Mumbai: Shiv Sena is at it again. This time the party, which is an ally of ruling NDA, is targeting the BJP government in Maharashtra and the Narendra Modi regime at the Centre for the crackdown on rights activists across the country.
Terming the Maharashtra police's assertion about security threat to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a 'conspiracy theory', the Sena on Monday asked the central government to stop stating that Maoists could potentially topple it.
In the editorial of its mouthpiece, Saamana, the Sena said 'in the recent times, governing parties were changed through democratic process alone.'
"The government should stop stating that these so-called Maoists could potentially topple the sitting government at the Centre. This is a stupid statement," the editorial read.
"Manmohan Singh's (Congress-led UPA) government was brought down by the people of this country not by Maoists or Naxalites."
The BJP's carping ally also dubbed "stupid" the Maharashtra police's claim that the five arrested Left-wing activists were involved in an alleged Maoist plot to overthrow the Modi administration. The Uddhav Thackeray-led party said Modi's security remains robust and there is no need to worry on that front.
"Had these Maoists possessed power to topple governments, they would not have lost control in West Bengal, Tripura and Manipur.”
"The police (must) exercise restrain while making claims or else Modi and the BJP will be ridiculed once again," the Sena, which has ministers in the BJP-led governments in Maharashtra and also at the Centre, cautioned.
PM Modi lacked adventurism
The daily dropped a line of praise in its editorial for former Congress prime ministers while drawing a comparison on the security situation of Modi. “(Former prime ministers) Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi had an element of adventurism (in them), which went wrong and they lost their lives. (However), Modi would not engage in such adventurism.”
Dig at the Left supporters
The saffron party also took a dig at the people who have been criticising the arrest of five Left-wing activists late last month for alleged links with Maoists.
'Urban Maoists' are involved in philosophising the acts of Naxals in remote areas of Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha.
Naxalites run their own parallel governments in remote areas and several people, including government officials and Congress leader Vidya Charan Shukla, have lost their lives in attacks carried out by them, the Sena said.
"These were the same people who instigated violence at Koregaon-Bhima (a village in Pune district on January 1, 2018). They want to create some unrest in every state and are hardly bothered about democracy. Their thoughts are violent," the editorial said.
"People like Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira, Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navalakha and Vernon Gonsalves (all arrested last month for alleged Maoist links) enjoy high social standing.”
"Mao is from China and whoever attempts to topple the government there is put behind bars or disappears. In our country, such people get support.”
"From Congress president Rahul Gandhi to Sharad Pawar (NCP), Prakash Ambedkar (a Dalit leader) to Akhilesh Yadav (former UP chief minister), all are strongly supporting these people.”
"If these people are facing charges of plotting to kill Modi, how can anyone support them?" the party asked.
Hindutvawadis vs Maoists
Maoist sympathisers take a different stand when it comes to the arrest of right-wing activists in connection with the killing of rationalists Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and journalist Gauri Lankesh, it said.
"They are willing to accept Hindutvawadis or right-wing supporters as terrorists but (for them) Maoists mean intellectuals and rebel poets. Having such double standards is in itself sedition," the Sena said.
The party also slammed Congress leader and former Union Home Minister P Chidambaram over the phrase "saffron terror."
"Chidambaram has rejected the urban Naxal terminology. He claims it is an attempt to divert people's attention from the Rafale jet deal, failure of note-ban and other burning issues. But it was he who supported saffron terror terminology a few years ago and defamed Hindus," the Sena said.
Naxalism is a far more serious security threat than terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir as it is weakening the country from inside, the party said.
This is not the first time the Sena is criticising its ally BJP. Uddhav had hit out at BJP after the Lok Sabha bypolls in Maharashtra.
The Sena had targeted Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah in April after Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu rejected the Opposition's notice to impeach the chief justice of India.
The ally of the ruling BJP said "the four pillars of the democracy have been made hollow by termites" and "nobody can rule for long after having lost the trust of the people."
