Gadkari to drag JNU’s Shehla Rashid to court after defamatory allegation

Hardly had the buzz around an alleged assassination attempt on PM Modi died down that a Tweet by JNU student  activist and a known member of the notorious ‘Tukde Tukde Gang’, Shehla Rashid Shora, kicked up a storm in the political circles. Downplaying the assassination threat, her tweet, blamed BJP stalwart and current Roadways Minister, Nitin Gadkari and RSS for the same, and that the real perpetrators were being framed.

Much before an actual dust storm rocked Delhi NCR in the evening, Shehla Rashid kicked up her own version with the following tweet:

https://twitter.com/Shehla_Rashid/status/1005373847636303872

Let it be known that just recently, a group of messages exchanged between the accused of Bhima Koregaon violence case and some  Maoists were intercepted, in which one of them talked of assassinating PM Modi on the lines of Rajiv Gandhi, during one of his future road shows for the 2019 elections in order to stop the alleged rise of ‘Hindu Fascism’.

Seized from the house of Rona Wilson, one of the accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, this expose caused a huge uproar in the political spectrum, pushing the opposition on back foot and giving BJP a premise to fight back on.

While we’re not unaware of the antics that Shehla and her JNU comrades resort to in order to stay relevant, this one is something that is not only unacceptable, but also bizarre to say the least. Defending one’s stance is something, justifying bizarre explanations is quite another. To say that Nitin Gadkari and RSS are planning to assassinate PM Modi and framing the Muslims/Communists requires some really weird sense of humor. We hope that Ms. Shehla is not binge watching Quantico.

Needless to say, this didn’t go down well with BJP top brass, especially with Nitin Gadkari, who delivered an effective retort:

With that, one has to agree that Shehla Rashid has done precisely the same mistake that one of her ideological comrades Arvind Kejriwal did with Nitin Gadkari, way back in 2014, when Gadkari had just stepped down as the BJP president. Kejriwal had then included Nitin Gadkari in his famed list of ‘Most Corrupt People in India’, without any credible evidence to back up his claims.

Nitin Gadkari had then dragged Kejriwal to the court, asking him to either prove his theory or be ready for a case of criminal defamation. It was not until early 2018, when Arvind Kejriwal finally gave up, and in a slew of apologies, apologized to Mr. Gadkari for his absurd claims. For Mr. Gadkari, it’s not over, until it’s completely over.

However, it doesn’t look like Shehla Rashid has learnt anything from that fiasco. In a weak defence for her bizarre theory, she counterattacked Gadkari, saying that ‘….leader of the world’s biggest party was getting worked up about a sarcastic tweet…’ and questioned whether Gadkari would take action against a media house for targeting fellow JNU activist Umar Khalid.

https://twitter.com/Shehla_Rashid/status/1005502570779967489

The media house that allegedly targeted Umar Khalid is not the one that defamed Gadkari, so there is no reason Gadkari should act agains the media house in question. With this tweet, it looks like Shehla Rashid is worried already. Now she has more reason to worry, with BJP leader Subramanian Swamy promising to help Gadkari with the case.

Only recently, motor mouth MLA from Gujarat, Jignesh Mevani, was booked for criminal defamation, when he circulated photographs of noted columnist Shefali Vaidya in a demeaning fashion. We hope that those going about slandering people with impunity are taken to task soon.