The BJP has given a ticket to Manoj Pradhan. Manoj Pradhan is currently in jail, charged with inciting communal violence and rioting. He is the prime accused in the Kandhamal riots against Christians in Orissa. The BJP, of course, blames the Congress for 'arresting an innocent man on false charges.' So, yes, a man involved in more than a dozen cases of murder and arson, is contesting the elections for the Udayagiri Assembly seat in Orissa. And he is reasonably sure of winning the seat too.In the last Assembly election, Pradhan fought as an Independent candidate and got over 15,000 votes. The winning candidate got over 34,000 votes. This time Pradhan hopes that with the Kandhamal issue in the background and the support of the BJP he would win the election comfortably even while remaining behind bars.
And meanwhile, cries of 'Sanjay Dutt Zindabad' and 'Long Live Munnabhai' can be heard in Uttar Pradesh. Sanjay Dutt was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison with charges connected to terrorism and the Mumbai Bomb Blasts of 1993. Because the Indian law bars anyone who has been sentenced for more than two years in prison, from contesting elections, Sanjay Dutt could not get a ticket. So he is in Lucknow, standing next to candidate Nafisa Ali and Samajwadi Party politician Amar Singh, campaigning for Nafisa Ali.
"It would have been our good fortune if Sanjay Dutt had been our candidate," Samajwadi Party activist Syed Mohammad Imran says. "It's a conspiracy that he has been barred from contesting elections. But now, Nafisa Ali is the candidate here, she is Sanjay Dutt's candidate. We have to put all our might behind her to ensure her victory," he says.
People of the state seem to have forgotten that Sanjay Dutt is a man who was convicted with charges related to bomb blasts and terror attacks against his own country. He was convicted with connections to Bomb Blasts and Riots that burned and killed the very city which created the fictional, film character of Munnabhai.
They say Dutt is the son of a Hindu father and and a Muslim mother, and this will push the cause of secularism. They leave out that he was involved with Muslim terrorists attacking the very city his parents loved. And that those bomb blasts did not push the cause of secularism, but led to severe, bloody riots killing thousands of people.
But he stands in front of a large crowd shouting slogans praising him and Munnabhai, transposing a man convicted on charges related to terrorism, and a fictional character from a Bollywood film, while saying:
"I entered politics to warn the people so that they didn't go through what I have had to go through in my life. My father was an MP for 18 years, but I was arrested and held under Tada [India's strict anti-terrorism law]. I was beaten up by the police. Now if that can happen to me, can it not happen to you?"
And the public cheers. While, somewhere, the ghost of his father, Sunil Dutt, weeps.
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