Hemant Soren opens path for Amit Shah in Parliament?

Lathi charge on students in Jharkhand gives Amit Shah a reason to address Parliament.

Rahul Gandhi has been questioning Home Minister Amit Shah's absence from Parliament for several days.

On July 20, during the Parliament march, the use of lathi charge and pellet guns on students has been made a national issue by him, and he is asking who authorised it. Since the 20th, neither Prime Minister Narendra Modi nor Home Minister Amit Shah has been seen in Parliament, and Kiren Rijiju has been handling the government's response.

Today, in Jharkhand, the use of water cannons, tear gas shells, and lathi charge on students raises the question of whether it has paved the way for Amit Shah to come to Parliament. Now he can say in Parliament that your government is in Jharkhand, and the same happened there with students. However, Rahul Gandhi immediately

tweeted criticizing the lathi charge in Ranchi, but it is not difficult for the majority in Parliament to suppress that tweet. The government has so far faced questions in Parliament relying on true and false incidents from the times of Pandit Nehru to Rajiv Gandhi and Manmohan Singh. The incident in Jharkhand has given it significant support.

The movement in Jharkhand had been peaceful so far, and the government did not show the same strictness as at Jantar Mantar. There was no restriction on coming and going to the protest site. Police presence was minimal, and no court cases were filed against the protesters. A government delegation was talking to the students, and consensus was reached on several issues. In such a situation, today's attempt to enter the assembly, stone-pelting, and attempts at violence point elsewhere.

There were several reports about anti-social elements. Many journalists reported that a large number of youths were called from outside, and the movement was being politicized.

A faction of the protesters themselves alleged that outsiders and anti-social elements were infiltrating the movement and spoiling the atmosphere.

The question arises whether the assembly march could have been avoided when talks with the government's delegation were ongoing. It is clear that no government will allow a crowd to enter the assembly; today, too, there was no restriction on coming to the assembly, but when attempts were made to enter, the police used force.

Questions also arise on how Hemant Soren handled this issue.

The issues on which the movement started were serious. Students presented serious evidence of irregularities in the Jharkhand Public Service Commission examinations. It is true that no strictness was shown, but the government lost almost one and a half to two weeks initially by not starting talks. The official Twitter handle of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and government supporters kept calling it a BJP conspiracy. Soren would not have expected support from the BJP, which is the opposition there, and even if it was a conspiracy, it could have been resolved by talking to the students.

If Hemant Soren had gone to the protest site with some of his ministers in the initial phase, tried to end the hunger strike, and started the dialogue process, it would have created an image that the government is sympathetic towards the students. However, several days of inactivity gave the protesters and opponents the opportunity to say that the government is insensitive towards the protesters, and by the time delegations were chosen for talks, it was already too late.

After the Jantar Mantar protest, the Bharatiya Janata Party, which was on the backfoot, naturally made it a continuous issue and it is very possible that they also helped the protesters. In a democracy, it is not surprising for the opposition to take advantage of such movements. If the ruling party is truly serious about the protesters, it should have gone there to talk and stopped the spark from igniting, as Chief Minister D K Shivakumar and Home Minister Priyank Kharge did in Karnataka. Hemant missed this, resulting in today's incident.

After this incident, the way J P Nadda challenged Congress and Rahul Gandhi to come to Parliament and listen to Amit Shah's response, it seems that the incident in Jharkhand has paved the way for Amit Shah to come to Parliament.