It is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday on 17th September. Congress has decided to ‘celebrate’ this day as ‘Bad Omen Day‘. A day when millions of others are born will be vilified because their political opponent was born in this day. That is how tone-deaf Congress is.
But it should not really comes across as a surprise either.
Narendra Modi swore in as the chief minister of Gujarat for the first time on 7th October 2001. He replaced Keshubhai Patel who was facing allegations of corruption and poor administration. He won Rajkot-II bypolls on 24th February 2002 and became the first time Member of Legislative Assembly. Three days later, on 27th February 2002, a mob set a train returning from Ayodhya on fire in Godhra, Gujarat.
Almost 60 people, including women and children, returning from Ayodhya after doing the karseva at the Ram Mandir at Ram Janmabhoomi, were burnt alive in the train. It was one of the worst internal terror attacks in recent times.
A day later, on 28th February, 2002, widespread communal riots broke out in Gujarat. By 1st March, 2002, the very next day (February has 28 days) the Army was called in to bring the situation under control.
Narendra Modi as Gujarat Chief Minister wrote to three neighbouring states administration asking for additional forces.
On 1st March, 2002, K Nityanandam, Secretary to Government of Gujarat, Home Department wrote to Chief Secretary of Rajasthan State government requesting 10 companies of Armed Police force. The Gujarat state government mentioned how the Indian Army and paramilitary personnel are stationed at the India-Pakistan border in view of the recent December 2001 Parliament attack, and hence they were not in a position to spare additional forces. The state police department risked getting outnumbered.
Rajasthan was back then ruled by Congress-led government with Ashok Gehlot as Chief Minister.
On Same day, Gujarat government wrote to Maharashtra state administration as well asking for 10 companies of armed police to help Gujarat police.
Maharashtra, too, was ruled by Congress government with Vilasrao Deshmukh as the chief minister.
Here is the same letter written to Madhya Pradesh state government. This, too, was written on 1st March, 2002 when things were getting escalated.
Madhya Pradesh, at that time, was also ruled by Congress with senior leader Digvijaya Singh as the Chief Minister.
Here is what Madhya Pradesh government said:
In a letter dated 13th March, 2002, Madhya Pradesh Secretary R C Arora refused to send troops to Gujarat citing ‘heavy commitments’. Madhya Pradesh did not spare any troops to the neighbouring state. By 13th March, 2002, it was quite evident that things in Gujarat had snowballed and while the law and order situation by then was largely under control, everyone knew people had died. And more could die.
Here Narendra Modi is reiterating the same thing that was documented in the SIT report on Gujarat riots.
But, the three neighbouring states of Gujarat, part of Union of India, refused to help. They let Gujaratis die. They let Indians die. That Ashok Gehlot, Digvijaya Singh and Vilasrao Deshmukh of Congress in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra sat and watched as my state burned.
Gujaratis, Indians had to die, lives were lost because Narendra Modi had to be stopped.