Remove Khattar, hold Fresh Elections in Haryana

The following is a press release issued by Dr Prem Singh, President, Socialist Party (India), on August 27, 2017.

The Socialist Party considers the Haryana and Central governments responsible for the violent incidents that broke out on Friday (August 25) in Panchkula and Sirsa of Haryana and parts of its border States. In view of the decision of a Special CBI Court in the case of the Dera Sacha Sauda chief, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, accused of rape, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had instructed the government well in advance to ensure adequate arrangements to maintain law and order. But the Haryana Government and the Central Government did not take necessary steps to prevent potential violence on the day of the judgment.

By assembling his supporters in large numbers with arms, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh had made an audacity to pressurise the court on the day of the judgment. The RSS/BJP politics, under Modi-Shah-Bhagwat, is mainly based on the strength of superstitions and mobocracy. That is why the Haryana and Central governments have encouraged the strategy of the accused, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, for the sake of the vote-bank. Therefore, the Haryana and Central governments are directly responsible for the death of about 35 people, hundreds of people being injured and destruction of property worth millions of rupees. The Punjab and Haryana High Court too has stated this fact clearly.

The Socialist Party believes that if the superstitions and mobocracy continue to grow like this in the country, then democracy and the constitutional institutions will be destroyed. Safety and peace in civilian life will end. Therefore, the Socialist Party appeals to the citizens to rise above the party-lines and seriously consider and prevent this malignant tendency.

The Socialist Party welcomes the Special Court’s decision for giving justice to the rape-victims after a long struggle. Simultaneously, it also welcomes the statement of the Punjab and Haryana High Court: “National integration and law and order are above everything. We are a nation, not a party-nation. Politicians need to understand that the nation is one. It is the Prime Minister of India, not the BJP.”

The Socialist Party wants to make it clear that the people, Constitution, administrative system and its related responsibilities do not have any significance for the ‘pracharaks’ of the RSS. They live in a world of superstitions and ignorance of their own organisation. In the last year, the Jat-Reservation protest movement in Haryana and now the violent incidents happened after the court’s verdict. These show that the BJP had put the lives of the citizens of Haryana and citizens of Delhi, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir who pass through Haryana in danger by appointing Manohar Lal Khattar, an RSS pracharak, as the Chief Minister of Haryana. The Socialist Party demands the resignation of Khattar and imposition of President’s Rule in the State in order to hold fresh elections.