Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena activists at a protest rally in Allahabad on Thursday. (PTI)

Bhopal, June 9: A rain of chappals and a couple of burnt effigies.

Two days after L.K. Advani stepped down as BJP chief, street fights mirrored the rift within the Sangh parivar as Bajrang Dal and BJP workers clashed in Indore.

In Indore city, Vishwa Hindu Parishad activists burnt an effigy of the leader once hailed as the BJP’s lauh purush (iron man).

Bajrang Dal workers mercilessly thrashed Prakash Parwani, a BJP member considered close to Indore Municipal Corporation chairman and senior party leader Shanker Lalwani, in the busy Rajwada area. Parwani’s crime was he burnt an effigy of VHP general secretary Praveen Togadia, who has called Advani a “traitor” for praising Pakistan’s founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah.

Incensed Bajrang Dal activists also threatened other BJP workers, saying any “disrespect” to “Hindu leaders” like Togadia would result in similar treatment.

The city BJP sought to underplay the incident, but Indore district Bajrang Dal convener Rajesh Bidkar proudly said: “Around 150 of our workers took him to Rajwada raining chappals on him. Anyone emulating Parwani would meet the same fate.”

In Bhopal, too, angry VHP activists threw chappals at Advani’s posters. On Tuesday, after Advani had stepped down, VHP activists distributed laddoos in Indore and burst crackers to “celebrate”.

Madhya Pradesh chief minister Babulal Gaur, who is in Delhi, distanced himself from Advani’s comments. Gaur, the second BJP leader after Yashwant Sinha to go public against Advani’s statements, said Jinnah was neither secular nor a “centre of respect” in India and the RSS and the VHP were free to take a stand “as per their ideals and policies”.

“If he (Jinnah) had been secular, he would never have got the country divided on the basis of religion,” the chief minister said before he left for the capital. “Thousands of Hindus had to leave Pakistan and take shelter in India due to the venomous seeds sown by Jinnah in the name of religion. Lakhs of people were slaughtered.”

Gaur’s remarks were in sharp contrast to his earlier stand before Advani resigned. On June 6, he had termed the comments “diplomatic” and appealed to Hindu outfits to “understand” that Advani was merely asking Pakistan to become secular.

“Advani wants Pakistan to become a secular country. He was asking the nation to become a secular country so that Hindus, Sikhs and Christians can live peacefully, as per Jinnah’s wishes,” Gaur had said.

Bajrang Dal leader Devendra Singh Rawat said Advani had hurt the sentiments of 90 crore Hindus by praising the “communal and anti-national” Jinnah.