The Dewas bandh called in protest was partially successful. Section 144 was imposed in the town and a couple of dozen arrests made. There was minor trouble in Bhopal too but the protests did not take off. Dharmendra’s Dewas visit seems to be a part of the Sangh parivar’s plan to keep the Malwa (Indore-Ujjain) region on the boil, with the Bhojshala in Dhar as its focal point. Malwa borders Gujarat and has a fair percentage of tribals. Praveen Togadia had recently tried to stir up tension in that area. The BJP had fared poorly in Malwa in the last elections. Over the last one month, sporadic violence, three deaths and curfews in several towns are indicative of the rising communal temperature in the region. It’s obvious the BJP wants to repeat its ‘successful experiment’ of central Gujarat.
Meanwhile, much to his surprise, Togadia faced the stick from an NDA ally in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh. He was arrested under Chandrababu Naidu’s orders as it was feared that this vhp rabble-rouser would spread sectarian strife in the region. But another theory doing the rounds is that with elections in Andhra Pradesh not too far away, Naidu wanted to send a ‘secular signal’ to his constituency, especially the Muslims.
Naidu’s soft-peddling on Gujarat and his silent support for the hardliners in the BJP might have alienated his ‘secular’ electoral base. And the Opposition seized this opportune moment to raise a ruckus in the assembly over Bajrang Dal’s attack on Andhra Bhavan in New Delhi. So, there’s more than symbolic value in Togadia’s arrest.
