Cong, Akalis in political slugfest

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 19

The attack has triggered a political slugfest between the Congress and the Akali Dal, with the Bargari morcha leaders at the centre of the crossfire.

Even as the Akali Dal has upped its ante against the Congress, blaming it for “cosying up” to radical elements in the past few months, some Congress ministers, mainly from Majha, got together last night in Amritsar and spoke in hushed tones about a “plan by intelligence agencies” to use the incident to defame the Congress government and link it to Bargari protest.

Since June, ever since the morcha was started at Bargari, the Congress has been accused by the SAD-BJP of “sponsoring the dharna”.

Though Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh has said that the attack seemed to have a “Pakistan signature”, many of his Cabinet colleagues believe that the attack was likely to be used to create a scare in the public, especially among the Hindu community.

The Congress win in 2017 was attributed largely to the consolidation of Hindu votes in its favour. Political observers and many in the Congress fear that not initiating any action to remove the Bargari morcha helped build it up and this could be a tactical political mistake as the Hindu voters would be weaned away from them.

Some recent incidents – be it attack at Maqsudan police station, terror modules being busted, “sighting” of terrorist Zakir Musa in Amritsar and the snatching of an Innova by unknown persons in Pathankot – have led to creating a fear psychosis among the minority groups. The linking of the two incidents by other political parties could upset the Congress prospects in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The total vote share of the Hindus in the state is believed to be 39 per cent.

The only Congress leader to have spoken against the Bargari leaders so far is Ludhiana MP Ravneet Singh Bittu. He has blamed them of getting foreign funding and vitiating peace in the state. The Ludhiana parliamentary seat has a high percentage of Hindu voters.

As the clamour by the Opposition grows louder, senior Congress leaders and ministers admit that they have no choice but to completely dissociate themselves from the Bargari morcha and find an amicable way to lift the dharna. Intelligence agencies have already warned the state government about the funds being received by some of the leaders of the morcha from abroad. A probe by the Income-Tax Department to find the money trail is already on.