Haryana Assembly poll loss may hurt BJP deeply
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BJP may dread dismantling of Shambhu Border blockade for protestors
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, October 4: Ladakh activist Sonam Wangchuk made a successful visit to Raj Ghat to pay obeisance to Mahatma Gandhi. He along with about 100 other activists had been detained at Delhi border.
Wangchuk in a span of two days was able to pay his tributes to Mahatma Gandhi and also submit a memorandum to the government. He and his associates want a special category status to the state of Ladakh.
Three-day action-packed activities of Wangchuk and his associates assert significance of reaching the border of Delhi. Agitation in the national capital is prohibited per arrangements of the Central government.
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Singhu Border separates Delhi with Haryana. Wangchuk was able to travel to the Singhu Border in a bus. The Delhi Police had detained him and his associates at the border.
Farmers are holding out at the Shambhu Border, between Haryana and Punjab, for more than a year. The agitating farmers will prefer to camp in the national capital. But former Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar made elaborate arrangements with nails protruding from roads to stop the Punjab farmers to cross the Shambhu Border.
A Congress victory in Haryana may lead to the first police action to dismantle the arrangements to stop the farmers at the Shambhu Border. The Congress government in Haryana may also green-flag the Punjab famers to speed to the Singhu Border with Delhi.
Agitating farmers at Shambhu Border is no news for the national media. But the same event may become a news hard to ignore if the action shifts to the Singhu Border.
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Prospects of change in the government in Haryana have brightened after lacklustre campaign of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The likely change in the political wind may also be sniffed with the return of Ashok Tanwar to the Congress fold.
Tanwar was the president of the Youth Congress when leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi helmed the unit. His political career could not take off. Tanwar joined the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
Tanwar is a Dalit youth leader, and also a former MP of the Lok Sabha. He quit the BJP on the last day of the campaigning for the Assembly elections in Haryana.
Haryana-based political observers claimed that the Congress just needed to work the wind of change in the party favour. The twin poll pivots – farmers’ agitation at the Shambhu Border and Agniveer Scheme (contractual employment in the Indian Army) – emerged as BJP’s monsters on the campaign trail.
If the protective shield of Haryana goes away, the Delhi border in one side may become a venue for protestors to camp. Such a scenario may possibly become irritant for the BJP-led government at the Centre.
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