, the locals deliberately crowded around during the Friday afternoons and often desecrated the places to prevent the Muslims from offering namaz. On several occasions earlier, residents of Gurugram have complained and staged a protest against Friday namaz at a public ground.
In Hyderabad, KCR who was piqued by the centre’s delay in paddy procurement, launched an all-out attack on the BJP which he said was only busy creating “communal tensions” during elections. “Your intelligence men are even now listening to what I am saying,” he alleged. The BJP leaders were “issuing threats of cases being filed… They are threatening KCR? And they think KCR will be scared?” he said.
“When there are elections, they bring Hindu-Muslim issue, Pakistan sentiment… During elections, you create communal tension all your drama on the border, surgical strikes, people are seeing through this,” he added. The protest at Hyderabad’s Indira Park, led by the Chief Minister, was attended by his cabinet colleagues and other leaders of his ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi.
Accusing the Centre of not purchasing paddy and threatened to dump the grains in the BJP office, the Chief Minister said, “The BJP says grow paddy, but the Centre is not buying. They are playing political games. If you don’t buy, we will come and dump paddy in the BJP office.”
Last year, the Centre had procured 78 per cent of crops produced during the monsoon. This year, the figure is 59 per cent. The state has produced 55.75 lakh tonnes of paddy, of which only 32.66 lakh tonnes have been procured. Centre had said they would procure 40 lakh tonnes.
The state, however, wants them to take 90 per cent of the produce. Besides, procurement of five lakh tonnes of Rabi paddy is also pending. Rao said 50 days ago, he had requested Food minister Piyush Goyal to set the target for paddy procurement from the state. But there has been no response from the Centre, he alleged. He said he has also written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday on the issue.
“For 50 days they ignored our pleas. We have thrown away posts in the past during Telangana struggle. We will take leadership in this,” the Chief Minister said, addressing people in a protest site in Hyderabad. “We started this battle because our farming community may suffer due to the Centre’s policies… We say you change your attitude, come to the rescue of farmers, withdraw the autocratic farm laws and change the policy to install metres at agriculture pump sets. This battle is not going to end today,” he added.
Pointing out that his party was criticised by the BJP over its recent dharnas on paddy procurement despite being in power, Rao said Modi as the Gujarat Chief Minister had held a protest for 51 hours in 2006. “A message is going out from this that pitiable circumstances of CMs, Ministers and MLAs having to sit on dharna prevail in this country,” he said.