BJP protests at Meghalaya Congress headquarters over ‘abusive’ language against PM

Shillong, Sep 1 (PTI) BJP workers on Monday protested before the state Congress headquarters over the alleged abusive language used against Prime Minister Narendra Modi from a dais during the ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’ in Bihar last week.

The Meghalaya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) called the protest "manufactured outrage" and a "smokescreen" to deflect attention from electoral fraud and pressing economic issues.

A purported video showed an unidentified person using a Hindi expletive against Modi from a dais raised during the yatra in Darbhanga town, from where Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, her sister Priyanka Vadra and RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav had left for Muzaffarpur on motorcycles on August 27. PTI could not independently verify the authenticity of the video.

"We had to register our protest against the derogatory statement against the Prime Minister and her mother by a Congress worker, Mohammed Rizvi, who has been arrested by police," state BJP Yuva Morcha president Mewaker Lyngdoh told reporters her.

He added that the BJP would intensify its agitation on the issue.

"We will not limit ourselves to protests in front of the Congress office. We intend to hold demonstrations outside the Trinamool Congress (TMC) office too, since no action has been taken so far against TMC MP Mahua Moitra over her derogatory remarks against Union Home Minister Amit Shah," Lyngdoh said.

BJP leaders said the Meghalaya unit has already lodged a police complaint, seeking action against Moitra.

In a rebuttal, the MPCC dismissed the allegations as “politically motivated”.

"This is a familiar BJP tactic - when cornered by facts, it hides behind emotion," the Congress’s state unit said in a statement.

The Congress also accused the BJP of deliberately attributing false words to Rahul Gandhi to engineer outrage.

"When unable to answer for unemployment, inflation, and rigged elections, they (BJP) weaponise grief, religion and identity... This is not a grievance but a stunt designed to divert attention from the systematic theft of votes," it said.

About the over “one lakh suspicious voter roll entries” in the Mahadevapura constituency, the statement asserted that if it happened in Karnataka, it can happen anywhere, including Meghalaya.

"The media is throttled, textbooks rewritten, minorities targeted, and constitutional bodies turned into political weapons," the MPCC statement said.

"The BJP's protest in Shillong is therefore not a moral stand but a calculated diversion from its sustained assault on the Constitution and the democratic promise of India," it asserted. PTI JOP NN