GENESIS OF SAMBHAL VIOLENCE TRACED TO YOGI ADITYANATH’S DIVISIVE SLOGAN

‘Batenge Toh Katenge’ could have led to the Sambhal violence that claimed four lives. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 23 spoke of how ‘Ek Hain Toh Safe Hain’ had become the ‘Mahamantra’ of our times. It took Nationalist Congress Party heavyweight Sharad Pawar to put matters into perspective.

Pawar said Sunday, the day after Modi waxed eloquent at the BJP headquarters, that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s “divisive slogan” and Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s ‘Ladki Behan Yojana’ decimated the Maha Vikas Aghadi. The same day Sambhal broke out in violence.

The confrontation of police and private citizen went viral on TV screens nationwide. It turned out many of the private citizens owned or worked in brick kilns. Getting hold of broken bricks wasn’t too big a problem,  which should explain the huge number of broken bricks rained on the police.

Reinforcements had to be called in from neighbouring Moradabad. Was the violence really because the locals were pissed off that a “second survey” was underway at Sambhal’s Shahi Jama Masjid? That would be the natural assumption if one did not know what had happened in one of the nine UP bypolls constituencies!

The Sambhal violence could have had its genesis in the Kundarki assembly election, the result for which was out on November 23. It was an upset that people wouldn’t have believed if over half the Muslim population of Kundarki assembly constituency had not already known of what was in store and the BJP candidate Ramveer Thakur hadn’t been in cahoots with this section of Kundarki’s Muslims!

The BJP plot to defeat the Samajwadi Party candidate, using part of his Muslim vote-bank, could have been the sources of the Sambhal violence. Sambhal, and not Kundarki, was chosen as the venue for the fracas because the perpetrators knew of the Sunday morning survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid, a good enough excuse to go berserk! It was the classic ‘one stone, two birds!’

A big chunk of the Samajwadi Party’s Muslim vote-bank engineered the defeat of Haji Rizwan, the Samajwadi Party candidate from Kundarki. In the process, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath scored over
Samajwadi Party Supremo Akhilesh Yadav who had tied himself in knots trying to get a  handle on the Yogi’s ‘Batenge Toh Katenge’ clarion call to Hindus!

The travesty was that ‘Batenge Toh Katenge’ struck the Samajwadi Party when its Muslim vote-bank divided and fell. One big block of the Muslim vote-bank voted for Ramveer Thakur. The smaller chunk of Muslim voters couldn’t save the day for the Samajwadi Party candidate Haji Rizwan.

There is a background story to why the Muslim vote-bank split into two, something that has rarely happened? The answer is embedded in “Ek Hain Toh Safe Hain.” The Muslims of Kundarki were always united, election after election, and Ramveer Thakur could never break this rock-solid unity.

Thakur lost election after election even after doing a Modi with “Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas’. Rain or shine, Thakur was always there to help the Kundarki Muslim, but voting for him was out of the question. This time, the turtle turned. The Muslims fell victim to ‘Batenge Toh Katenge”.

They divided along “caste/sect lines” – ‘Muslim Turkis’ and ‘Muslim Sheikhs’. The fallout between the Muslim Turkis and Muslim Sheikhs in the Muslim dominated Kundarki assembly segment, a stronghold of the Samajwadi Party, helped the BJP win Kundarki.

The ‘Turki Muslims, who voted for the Samajwadi Party’, lost and the ‘Muslim Sheikhs’, who voted for the BJP, won. Sambhal MP Zia-ur-rahman Barq is a Turki Muslim! Connect the dots and it will lead to Sambhal. Was the violence premeditated? The fact that a second survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid was slotted for
Sunday morning was in the knowledge of key people including Barq and the Shahi Jama Masjid management.

The story being told is that the Turki Muslims were spoiling for a fight with the Muslim Sheikhs after the Kundarki loss. And the junction of the Shahi Jama Masjid and sanity was perfect for pay-perview! The BJP attributed its Kundarki victory to the largesse of Muslim Sheikhs. Samajwadi Party candidate Haji Rizwan was trounced by over 1 lakh votes. It was not just the “BJP’s outreach to Muslim Sheikhs”, but also the
arrogance of the Turki Muslims. The Barq family holds hegemony in Kundarki and Haji Rizwan was his “puppet”, who allegedly never honoured election promises made to his constituency even as Ramveer Thakur went on all fours to do the Muslim Sheikhs’ bidding “for free”.

The Muslim Sheikhs are now saying they will vote for the BJP even in 2027 if Ramveer Thakur continues to be the Good Samaritan he has always been. Ousted Samajwadi Party MLA Haji Rizwan and sitting Samajwadi Party MP Zia-ur- Rahman Barq are counting their losses knowing that it is too late now to cut the losses. Two women were arrested in Sambhal for raining bricks on the police from the rooftops of their homes. One of them was “home alone with her minor son” when police arrived and hauled her to the police
station. Her husband told the media he was at his brick kiln when this happened.

Pictures showed the house in shambles and ransacked, glass shards on the floor, two “wounded” LCD TVs mounted on walls on the first and the second floors hung precariously from their perches. Who did the damage, the husband said could be anyone. The Muslim Sheikhs and the Muslim Turki are distinguished from their headgear. The Muslim Turki wear varied colour high fur-caps, like Zia-ur-Rahman, while the Muslim Sheikhs sport ‘perforated white skull caps’ and “Arabic scarfs.”

The Samajwadi Party refused to learn from Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s “Batenge toh katenge” warning and went bust! Haji Rizwan was completely sunk in the Ramveer Thakur tidal wave! Thakur defeated 11 Muslim candidates, and NOTA. Muslims account for 65% of Kundarki constituency’s electorate. It was a
big setback for the Samajwadi Party.

The BJP’s victory is being attributed to “EVM tampering” by the Samajwadi Party. Others are talking of Ramveer Thakur’s decades-old outreach to Muslim Sheikhs. This time the polarisation wasn’t along Hindu-Muslim lines — the divide was between the Turki and Sheikhs sects of the Muslims. When Ramveer Thakur
went visiting Muslim Sheikhs, he wore their prayer cap and Arabic scarf!