At Delhi election rally, Anurag Thakur leads chants of 'shoot the traitors'

A video purportedly showing Union Minister Anurag Thakur leading the crowd at a BJP rally in New Delhi to chant "shoot the traitors" has surfaced on social media Monday.

The video, reportedly shot at an election rally in the national capital, shows the Minister of State for Finance egging the crowd to chant 'Desh ke gaddaro ko, goli maaro saalo ko (shoot the traitors of the nation)' — a slogan frequently used against anti-CAA protesters.

The slogan has earlier been raised in rallies in favour of the Citizenship Amendment Act including by BJP leaders. Last month, BJP candidate from Model Town Kapil Mishra raised the slogan during a 'tiranga march' in support of the Act in Delhi's Connaught Place.

The Delhi BJP had then distanced itself from the controversy and said they had nothing to do with Mishra's march. Mishra was later given a BJP ticket to contest in the Assembly elections.

The slogan was also raised at a pro-CAA rally in Nagpur addressed by Union Minister Nitin Gadkari in December and during violence at the Jawaharlal Nehru campus. Masked men entered the premises of the central university and unleashed violence for close to three hours, chanting slogans — "Desh ke gaddaro ko, goli maaro saalo ko", "Naxalwad murdabad' and "Na Maowad, Na Naxalwan, Sabse Upar Rashtrawad".

With Shaheen Bagh emerging as the centre of anti-CAA protests in Delhi, Home Minister Amit Shah has repeatedly raked up the indefinite protest site in his campaign speeches, urging voters to choose the lotus symbol on voting day, so that protesters have to leave the place by the evening of February 11.

Last week, BJP candidate Kapil Mishra, who called Shaheen Bagh "mini-Pakistan", was barred from campaigning for 48 hours by the Election Commission. The EC, in its order, had said it had considered "all the documents and relevant facts" and found the tweets violate the Model Code of Conduct.

(Inputs from The Indian Express)