'Will remove Shaheen Bagh protesters, mosques on state land': West Delhi BJP MP Parvesh Verma's poll promise

West Delhi BJP MP Parvesh Verma on Monday delivered a speech expressing his opposition those protesting the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC). The parliamentarian asserted that protests at Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh will be “cleared” within an hour of the BJP coming to power in the forthcoming Delhi Assembly election on 8 February. Verma added that all the existing mosques built on government land will be demolished if the BJP formed government in Delhi on 11 February. “This is not just another election. It is an election to decide the unity of a nation. If the BJP comes to power on 11 February, you will not find a single protester within an hour. And within a month, we will not spare a single mosque built on government land,” Parvesh Verma said, appealing to Delhi voters. [caption id=“attachment_7966421” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] BJP MP Parvesh Verma while delivering his speech in West Delhi. News18[/caption] He was addressing a crowd at a community centre in Ranhoula village which falls under the Vikaspuri Assembly constituency in West Delhi, News18 reported. Elaborating his remarks to news agency ANI on Tuesday, he said, “Lakhs of people gather there (Shaheen Bagh)… They’ll enter your houses, rape your sisters and daughters, kill them. There’s time today, [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi ji and Amit Shah won’t come to save you tomorrow.” Verma’s speech comes after Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur raised an an incendiary slogan – “traitors should be shot” – against anti-CAA protestors on Monday. The Union minister addressing the meeting in support of BJP candidate from Rithala, Manish Chaudhary. The incident, where Thakur shouted “desh ke gaddaron ko” to which the crowd responded “goli maro sa*** ko” (shoot down the traitors), triggered a row with the Delhi Chief Election Officer seeking a report from the North West district's election officer . The sit-in protests, mainly led by women, at South East Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh have been held for more than a month in opposition to the CAA – which will grant citizenship to all non-Muslim refugees from three neighbouring countries – the NRC and the National Population Register (NPR). However, the road blockage due to the demonstrations have led to a tussle between the Delhi Police and the protesters, as its disrupts traffic movement between Delhi and Noida. According to some media reports, the BJP, which is facing flak over the contentious law,  might hinge its Delhi election campaign on the Shaheen Bagh protests. Using the the Shaheen Bagh blitz, the saffron party leaders are under the assumption of isolating Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress. A BJP leader was quoted by NDTV as saying, “It will be difficult for them to support the traffic nightmare in surrounding areas like Sarita Vihar, children not going to school, shops not opening.”