Kairana by-poll: Promises of withdrawing Muzaffarnagar riot cases show all parties willing to trade justice for votes
The Muzaffarnagar riots in 2013 led to the deaths of 62 people.
The by-poll in Uttar Pradesh’s Kairana, scheduled for May 28, was always more than a battle for one parliamentary seat. It was an experiment of Opposition unity against the BJP, after a similar experiment in the state paid off in Gorakhpur and Phulpur by-elections. It was a crucial test of caste and religion alignments, in a communally sensitive constituency.
Now, after the Karnataka drama, it is also a question of prestige for a badly stung BJP.
No wonder, then, that the players involved are leaving no stone unturned to hold on to their core voter-base and chip away at the others’. One effective way to do this, all parties seem to think, is promising the withdrawal of the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots cases.
The losses and trauma of a riot should not be tradeable commodities in a political tussle. This is a mockery of justice, and the height of callousness to the riot’s victims. Every political party indulging in this ploy deserves condemnation. However, the largest share of the blame must fall on the BJP, as the party governing the state and as the “first mover” of this strategy.
In a democracy, it is the elected government’s job to uphold law and order. If candidates win elections on promises of withdrawing criminal cases, even those as serious as riot crimes, what kind of rule of law can voters hope for?
Caste and community calculations have a major role to play in Kairana, which is close to Muzaffarnagar, and had hit the headlines in 2016 after its MP Hukum Singh – whose death has necessitated the by-poll – claimed 346 Hindus had to leave the area due to “intimidation by Muslims”.
Though the claim was later disproved, the BJP has milked it in all subsequent elections.
The by-election is a face-off between Mriganka Singh, Hukum Singh’s daughter, from the BJP, and Tabassum Hasan, who is a Samajwadi Party member but is fighting on a Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) ticket. To keep the BJP out, rivals the SP, the BSP, the Congress and the Nishad Party have come together to back Hasan.
Kairana has a population of 5.46 lakh Muslims and over 10 lakh Hindus, who, according to a report, are divided into 2.46 lakh Dalits, 1.52 lakh Jats, 1.23 lakh Kashyaps and 1.20 lakh Gujjars, along with other castes. Mriganka is a Gujjar. While the BSP is hoping the Dalits – increasingly disenchanted with the BJP – will back it, the RLD is a Jat party.
The BJP, thus, desperately needs to polarise all Hindu votes to neutralise the caste coalition the Opposition is going for. One such attempt, many believe, was the recent fracas over Muhamaad Ali Jinnah’s portrait at Aligarh Muslim University.
The Muzaffarnagar carnage, however, remains its most potent weapon, which it has been using to swing votes in its favour since the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Ever since the BJP government under Yogi Adityanath stormed to power in the state last year, it has been on a riots case-withdrawing spree. In March this year, The Indian Express had reported that the state had initiated the process of the withdrawal of 131 cases linked to the 2013 riots in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli, including those of murder and attempt to murder.
To prevent Hindus from rallying behind the BJP again, the Opposition is playing the same game. Both RLD chief Ajit Singh, and its candidate Tabassum’s son Nahid Hasan, the Kairana MLA from the Samajwadi Party, have said they would “facilitate dialogue” between Hindus and Muslims and ensure criminal cases related to the riots are withdrawn.
It remains to be seen which parties’ bait the voters go for. However, all the players in the by-poll have shown that an election victory to them is more important than ensuring justice to those who lost their homes, their livelihoods and even the lives of their dear ones in the bloody 2013 riots.