Incident invokes pointed poser from AAP’s Anjali Damania to Nitin Gadkari: “Why are you in boxing bouts instead of battle of ballots?” in reference to the incident.
Nagpur News: The political battle between Nitin Gadkari and Anjali Damania, the BJP, AAP candidates for Nagpur Lok Sabha constituency respectively has turned into a war of bitter words.
Anjali Damania has posed a pointed poser to Gadkari: “Why are you in boxing bouts instead of battle of ballots?” in reference to some incidents wherein the BJP activists allegedly resorted to violence that ultimately reached the police station.
On the other hand, Gadkari, while addressing a press conference recently, had asked a question to Anjali Damani: “Why are you indulging in spreading a lie and leveling accusations without having any proof?” in reference to corruption charges leveled by Damania against Gadkari.
In a development on Thursday (April 3), a petty political issue snowballed into a major controversy and triggered exchange of hot words and pushing, heckling between some AAP and BJP activists.
According to reports and police, an AAP activist Bharat Puroshattam Mehta, 42, a resident of Bhande Layout, owns a fruit stall in the same area. Mehta, in order to to campaign for his party, has put up a banner of AAP near his shop and even stocked AAP caps for sell. At around 1.30 pm, Geeta Padmakar Joshi who is Vice President of Akhil Bharatiya Mahila Manch, a wing of BJP, and her friend was standing near Mehta’s shop. Mehta offered her pamphlet of AAP to which Joshi reacted and told him that she is BJP activist and refused to take the pamphlet. However, Mehta insisted her and when she didn’t accept the pamphlet, he started abusing BJP activists and leaders. This sudden outburst of Mehta against BJP left Geeta Joshi red-faced she raised a big hue and cry. She also reported the matter to other BJP activists. Meanwhile Mehta too reported the matter to AAP leaders.
The AAP leaders Nandgaonkar, Pratyul Sharma, Yashwant Dubey and one other person rushed to the spot along with some policemen and brought Geeta Joshi to the police station. The BJP activists Raju Hadap, Navendra Shukla, Prakash Bhoyar, Ashish Pathak, Nitin Telgote and Panju Totwani too reached the police station to support Geeta.
Soon other AAP and BJP leaders and activists too reached Sonegaon Police turning it a battle zone and wordy war broke out with accusations flying back and forth against each other. The Police-Inspector In-charge of Sonegaon Police Station Shah who was on Airport duty to receive Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan was informed on mobile that 100-odd people have gathered at Sonegaon Police Station and the situation is tense. He called additional staff and reached the police station himself. He first of all removed the activists of both the parties from the police station and started talking with representative leaders of both rivals.
At the police station, the AAP activists were trying to record every proceeding on mobile cameras. Some were even taking photographs. The BJP activists were angered by this and in this melee even a photographer’s camera was snatched from his hand. However, after immediate intervention by some BJP activists, the cameraman was left alone.
The police have registered a Non-Cognizable Offence under Section 504 of IPC and issued notices under Section 149 of CrPC.
However, the tension continued to run for around 2 hours. Cops had a tough time controlling both parties. A complaint was filed by Geeta Joshi, 48, a resident of Pannase Layout against Bharat Puroshattam Mehta. Mehta too filed a counter complaint.
