Raipur: Stung by the spurt in targeted killings of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders in Chhattisgarh, the state leadership has taken up the issue to Parliament on Monday. MP from Bilaspur and Chhattisgarh's BJP state president, Arun Sao lashed out at the Congress in the Lok Sabha over the ruthless killing of BJP leaders.
Speaking in the Lok Sabha, Sao said, "With great sorrow and grieve I would like to tell you that in the last one month four of our BJP leaders Neelkanth Kakem, BJP’s divisional head of Awapalli in Bijapur district, and Sagar Sahu, deputy chief of the BJP’s Narayanpur district unit, Ramdhan Alami, a former BJP-supported sarpanch, and Budhram Kartam have been killed in a targeted manner."
Further attacking the Congress-led government in the state Sao said, "The state government remained unsuccessful in providing security to its people. Security of our people has been withdrawn and attempts are being made to make Chhattisgarh bleed and so I demand the Central government launch a probe against the killings."
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Later in the day, Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel lashed out at the state and national BJP leaders for suggesting a “political link” to the recent murders of two party members in the State and said the Opposition party can seek a probe by central agencies if it doesn’t trust the state police.
Talking about the safety of local leaders in the Bastar region, Baghel said, "I have just instructed the DGP to take care of the security of leaders of political parties in Maoist-affected districts by holding a meeting of all political parties". I asked the DGP to instruct all the SPs to hold a meeting and inform everyone. Security is very important for us irrespective of which party they belong to."
On BJP's allegations of removing the security of their leaders, Baghel said, "Look, it is wrong, look at Kedar Kashyap ji and Gagda ji they lost the elections still they have bee provided with Z+ security. Look at Raman Singh, he never visits Maoist-affected areas and still has more security than the Chief Minister."
