Despite his meteoric rise and ability to win polls repeatedly in Gujarat over the past 10 years, chief minister Narendra Modi — the BJP’s nominee for the post of Prime Minister in 2014 — continues to be dogged by the legacy of the 2002 communal carnage in Gujarat and a string of alleged fake encounters in the state ruled by him for over a decade.
The chief minister’s supporters however say there is not a single case against Mr Modi in the courts but his critics continue to level allegations of complicity in the riots and alleged fake encounters.
But it is the 2002 riots that has ensured that Mr Modi remains a polarising figure. His detractors say the riots — in which hundreds were killed — is the reason why most of the minorities remain deeply suspicious of him and unwilling to vote for him. Many in the political spectrum say it will be difficult for Mr Modi to attract post-poll allies and gain wider acceptability, something that Atal Behari Vajpayee was able to do with such consummate ease in the late 1990s.
In one of the most serious cases pertaining to the Gujarat riots of 2002 — the Gulberg Society massacre in which scores of people were killed by a rampaging mob — a special investigation team (SIT) appointed by the Supreme Court did not find any evidence indicating complicity on the part of Mr Modi despite IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt’s allegations against the Gujarat chief minister.
The Ishrat Jahan encounter of 2004 and the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter of 2005 also cast a shadow on the Modi regime.
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