Ahmedabad: With just days left for the Gujarat Assembly elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is addressing a number of rallies in the state.
Though all political parties in the fray are putting their heavyweights in the forefront in a bid to attract voters, BJP is leaving no stone unturned to return to power.
Apart from PM Modi, other important BJP leaders including Union Home Minister are addressing rallies ahead of the polls in the state. The extraordinary efforts of the saffron party to return to power in the state raise questions.
A senior journalist Punya Prasun Bajpai while analyzing the ongoing campaign in Gujarat questioned, ‘After being in government for 27 years, is defeat in the election will be a big loss for BJP, especially PM Modi and Amit Shah?’
He claimed that every ruling party tries to win the election fearing investigation over the decision taken during their tenure.
In the analyses, he quoted some of the controversial events that took place in Gujarat since 2002. He mentioned the Gujarat riots, Justice Loya’s death, the Haren Pandya murder, Sohrab Uddin Sheikh encounter case.
Justice Loya
He raised questions over the sudden death of Justice Loya who was hearing the case of the alleged extrajudicial killing of Sohrabuddin and his wife Kauser-bi by the Gujarat police in 2005.
For those who are unaware of the case, Justice Loya died of a heart attack in Nagpur where he had gone to attend a marriage.
Soon after his death, Judge M B Gosavi took over the case and later dropped all the charges against Amit Shah who was one of the accused in the case.
Haren Pandya murder
Haren Pandya was a minister of state for home in the then Narendra Modi government in Gujarat. He was shot dead on March 26, 2003, during a morning walk near Ahmedabad’s law garden area.
During the investigation, 12 accused were named in the case. Later, a court convicted them.
However, Pandya’s father, Late Vithalbhai Pandya as well as Haren Pandya’s wife, Jagrutiben Pandya, had raised serious doubts about the manner in which the investigation had been carried out by the CBI and called the murder of his son a political conspiracy.
Vithalbhai Pandya had alleged that the investigating agency had not called several witnesses who could have been instrumental in the investigation including himself as well as Haren Pandya’s wife.
Quoting all these cases, journalist Bajpai alleged that the election is crucial for the saffron party who was in rule for the past 27 years in the state.
