Heckling of chief ministers a 'well-planned conspiracy', says Congress
New Delhi: Congress on Thursday claimed there was an "orchestrated" and "well-planned conspiracy" behind the heckling of opposition chief ministers as it justified Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan's decision not to attend events with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Nagpur.
Targeting the Prime Minister over the issue, AICC general secretary Ambika Soni said that no one has the right to "humiliate" duly elected chief ministers by "inciting" supporters and said that Modi should immediately ask his partymen to desist from such acts.
"This is a well-thought out plan, a conspiracy... If the prime minister was serious, he should have sent a directive to his partymen immediately to stop doing all this," Soni said.
But she remained non-committal on whether the party high command has issued any direction to its chief ministers to avoid Modi's functions saying, "no such direction is required to be given" as both Chavan and Haryana Chief Minister
Bhupinder Singh Hooda are experienced leaders. At the same time, Soni stressed that "the entire Congress party is of the opinion that we will not tolerate any such insult. Whatever they (the chief ministers) have done is right. We are fully behind them".
She said it was not a big thing for Congress to push 500 supporters to "humiliate" Modi at such meetings, but that would affect the dignity of the post.
Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari alleged that BJP cadres are "deployed to humiliate" public representatives belonging to Congress in an "orchestrated" manner.
He said that if somebody is to be blamed for the situation, then it is BJP.
"It was up to the prime minister to ensure, since he was present on the dais, that such untoward incidents do not take place. After all, if the prime minister of India is incapable of maintaining the dignity of a chief minister, then who else is going to maintain it," he said.
The reactions from Congress came on a day when Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren of JMM was heckled by crowds in the presence of Prime Minister Modi at a function in Ranchi following similar scenes faced in recent days by the Congress chief ministers of Maharashtra and Haryana.
In Ranchi, the audience, which included BJP activists, took up a chant of 'Modi, Modi' as soon as Soren, who runs a coalition government with Congress and RJD, took the microphone.
On Tuesday, Hooda was left red-faced when a hostile crowd booed him in the prime minister's presence at the foundation-stone laying function for a highway project.
On August 16, Maharashtra Chief Minister Chavan had to discontinue his speech midway at Solapur after he was heckled by the crowd which began chanting Modi's name at an event. While a fuming Hooda announced he would not attend any function with Modi, Chavan skipped the prime minister's programme in Nagpur today.
Soni said there is a "pattern" behind these incidents as all these states, where such incidents have happened, are those facing elections.
"In Jammu and Kashmir, Modi inaugurated a number of projects implemented by UPA. He visited Haryana, Jharkhand and Maharashtra. All these are election-going states and, in most of them, BJP has a direct fight with Congress. You see a pattern.
She added that nobody can be allowed to "humiliate" chief ministers at public platforms and refused to accept BJP's argument that Congress needs to introspect on why the common man was unhappy with the state leadership.
Immediately after the Hooda incident, a senior AICC functionary had apprised Congress President Sonia Gandhi in writing about his view that, as far as possible, Congress chief ministers should follow only the minimum protocol for any visit by Prime Minister Modi and not rush to attend his functions as such incidents can be "engineered" by BJP for political gains in poll-bound states.
Soni said it was a "very ill-advised and lopsided advice given by the BJP apparatus" for using government platforms to "humiliate" opposition chief ministers.
"It is not very difficult to mobilise 500 people even to humiliate the prime minister, but that is not done," she said.
Responding to BJP's view that Congress chief ministers should not breach constitutional propriety by skipping functions with the prime minister, Soni said, "That should be thought out by the prime minister.
"If (BJP) wants the conventions which have continued for more than six decades to continue, he (Modi) should publicly issue a directive for his party workers asking them to desist from such acts."
