Call it the overzealous efforts of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) activists or the emphatic appeal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to create a Congress-mukt (free) Bharat that several houses in Bhopal were painted with slogans declaring the house to be a “BJP House”.
The houses of staunch Congressmen were painted as “BJP House”. During its campaign to enroll new voters as members of the BJP, the ruling party had launched a fortnight-long drive in the seven assembly segments of Bhopal.
The BJP workers reached the houses, where young people were getting voting rights after attaining the age of 18 years. The workers were given the task of writing graffiti on the walls of such houses. The graffiti, in a way, was proof of their visiting the house and convincing new voters about BJP. They also enrolled new members.
The whole exercise became controversial when the graffiti was made on the houses of hardcore Congress workers. Even the office bearers of Congress party were shown as members of BJP. When such people reported the matter to the local administration, they were asked to ignore it.
Vice president of the district Congress committee, Pyare Khan, said, “They painted the graffiti on the walls of my house when I was away. My family tried to stop them, but they did not listen.”
Similarly, the house of district Congress Ggeneral Secretary Ashok Sharma too faced this when he was away. Sharma said “This is the height of dictatorship. They are just doing whatever they want.”
Pyare Khan was disturbed with the slogan writing because he got a fresh coat of white-wash on his house recently. District Congress President P.C. Sharma said that he will soon register a case against BJP for defacing the private property and forcibly making people its members when they do not want to become one.
Ramkrishna Singh, a resident of Shahpura locality, said, “Some BJP workers came and forcibly wrote these slogans. They think that we will give vote because they have written on our walls. They are wrong.”
Other residents too echoed similar sentiments, but did not come on record to oppose the graffiti. “We want development, we are fed up of these gimmicks,” a woman said.
BJP however is defiant. Spokesperson of BJP, Rajneesh Agarwal, said “This whole thing looks to be mischievous. Our party was definitely conducting 'house contact' campaign in these villages, but our activists will never do such a thing. It may be the handiwork of a section of the Congress party that may have wanted to defame its office bearers.”
“It is absolutely false that our workers have threatened people. We never indulge in such activities,” Agarwal added.
Congress spokesperson Pankaj Chaturvedi said, “This is an example of a fake membership drive of the BJP. This is how they claim that they have three crore members in Madhya Pradesh.” He said it is shameful that houses of ordinary people are defaced and branded a BJP house.
