As the prelude to Lakhimpur Kheri shows, the BJP now speaks the explicit language of violence

There was a prelude to the violence that broke out on October 3 in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri, when a convoy allegedly led by a Union minister’s son mowed down protesting farmers. Days earlier, the Union minister himself had descended on the locality to threaten and silence farmers at a public meeting.

It would take him “two minutes” to “discipline” the farmers, said Ajay Kumar Mishri Teni, minister of state for home affairs and member of Parliament from Kheri, in a widely circulated video clip. Should he take up the challenge, the farmers would not only have to stop protesting against the government’s new farm laws, they would have to leave Lakhimpur.

Those who knew him before he became a parliamentarian would know he never “ran away from taking a challenge”, he declared.

Before he became a parliamentarian, Teni was known as a local strongman accused of murder and other offences, although he was eventually cleared of murder charges. Audiences may be left to speculate whether his words were a tacit reference to this record of criminality.

Tempers were already running high before eight people were killed on Sunday, including one of the drivers in the convoy and two Bharatiya Janata Party workers. But Teni, the local elected representative, did…

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