Let politicos face the law

The Indore MLA of the BJP and 10 of his aides or accomplices have been kept in judicial custody for the legislator’s crass act of using a cricket bat as a weapon to assault a municipal corporation official in order to stop the demolition of a building. The law must take its strictest course in this most unpleasant episode that is emblematic of the kind of power that legislators think they can wield. This was no errant VIP behaviour of the type that is common in the country when politicians simply throw their weight about. This legislator was acting on behalf of his constituents and trying to stop officials from carrying out their civic duties, which must be viewed seriously as an offence of criminal intimidation.

It is believed that the first time MLA may have gone on such rampage as his father Kailash Vijayvargiya is a general secretary of the ruling party at the Centre in charge of West Bengal and otherwise also very influential in Indore. There is another stream of thought that such incidents were routine when the ruling party in Madhya Pradesh was the BJP and officials were inured to such action by ruling party representatives. The recent change of government may have emboldened the official to register a police complaint and have the MLA arrested. It stands to reason then that the law must be seen to act in this outrageous incident of bullying officials into submission.

A disastrous consequence of such action, captured on camera and widely publicised, was that copycats were not far away. A similar incident in MP just days after Akash’s act of intimidation with the willow as the weapon of choice once again goes to show how brazenly unlawful the conduct of petty politicians can be. The only way to rein them in is to make them face the majesty of the law.