Clamour grows louder for Haryana CM Khattar to resign

After the Sant Rampal fiasco and the Jat agitation, which claimed several lives besides destruction of public property worth crores in Haryana, this is for the third time when a civil war like situation is prevailing in the state and the Manohar Lal Khattar government appears paralayed by populist politics as usual.

Chief Minister Khattar admitted that there had been lapses in managing the law and order situation—that left 31 dead and over 300 injured—after a court verdict against the Dera Sacha Sauda chief, Gurmeet Ram Rahim, on Friday. Giving a clean chit to the Dera rioters, Khattar in fact said, “Criminals, who had infiltrated the crowd of Dera Sacha Sauda followers, violated the law” and pledged to punish them.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court, however, today slammed CM Khattar for “protecting the Dera followers and extending political patronage”. The court also slammed Haryana Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma for giving a grant of ₹51 lakh to the Dera recently and slammed the state for “misleading” it by furnishing wrong information to it.

Notwithstanding its election promises of “good governance,” the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seems against the expulsion of Haryana CM Khattar over the ongoing turmoil. However, the clamour for his resignation is only growing louder.

In a scathing tweet, journalist Rahul Kanwal said: “BJP spokespersons keep saying Khattar is honest. Honesty cannot mask incompetence. For repeatedly proving incompetent Khattar must resign.”

Stressing that CM Khattar should be sacked and prosecuted, former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt said: “At the root of most evils, is a sweeping tide of cowardice, which masks itself as the warring virtues of patriotism, nationalism and faith.”

Senior journalist Vir Sanghvi tweeted that PM Modi might sacrifice Khattar to retain his good governance image. Another journalist and author Pritish Nandy said: “The Times Now poll shows that 85 per cent people watching today's events want Khattar to step down. He must be totally shameless to ignore this.”

Barkha Dutt also wrote on twitter that this was not a spontaneous rioting and the chaos was permitted. While hearing a PIL filed by local advocate Ravinder Dhull on security arrangements on Friday, even the Punjab and Haryana High Court bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Justice S S Saron, Justice Surya Kant and Justice Avneesh Jhingan accused the state government of “complete collusion” with Dera followers.

Former Union minister P Chidambaram in a series of tweets, took a sarcastic note, saying that Sirsa-Panchkula riots were examples of ‘administrative competence’ of the saffron party. Citing other incidents like Gorakhpur hospital deaths and Muzaffarnagar train accident, he paraphrased BJP’s election slogan, and wrote: 'maximum government, minimum governance' as new slogan of CM Khattar.

Several twitter users wondered over the irony that ‘when a rape accused is not arrested, candles are burnt but when a rape accused is convicted cities are set ablaze.’ Noting that state government allowed Ram Rahim supporters to gather to intimidate the court and influence the judgment, others blamed the Khattar government for the rioting and arson.

Remarkably, Rampal—a self-styled godman who is founder of a Satlok Ashram, a socio-spiritual movement popular in Haryana state, was arrested from his fortified Satlok Ashram near Barwala in Hisar in 2014.

In view of the hype over Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim's verdict in Haryana, a Hisar court on Thursday deferred its verdict on two criminal cases registered against him August 29.

At least six persons—five women and an infant—had lost their lives in the stand-off as Rampal eluded the police, while many of his key aides and around 450 supporters were also arrested. The sect followers fired at police, lobbed petrol bombs and acid pouches, besides hurling stones and bricks outside the ashram, clearly indicating the sect was well prepared to resist the security forces.

Similarly, the violent Jat quota agitation in February 2016 had led to the deaths of 30 people and loss of public and government property amounting to crores of rupees, paralying the state for ten days.

It forced the Haryana government to call in the Army to control the law-and-order situation in to eight districts — Rohtak, Bhiwani, Jhajjar, Sonipat, Hisar, Panipat, Jind and Kaithal. Meanwhile the Haryana government announced late today that all Dera Nam Charcha centres would be searched.