Bhopal: BJP legislator Kedarnath Shukla on Saturday asserted that urination case accused Pravesh Shukla’s family residence that was demolished by Sidhi district administration was not illegal.
Perhaps its for the first time that Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan’s “quick justice” system is being questioned by his own party leader in Madhya Pradesh.
Maintaining that Pravesh Shukla, who is in jail after the National Security Act (NSA) was invoked on the direction of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, was not his representative, the BJP leader blamed media trial for the bulldozer action.
While talking to IANS over phone, four-time BJP MLA Kedarnath Shukla (68) stated, “Galat ko galat kehna chahiye aur maine wahi kiya. Usko (Pravesh) uske kiye ki saja milni chahiye, lekin parwar ko saja dena theek nahi hai. Mai shuru se hi is bat ko bol raha hun. (Pravesh should definetly face the music for his misdeeds, but not his family).”
According to sources, this “fearless” attitude of Kedarnath Shukla may affect his political career as the party leadership is likely to replace him with a new candidate in the upcoming Assembly elections.
“Reasons why the party may replace Kedarnath Shukla from Sidhi are series of controversies, a bunch of corruption allegations and his advancing age,” a senior party functionary told IANS.
However, Kedarnath Shukla is not the only leader facing resentment of Brahmin community after inhuman incident of urinating on a tribal man’s face. Local people associated with political parties said that Ajay Singh (Rahul), who is the son of Ex-CM Arjun Singh, also facing resentment of both Tribal and Brahmin community because of his statement regarding the incident.
Ajay Singh, after the incident has said that the “BJP would not dare to bulldoze Pravesh Shukla’s house. Only a small portion of a building (for cows and buffalo) was razed, not the entire house.”
Sitting BJP MLA from Churhat is also facing resentment from both – the Brahmin and tribals after this incident.
Interestingly, the local politicians who watched the entire episode silently were – senior Congress leader and former minister Kamaleshwar Dwivedi, who is racing for ticket from Sidhi and BJP MP (Sidhi) Riti Pathak, who is also willing to contest the Assembly polls.
While Pravesh Shukla’s wife has moved the High Court to challenge the National Security Act (NSA) invoked against her husband, IANS has learnt that the family was also planning to file a separate petition to challenge the state administration’s order of bulldozing her house following the arrest of her husband.
Forest-rich Sidhi, which falls under Rewa division, has four Assembly seats – Sidhi Churhat, Sihawal and Dhauhani. The BJP bagged three of them, while the Congress could manage one seat in 2018 elections.
Madhya Pradesh’s coal mines hub – Singrauli was also part of Sidhi untill it was made a separate district in 2008, and as result, three assembly seats – Chitarangi, Singrauli and Devsar were shifted into Singrauli district.
Except Dhauhani seat, which is reserved for the Scheduled Tribe ( ST), rest of three assembly seats are dominated by upper castes – Brahmin and Kshatriya (Thakur). In Sidhi and Churhat assembly each have more than 55,000 Brahmin voters.
(IANS)
