Video of Union Minister Anurag Thakur chanting ‘shoot the traitors’ goes viral

Tribune Web Desk
Chandigarh, January 27  

A shocking video of Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur egging on a crowd to chant “shoot the country’s traitors” has gone viral on Monday.

The video showed Thakur, who was an election rally in support of BJP candidate from Rithala, Manish Chaudhary, saying “Desh ki gadaaron ko” and the crowd shouts back “goli maro saalon ko” (shoot the traitors). Thakur then says, “Peeche tak awaaz aani chahiye” (voices should be heard from the back), and repeats the slogan.

Election officials said they had asked for a report from the North West district's election officer in connection with the video.

The incident has triggered a row, drawing a sharp reaction from the Congress which demanded that the Election Commission (EC) take action against Thakur.

"We have taken cognisance of the incident and have sought a report from the district election officer. However, we have not received any complaint so far," a senior official in the Delhi CEO Office said.

Delhi is scheduled to vote for elections on February 8. Votes will be counted on February 11.   

The video gains context in the light of recent protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act. There are ongoing sit-in protests against the law in Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh, as well as other cities like Lucknow, Mumbai, and Kolkata.

More recently, the “traitor” slogan was heard at a recent rally that Home Minister Amit Shah addressed in Delhi.   

The citizenship law offers Indian Citizenship to persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis and Buddhists, but excludes Muslims—a decision that BJP’s critics have objected to. The critics argue that CAA, taken in conjunction with the contentious National Citizen Registry exercise that the central government had previously and repeatedly endorsed could be used to target the country’s Muslim population.

After facing backlash, the central government has claimed that the CAA had nothing to with the NRC exercise, but critics use statements by made ministers, in particular, Home Minister Amit Shah, to claim that the two cannot be seen separately.  With PTI inputs

Shocking: It was a local BJP leader from Delhi back then, its now a front line BJP leader and MoS Finance, Anurag Thakur who is leading the crowd to chant “Desh ke gaddaron ko, Goli maro salon ko”.

Such is the level of politics, ladies and gentlemen! pic.twitter.com/rXZ8M8m6lz

— Prashant Kumar (@scribe_prashant) January 27, 2020

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