Shiv Sena in its weekly editorial Saamana on Wednesday said that the Indian tricolour was not insulted by the farmers and was unharmed when the protesting farmers reached the red Fort on January 26. The Saamana mouthpiece said that the video clip available from the R-Day rally news coverage shows that Indian flag was untouched.
The Saamana article said, “The narrative built by BJP is that the Tricolour was insulted, which was done to demean the farmer’s protest. One group of farmers indeed broke the law and they should be brought to books, but to say that the entire protest is anti-national is a wrong narrative.”
During the tractor rally, the farmers were carrying the Tricolour on their tractors as they have more love for India than “BJP’s cyber army”, adding that the insult to the Tricolour has been done by the government for not paying attention to the farmers’ demands who have been sitting at Delhi border for 60 days.
“To let these farmers die on the road is the real insult of Tricolour. Some soldiers are risking their lives at the border for the Tricolour, many of them are sons of these same farmers. How is sacrificing these farmers respecting the national flag,” asked the editorial?
Slamming the elaborate security arrangements being made at the Delhi border to prevent farmers from entering Delhi again, Shiv Sena said that if such arrangements were made in Ladakh, the Chinese Army would not have entered Indian land.
Referring to PM Modi’s latest Mann Ki Baat, the editorial said, “Sir, Chinese army sitting in our territory is also an insult to the tricolour.”
The Sena article reminded PM Modi that once he was in the BJP-led group which hoisted the Tricolour at Lal Chowk under the leadership of Murli Manohar Joshi.
“Tricolour is important, hence the defence budget has been increased by 7.1% this year. Central armed police forces like ITBP, BSF and CRPF have been given a budget allocation of Rs 1,03,802.52 crore for the respect of Tricolour. But to make the wrong narrative of what happened on Republic Day is respectable,” asked the Sena editorial.