Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh has used Union home minister Amit Shah’s “understand the chronology” comment to hit out at Union minister of state for finance Anurag Thakur.
Anurag Thakur was campaigning in Delhi’s Rithala on January 27 when, in a widely shared video, he was allegedly heard prompting the crowd, saying “desh ke gaddaron ko… (traitors of the country…),” to which the crowd responded with “goli maaron … (shoot them…)”.
Thakur had screamed out the first part of the slogan exhorting the audience to finish it as the crowd was waiting for a meeting by Amit Shah.
The Congress’ Rajya Sabha member said in Indore on Sunday that it’s a new chronology.
“Union home minister Amit Shah gave us a chronology that first Citizenship Amendment Act will be brought, then NPR (National Population Register) and later NRC (National Civil Register) will be introduced,” Singh said, according to news agency ANI.
“We are now finding out about another chronology. A central minister says ‘shoot’ and then one of his men comes and shoots, the police stand. Did you understand this chronology? This was a serious statement but the Election Commission didn’t hand him any punishment. Did you understand this chronology?” Singh asked.
The Congress leader was referring to the 17-year-old who fired at a group protesting the citizenship act outside Jamia Millia Islamia university in south Delhi on January 30 and injured a postgraduate student.
The shot was fired even as a group of policemen, many of them in anti-riot gear, stood and watched for several moments before one of them restrained him.
Witnesses said he had shouted “aao aaj azaadi dilata hoon” (come, I will give you freedom) and raised religious slogans before pulling the trigger.
And, Amit Shah had made his chronology statement at an event last year before Parliament had cleared the citizenship law.
“Aap chronology samajh lijiye (Please understand the chronology),” the Union home minister had said.
“Pehle CAB ayega, pair NRC asyega, aur sirf Bengal ke liye nahi… saare desh ke liye ayega (First the Citizenship Amendment Bill will come, then NRC will follow. And not just for Bengal but for the entire country… infiltration is a problem across the country),” he had said.
To be sure, the Election Commission had imposed a 72-hour campaigning ban on Anurag Thakur on a charge that he had raised provocative slogans at the Delhi election meeting.
Anurag Thakur, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s star campaigner for the February 8 elections in Delhi, was taken off the party’s list after the poll body’s orders but the BJP had insisted that he was allowed to campaign.