MUMBAI (VSK). While Maharashtra government has arrested a self-styled North Indian leader Vinay Dube from Navi Mumbai and an ABP Majha reporter Rahul Kulkarni in connection with the Chaos at Bandra railway station on Tuesday (April 14) evening, questions are being asked whether the state government is trying save its skin and using the arrest of the journalist as a cover up.
The Bandra Chaos is being seen as a part of a larger conspiracy by many. On Wednesday the social media was abuzz with numerous speculations and several bits and pieces of information regarding the chaotic situation at the Bandra Railway station.
A facebook post said, “Known Modi, BJP and Sangh basher ABP news channel airs a false news about Bihar bound trains to be started soon. Within hours mobs gather at a mosque near Bandra railway station and even chant slogans of Allahu Akbar. Police then get in action to disperse the mob, CM Uddhav Thackeray goes live on facebook and repeats his daily appeal of need to fight COVID 19 unitedly and at the same time his son Aditya Thackeray tries to blame the Union Government for the fiasco. These are not independent incidents. It is a chain and the script writers of this chain cleverly exploited the fear in the minds of migrant labours surviving the lockdown in Mumbai”. Another post suggested that this might be the handy work of the network of urban naxals. The fact that Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha had to surrender after SC orders on Tuesday in the Elgaar Parishad case is being linked to the chaos at Bandra.
Navi Mumbai police initially detained Vinay Dube and he was put under arrest on Wednesday. He had spread misinformation in a 8-minute long Facebook live and appealed to migrant labourers to come in large numbers to Lokmanya Tilak Terminus railway station to protest against lack of food arrangements. Dube stays at Airoli in Navi Mumbai. He had been active in politics for a long time and is known as a staunch BJP opponent in his area. He had been flirting with the Congress on and off and had even contested election against Narendra Modi from Banaras in 2014. He had also contested 2019 Maharashtra assembly election from Airoli constituency against BJP candidate Ganesh Naik, a former heavyweight NCP leader. Though he was supported by NCP leaders against Naik, Dube had sided with Raj Thackeray and had organized a program where the MNS founder had addressed North Indians last year. The MNS, however was quick to distance itself from Dube when his name popped up in the controversy on Tuesday.
The political career of Dube shows that he doesn’t have any standing of his own and hence, his involvement is being interpreted as the “political hand” in the whole episode. There has been a fierce infighting within the Mumbai Congress and a section within the Congress feels that Dube might have had received backing from disgruntled Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam, who had been projected as the leader of North Indians in Mumbai by the city Congress but was side-tracked after he was removed from the post of Mumbai Regional Congress President just ahead of Lok Sabha elections last year.
A few others, also feel that the NCP leaders, with whom Dube had developed closeness after his unsuccessful contest against Naik, might have been behind instigating him. Especially since the NCP leaders had been backing Elgaar Parishad accused in Bhima-Koregaon case and wanted to prove their nuisance value on the day when tow top urban naxals had to surrender before the police due to pressure from the Supreme Court.
Internal dynamics between the three-party ShivSena-NCP-Congress government in Maharashtra too might be behind the chaos. Especially on the backdrop of near complete failure of the Uddhav Thackeray government in containing the COVID19 spread and maintaining law and order situation, the allies are building up pressure on the Shiv Sena leadership so that it remains submissive to their unending demands.
It is being said that Dube had met Maharashtra Home Minister and NCP leader Anil Deshmukh recently. The North Indian labourers were expecting the lockdown to be lifted and they will get an opportunity to get back to their villages. That is the reason why Dube’s appeal might have received a heavy traction, Deshmukh said after the Bandra chaos. However, rather than answering any questions, Deshmukh’s remarks have led to more questions. Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray had already declared extension of lockdown till April 30 and hence it is unlikely that people would believe that they will get a chance to go home even while the CM had extended lockdown.
Secondly, if the crowd was eager to go home, how come none of them carried any travel baggage? Also there were allegations that most of the people gathered at Bandra were Muslims and they chanted slogans outside a mosque and also shouted slogans against PM Modi.
ABP Majha, the Marathi channel of the ABP group, ran the story announcing special train for Bihar, after PM Modi’s address to the nation in the morning. Rahul Kulkarni, the reporter from Osmanabad in Marathwada who broke the story, has presented an internal communication of the South-Central Zone of the Railways to defend himself. However, the note doesn’t claim that a decision has been made to run trains to send the migrant labourers back to their respective villages. The reporter has clearly overstepped his limits in reading between the lines while interpreting the letter. Also, the claims he made while narrating the story where superfluous and completely unfounded. No other source but the letter has been cited by the reporter. Yet the ABP group supported the reporter and its decision to air the news.
The arrest of the reporter stirred the atmosphere on Wednesday. While the reporter has been booked under several sections of IPC including the special PC sections 117 (abetting commission of offence), 153 (A) (promoting enmity), 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant), 269 (negligent act), 270 (malignant act), 505 (B) (intent to cause fear or alarm to the public), it appears that the state government is trying to hide its inertia and lack of will to act to check the spread of the virus behind the action against the reporter.
What were the police doing till the crowds gathered in thousands outside the railway station? How come so many people escaped the lockdown? Are being asked. They point at the state government’s failure in handling the situation. Earlier also, the state government’s inaction was exposed by Tablighis some of whom have sill not been traced by the state government. The chaos at Bandra is also being dubbed as the Mumbai version of the Markaz in Delhi. But, instead of properly addressing such concerns, the state government appears to be conveniently hiding behind the action taken against the TV reporter.
