Recently, senior BJP leaders have painted protesters in Delhi's Shaheen Bagh neighbourhood as people capable of rape and murder, and of using women and children in an Islamic State-like module.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has accused the BJP of trying to change the narrative of a February 8 assembly election that he says should be fought on civic issues.
Located near the banks of the Yamuna in southeastern Delhi, Shaheen Bagh has seen weeks of continuous demonstrations -- especially by Muslim women -- against the central government's amended citizenship law, known as CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019). It has become something of a symbol for the public movement against the law, which was passed by Parliament last month.
Another show cause notice was sent to central minister Anurag Thakur: he was recorded leading chants of "Desh ke gaddaron ko, goli maro s**lon ko (shoot the nation's traitors)" -- a pro-right slogan that's been used to condemn opposition to the citizenship law.
Later, The Election Commission ordered the BJP to remove Parvesh Verma and Anurag Thakur from its list of star campaigners.
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Around the time that news of the poll authorities' action broke on Wednesday, a BJP national secretary, Tarun Chugh, said his party would not allow protesters at Shaheen Bagh "let Delhi become Syria and allow them to run an ISIS-like module here, where women and kids are used.
He used the slogan, "Desh ke gaddaron ko..." as a hashtag in a second tweet, in which he drew a link between the Shaheen Bagh protests and the mastermind of the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai: "Hafiz Saeed's ideology won't be tolerated in India."