Swati Chaturvedi: I am a Hindu, but who is this ‘Hindu voter’ the BJP panders to? // Krishan Partap Singh: "Modi Shining" Campaign Is Showing Skid Marks
I am a Hindu and I wonder who this mythical 'Hindu voter' that the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its political wing, the BJP, are pandering to when
they make a
terror-accused, Pragya Thakur, their candidate from Bhopal, and an
extremist monk Yogi Adityanath, chief minister of India’s most populous state Uttar
Pradesh. The BJP fought the
Uttar Pradesh assembly election on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s name and then
anointed Yogi Adityanath as chief minister. It was not as if the
voters of Uttar Pradesh knew they were voting
for Adityanath. Similarly, the voters
of Bhopal did not raise an outcry that Pragya Thakur be made their candidate.
Modi and his
consigliere Amit Shah foisted the terror-accused in the Malegaon blasts of 2008
as the Bhopal candidate against Digvijaya Singh of the Congress, who the BJP
claims is a “Hindu baiter” and who they say coined the term “Hindu terror”. Singh categorically
denies that he coined the term.
Candidate Thakur, has
in a bizarre campaign, given serial interviews where she seemed to gloat over
the death of martyr and Ashok
Chakra winner Hemant Karkare, who died fighting terrorists on 26/11 in Mumbai. Thakur
said she had “cursed” him. Karkare as chief of the anti-terror squad had
investigated the Malegoan blasts...read more:
https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/india/india-elections-2019-i-am-a-hindu-but-who-is-this-hindu-voter-the-bjp-panders-to-1.1556794366026Former Civil Servants Protest Selection of Terror Accused as Lok Sabha candidate by BJP
Krishan Partap Singh: "Modi Shining" Campaign Is Showing Skid Marks
The unspoken story of the election is the dramatically lower credibility of the media in the eyes of voters as a result of the last five years. I suspect it is why journalists on the ground are having such difficult finding anti-Modi voices to balance against the easily accessible Modi-chanting horde. After seeing the attack on Arvind Kejriwal the other day in open daylight in the nation's capital under the noses of the police, anti-Modi voters are going to be as difficult to find for reporters as the Yeti. They will speak at the voting booth.
A ruling party trying
to ride nationalist sentiment to victory at the ballot box is hardly a novel
concept. Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey have
been past masters of this political art form for years, albeit with increased
signs of voter fatigue this year. If you do not have answers to voter queries
about broken promises or unfulfilled expectations, then what better way to
avoid answering than to wrap yourself in the national flag and declare yourself
the sole protector of the realm. It is a campaign strategy that instils fear
and division in the electorate alongside a strong dose of militaristic bombast
towards a chosen enemy or enemies, internal and external. As Charles De Gaulle
put it, "Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism,
when hate for people other than your own comes first."
At its very essence,
the general election will be decided on the question of whether voters will
give Prime Minister Modi the benefit of the doubt and thus another term.
Knowing this, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has tailored its entire campaign
around the persona of Shri Modi as the indispensable and irreplaceable leader
without whom India's security and economic growth would be imperilled. A 'Modi
Shining' campaign, so to speak.... read more:
