Mandsaur issue politicises further: Now, Scindia to fast for 72 hrs

Madhya Pardesh: Farmer death in Mandsaur district of Madhya Pradesh has become a mere matter of petty politics by various politicians. After Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan fasted for 2 days for the return of ‘peace’, now Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia is set to fast for 72 hours starting Wednesday. After Chouhan’s fast, several criticisms poured in from the opposition parties, especially Congress calling it a mere ‘tactic to divert’ attention from other issues.  It will be interesting to see what BJP has to say in lieu of Scindia’s fast over the same. Scindia and Kantilal Bhuria, along with a large number of their supporters, were detained at the Nayagaon-Jaora toll booth on their way to the neighbouring Mandsaur town to meet the kin of farmers killed in police firing. Ratlam SP Amit Singh said, "We have already informed the Congress leaders that section 144 has been imposed in Mandsaur and therefore, they would not be allowed to visit the town." Before their detention, the Congress leaders and their supporters staged a sit-in at the toll booth demanding that they be allowed to visit Mandsaur. Scindia said that if section 144 has been imposed then he would go there alone. "Why the police is preventing me from going to Mandsaur? This is 'Hitler'shahi," he said. Meanwhile, Scindia's supporters burnt an effigy of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Guna, the constituency of the Congress leader, and courted arrest. The farmers' protest in Madhya Pradesh, which began on June 1, took a violent turn on June 6, when five of them were killed in police firing at Mandsaur.