Hindustan Times
BJP mulls Modi rally in Muzaffarnagar
HT Correspondent, Hindustan Times Lucknow, September 10, 2013
First Published: 11:16 IST(10/9/2013) | Last Updated: 11:30 IST(10/9/2013)
Despite four of its legislators, including its party leader in UP assembly Hukum Singh, being booked for allegedly fanning communal violence in Muzaffarnagar, the Bharatiya Janata Party strategists aren’t really feeling down.
In fact, the saffron think tank is planning to get its current poster boy Narendra Modi to address a rally in riot hit Muzaffarnagar district, where BJP fared badly in the 2012 polls.
BJP legislator from Sardhana constituency of Meerut Sangeet Som -- on the run for allegedly circulating a fake video that the UP police claim fuelled Muzaffarnagar’s communal flare-up -- told HT on phone that he, after securing bail, would sit down with party leaders to discuss probabilities of a Modi rally there.
Also, its youngest general secretary Varun Gandhi along with party patriarch LK Advani is set to address a Swabhiman rally in Agra on September 15.
Modi’s key aide Amit Shah, who was in Meerut recently, has already exhorted the party cadres to take on the state government and assured them that the BJP would extend legal cover to Hindutva forces against state government’s clampdown. Hukum Singh also appears to be in a combative mood.
“It’s nothing unusual for this government to go after us because we are in the BJP. But I dare this government to prove its charge against me. I am not going anywhere. Let this government arrest me,” he told HT.
Hukum Singh -- a seven-time MLA from Kairana constituency in Shamli district that was created in 2011 by the BSP government – is expected to contest the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls from one of the three Lok Sabha constituencies in or around Muzaffarnagar.
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