Wherever CAA goes, it does what the demon did

Chants of “goli maaro” reached the heart of Calcutta on a day Union minister Amit Shah addressed a public meeting in the city and went into a strategy huddle aimed at capturing power in Bengal that stretched close to midnight.

Footage showed groups of men, some dressed in saffron and waving BJP flags, marching towards the Shahid Minar ground, where the state unit of the party had organised the rally to felicitate Shah on the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

“Desh ke gaddaron ko, goli maaro…,” the groups chanted as they marched along J.L. Nehru Road to the rally ground.

The slogan could not have come at a more inopportune moment: northeast Delhi is yet to recover from last week’s riots that killed over 40 people. Many of the victims had suffered bullet wounds.

The outrageous slogan also brought back to the fore the proponents’ cultural disconnect with Bengal — almost the same way it was on display when a bust of Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar was vandalised during the Lok Sabha polls. Then, too, the tail-enders of a roadshow by Shah were blamed for the vandalism.

Another “coincidence”: it was in Bengal that Shah had test-fired the now-infamous statement of intent on the citizenship matrix. “Aap chronology samajh lijiye,” Shah had told a general-election rally in Bengal: “Understand the chronology, first we will bring Citizenship Amendment Bill and after that we will bring National Register of Citizens (NRC), and NRC will not only be for Bengal but for the entire country.”

Since the anti-CAA protests mounted, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and others have been playing down suggestions of a nationwide NRC.

The “goli maaro” slogan targeting anti-CAA protesters had featured at some BJP campaign rallies for the February 8 Delhi elections. The slogan has since assumed a lethal ring amid multiple incidents of attacks on protesters, including at Shaheen Bagh in Delhi, against the new citizenship matrix. Such chants have been partly blamed for the Delhi riots.

The slogan-shouting in Calcutta was particularly menacing as the city is home to a Shaheen-Bagh-like vigil at Park Circus that has been going on for over 50 days.