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STATES: MADHYA PRADESH
Party To The Crime
State Congressmen often resort to violence to achieve
their goals
By Neeraj Mishra
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GUN LAW: (from above) Prajapat (top centre) being taken to court;
Vidyutma; Agarwal in hospital
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What should a man
do if he suspects that somebody has been spreading slander about his wife?
Inder Prajapat, 45, knew the answer. On the morning of July 30, the Madhya
Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) general secretary drove to the house
of Manak Agarwal, another general secretary of the party, in Bhopal's
plush Nishat Colony. Agarwal, 49, greeted him but Prajapat had no time
for niceties. Pulling out a pistol, he pumped two bullets into Agarwal's
neck at point blank range.
As a profusely bleeding Agarwal slumped to the
ground, his assailant nonchalantly walked out of the house, drove to the
nearest police station and surrendered. Prajapat told the police he had
shot Agarwal with the intention to kill because "anyone making a
slanderous remark about my wife does not deserve to live". Apparently,
a local newspaper had recently published a report in which Prajapat's
24-year-old second wife, Vidyutma, who is also an office-bearer of the
state Mahila Congress, was made out to be a nautch girl from an infamous
mohalla of Ujjain. Prajapat suspects Agarwal had a hand in the appearance
of the story.
The incident has blown the lid off the simmering
factionalism in the MPCC. Agarwal survived the attack. Barely hours after
he had won the battle against death and was out of the intensive care
unit, he was ready for war. From the hospital bed he charged MPCC president
Radhakrishan Malviya with plotting to kill him. Agarwal is miffed that
Malviya marginalised him through a restructuring in November 2000 and
stuffed the organisation with his own men. The exercise caused a lot of
acrimony between senior leaders as the bulk of the posts were given to
supporters of Arjun Singh and Digvijay Singh while Madhavrao Scindia's
men were largely ignored.
Much to the chagrin of Agarwal, he was not only
stripped of the powerful portfolios of administration and spokesperson,
positions he had held for the past seven years, but also asked to vacate
his office room. Ever since the two camps have been at daggers drawn.
In March, Agarwal's supporters soundly thrashed MPCC Treasurer and Malviya
groupie Govind Goyal outside the party office. Incidentally, Agarwal had
been involved in fisticuffs with another office-bearer, Rasool Ahmed Siddiqui,
in the party office some years ago.
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