M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, March 10: Panki BJP MLA Dr Shashi Bhushan Mehta on Friday asked for a CBI inquiry into the Panki riot while Chatra BJP MP Sunil Kumar Singh asked the police to act fairly and neutrally without any bias or inclination against anybody.
The Panki communal fracas saw the emergence of a new hardliner in local BJP MLA Dr Shashibhushan Mehta. Political analysts say the soft-speaking Shashi Bhushan Mehta has made an overnight alter wherein he openly and vigorously plays the Hindutva card.
The political need is the 2024 twin elections in Jharkhand, one the general election and the other the Vidhan sabha election. Mehta takes on his political opponents head-on with an overdose of religiosity.
At the Holi Milan Samaroh, Mehta said that he would not touch the feet of any Tom, Dick or Harry. If the man is neither a senior citizen nor a man of merit, this is taken to be a veiled attack on a senior party functionary who came from the Brahminical clan at Satbarwa.
At another public event in the Nilamber-Pitamberpur block, he was reported to have stated that he is first a Hindu and then anything else. Meanwhile, he received loud applause from the youths, but the elders see it as his political strain.
However, his political supporters, in a private conversation with this correspondent, said that Mehta’s change in tone, tune and text will boomerang upon him politically as he lacks public support from the district’s BJP unit.
He participates in the BJP district unit programmes but looks like a political alien in those programmes, said a senior BJP leader.
During the Panki riot on February 15, Shashi Bhushan Mehta told the correspondent that there is a community that are interfering with the celebrations of the majority community which will not be tolerated any more. He appeared to be socially judgemental rather than politically observant of the Panki riot.
Mehta and his party BJP MP Chatra Sunil Kumar Singh`s stance on the Panki riot were diametrically opposite. The two saw this episode in different ways. Mehta was almost a lone campaigner to lift the prohibitory order under Section 144 of the CrPC.
BJP MP Sunil Kumar Singh had told this correspondent that this Panki riot was not well handled by the police right from the beginning as a result the situation became worse.
Singh had further said that if the local police had taken adequate measures on the night of February 14, the Panki would not have been burning.
On the other hand, BJP MLA Mehta did not find any mistake in the actions of the police and lauded the police for handling the situation. No wonder, he blamed one community. He raised the Panki issue very strongly in the House, even calling for an investigation into the dealings of the place to worship of one particular community.
But he was unable to convince people how well the police handled the situation at Panki and why he ought to be going around telling people that the police did a good job.
However, the same MLA who initially praised the police was vocal when the arrest began at Panki, calling the arrests of students and minors, the high-handedness of the police.
However, BJP MP Sunil Kumar Singh and BJP MLA Dr Shashi Bhushan Mehta were both present on February 18, the Maha Shivratri day at Panki but many found the two ‘away and disconnected from each other’.
