The Prime Minister & His Poll Campaign
BY R.K.MISRA
Prime Minister Narendra Modi who sired
the Clean India Campaign of 2014 has left the 2017 Gujarat poll narrative
patently polluted.
Irrespective of what the outcome may
be, the Prime Minister led from the front in sullying election campaigning, plumbing
dismaying depths in a desperate bid to beat down a two decade old
anti-incumbency and a youthful combination welded by Congress president Rahul
Gandhi that was giving the BJP nightmares.
The BJP had only one ace, Modi and he,
in turn, always has an ace up his sleeve, went the common refrain. Predictable in
his unpredictability, the Prime Minister was quick to pull off the velvet gloves and bring
out the ugly clawed hand as the race for Gujarat moved past the roundabouts
into the straights for the final dash. The ace was nothing but harking back to
hindutva (mandir-masjid) and the age old ploy of communal polarization as well
as injustice caused to Gujarat by criticizing Modi.
Very early in the campaigning Modi
discarded the development plank to unfold a hindi potboiler like canvass that
had emotion, drama, aggression and even a villain, Pakistan. With 20 years of
ruling Gujarat and with himself in the saddle at the Centre as well, Modi could
hardly talk about injustice to the state at his own hands and so chose to
rewind history to the injustice to gujarati Sardar Patel at the hands of
Jawaharlal Nehru and there from to the
mystery surrounding the death of Lalbahadur Shastri and the emergence of the
dynasty which has always harboured
grudges against Gujarat.
Desperate to
salvage Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi even hurled his own persona into
the poll battle, latching onto stray remarks and invoking them as a personal
slight in a bid to invoke gujarati pride for electoral gains. Taking liberties
with facts, the lowly person (neech) remark was turned into a lowly caste(neech
jati) by Modi and soon an innocuous dinner meeting with a former Pakistani
foreign minister acquired conspiratorial dimensions with former prime minister
Manmohan Singh, a former vice-president, Hamid Ansari and a former indian army chief Deepak Kapoor
besides some senior indian journalists all becoming parties-in-person to
defeating the BJP and installing Ahmed Patel as chief minister of Gujarat ! . It
took an angry rebuttal from a normally soft spoken former prime minister Manmohan Singh who charged Modi with
an insatiable desire to tarnish every constitutional office, that made him
finally back off.
This is not the first time that
communalization or personal criticism has been put to poll use by Modi. In
2002, post the Godhra train carnage and statewide communal riots, he had used
the “miyan musharaf’ parable to cause communal cleavage and win the elections. In
2007,it was the ‘maut ka saudagar’ comment so used while in 2012 it was
centre’s injustice to Gujarat. This time,a combination of all three have been
deployed to stave off the Congress challenge.
The 2017 elections is notable for two
aspects. The complete absence from campaigning of BJP patriarch L.K.Advani who is now headed for hermitage and Rahul
Gandhi finally emerging from the shadows of outgoing president Sonia Gandhi to
take on Modi full scale. He was declared the president of the party even as he
was wading through the dust and grime of a grueling election campaign against a
formidable opponent who was using every trick of the electioneering craft to
put him on the mat. A do or die, battle for Modi, he had much earlier shifted the campaign narrative from
development to the ‘chaiwala’ syndrome and there from to hindutva and finally
to Pakistan interference before a Rahul jibe brought him back to Gujarat
issues.
In fact an army of Modimen, almost the bulk of his cabinet, chief
ministers of BJP ruled states, sister organizations of the Sangh parivar and
it’s cadres have been assiduously at work stoking fears of muslim comeuppance
if the Congress returned to power.
The Gujarat election also marks the coming of age of Rahul
Gandhi and his team. Leading from the front with understated efficiency and
easy affability, Rahul came across as a person who stuck to his narrative of
taking on Modi and his government and stoutly refused to encourage use of loose
language against his opponent. If Modi
used all manner of mocking titles to describe Rahul, the latter always referred
to him as ‘Modiji’ or ‘pradhan-mantriji’.”The BJP may talk of Congress-free
India, but we will never talk of a BJP-free country.They have their way and we
have ours.The people have a right to
choice in a democracy”,Rahul said in one of his campaign speeches in Gujarat to
considerable appreciation.
Another notable difference was that while Modi would normally
set the tone and tenor of electioneering in every poll after he came to power
in 2001, with the Congress lamely following behind, this time it was the other
way round. Before the polls were announced and the model code of conduct came
into effect, every Rahul visit was preceded by the state government announcing
a slew of incentives. Even the Centre which had adroitly refused to listen to
the lament of Surat businesses on GST caved in after Gandhi started gaining
mileage in the South Gujarat city famous for the diamond cutting and polishing
as well as textile industry.
There have been many factors which have baffled the BJP this
election. For one Rahul Gandhi refused to be drawn into issues concerning
minorities and hindutva that could cede mileage to Modi. Gandhi’s temple
hopping galled his rivals no-end and they sought to turn non-issues into issues
like the non-hindu tag on him at Somnath temple. That the Prime Minister of
India was twisting facts to score poll time brownie points, based on half-baked
information as was noticed in his move to drag down Kapil Sibal arguing in the
Babri-ram janmabhoomi case in the apex court, in no way added to his stature. Proof
that the battle had been truly joined came when the BJP requisitioned the
services of maulvis from far off UP and Maharashtra to campaign in minority
pockets in the state.
The triad of Hardik Patel, Jignesh Mevani and Alpesh Thakore
working to the advantage of the Congress also had the BJP flustered. The
determined efforts to tarnish the reputation of Patel and Mevani through
alleged sex CDs and ‘linkages’ to terror elements are adequate pointers. The
crowds that Hardik kept drawing with his single line message to uproot the BJP
lock, stock and barrel remained a matter
of concern for the BJP.
The last word on the irony of the Prime Minister’s election
campaign in Gujarat came from a top of the front page election advertisement
published December 12,by the BJP in a leading Gujarati paper .The first of it’s
kind advertisement ,is a collage of statements against Modi allegedly made by
all manner of Congress leaders over the years including the ‘maut ka
saudagar’remark by Mrs Sonia Gandhi and the ‘lowly person’(neech
vyakti)remark by Mani Shankar Aiyer.Apart
from the fact, that the advertisement itself provides proof that Aiyer did not
call Modi a person of ‘low caste’ as attributed to him by the prime
Minister,the ad.asks people to avenge the insult to Gujarat.
However the same BJP has no problems with appointing a prominent
Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti(PAAS) leader Varun Patel,who had called the Prime
Minister a petty pickpocket as their Gujarat party spokesperson after he
switched sides.
Some double standard this!
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