It would be irresponsible on the part of any political party to attempt to take the moral high ground in UP Chief Minister Mayawati’s campaign against the notorious Raghuraj Pratap Singh, alias Raja Bhaiya, by voicing at this time the crucial objections against Pota. While this newspaper has consistently argued against the provisions of Pota and its potential for possible misuse in settling political scores, it is also undeniable that the horrific criminality of Raja Bhaiya which has been tolerated and used by successive political dispensations because of his influence, must be brought to justice forthwith through the most effective punitive action that the state can lawfully command. No doubt Singh is not a terrorist and it is certainly arguable that a wrong law is being utilised to take action against a political rival, as can be argued in the case of J. Jayalalithaa’s deployment of Pota against MDMK leader Vaiko, yet in this particular case, a brazenly lawless despot like Singh has got away for too long.The infamous Raja Bhaiya has been used by several political forces. If the Samajwadi Party attempted to use him recently to break the BJP by luring away the Thakurs, then the BJP is no less guilty of sheltering him by giving him ministerial berths in the Kalyan Singh as well as the Rajnath Singh governments. This has meant that although for years, Raja Bhaiya has run a virtual parallel administration in Pratapgarh — terrorising voters, stashing away currency and jewellery worth crores, accumulating an arsenal of assault rifles and disposing corpses in water bodies — no one has dared to touch him. This newspaper has consistently highlighted Mayawati’s high-handed ways in neutralising her political rivals yet, by imprisoning a dangerous criminal, she has acted decisively and for this she must be lauded.The fact that a key witness in the case against Singh has recently been murdered shows that Mayawati has not only taken on some amount of personal risk by taking on Raja Bhaiya, she has also sent out the message that she can be as tough as any suvarna politician and that just because she happens to be a Dalit she will not hesitate to use any of the strong-arm tactics that have traditionally been associated with the upper castes. By imprisoning Raja Bhaiya, Mayawati has displayed her customary ruthlessness. Indeed the ruthlessness of Mayawati and Kanshi Ram has often been seen as the distinguishing feature of the BSP, in sharp contrast to the mild-mannered ‘Congress Dalits’ of a previous generation. Mayawati has already secured a place in the history of UP. Her claim of being the harbinger of a new age would be made even stronger if she acted with similar courage not only against her political rivals but against all those sinister forces who darken the politics of her state.
