BJP wants to silence me: Pateria on arrest, 80 days in jail

Raipur: Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh minister Raja Pateria got released from jail on March 4 after being arrested and spending 80 days in prison for alleged remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, The Indian Express reported.

After being released and out, Pateria cautioned family and supporters not to do anything that could land one in trouble.

The 69-year-old leader was arrested on December 13 after a video of him came up, where he was addressing Congress members at Pawai in MP.

Pateria told party workers to be ready to kill Modi, the PM and clarified then itself that killing in the sense of defeating him. He continued that Modi would end elections and divide the population on the basis of religion, caste and language. He will put Dalits, tribes and minorities in danger, and if Congress wanted to save the Constitution, Modi must be killed, killing in the sense of defeating him, Pateria said.

The Madhya Pradesh High Court released the leader on bail on March 4. This was after the police submitted that they had completed the probe and a chargesheet had been filed.

On release, Pateria told TIE that he has the utmost respect for the judiciary, but the BJP government in the state misused the law and jailed him. He said that BJP wanted to silence him since he followed the principles taught by Mahatma Gandhi and Babasaheb Ambedkar. He is against the caste system, while BJP follows the principles of Nathuram Godse, Veer Savarkar and MS Golwalkar, he said.

He explained that in the controversial speech, he simply intended to safeguard the Constitution and defend the rights of tribals, Dalits and minorities.

He then said that he was jailed by the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government of MP because he angered the BJP. The state government jailed him to threaten him since he was one of the leaders who raised their voices against them and also had a stronghold among Scheduled Castes and minorities, Pateria said.

He wondered why, when many of the leaders, like him, who oppose BJP got arrested, why those BJP leaders who talked about Hindu Rashtra openly in their speeches were not arrested. He asked if such speeches were constitutional. He said that these BJP leaders get sadhus to make controversial statements, but no actions were taken.

TIE reports that Pateria was arrested under the charges of Sections 451 (house-trespass), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 505 (statements conducting public mischief), 506 (criminal intimidation), 115 (abetment of an offence punishable with death or imprisonment for life if offence not committed) and 117 (abetting commission of the offence by the public).

He was detained from his residence in Hata and was jailed in the Pawai sub-jail of the Panna district.

He told TIE that he realised that he was among the luckier ones and felt bad for other prisoners who were falsely implicated. He wanted to help them and work on reforms in jail, he said.