It is a pity that seven decades after Independence, the real issues of ‘roti, kapda, makaan’ which define the aspirations of the common man, lose out to narrow, partisan appeals on caste and creed in the run-up to elections. Indeed, emotive issues are in the forefront during election campaigns.
The below-the-belt attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s caste and his family, especially by Congressmen, and the jibes against him personally defy all norms of propriety. Before former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pontificates on how Modi must behave and speak in a prime ministerial way, he must look within to see how his partymen throw norms and proprieties to the wind in demeaning the office of prime minister.
Just as debates in Parliament have hit an abysmal level, the standards of political campaigning leave a lot to be desired. There is less of substance on issues that agitate the minds of people at large, more of innuendos and aspersions. This applies across the board but more so in Opposition attacks on the ruling dispensation.
In recent days, erstwhile cine actor and Rajya Sabha MP Raj Babbar showed poor taste when he compared the value of the sliding rupee to the age of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mother Hiraben, 98. Another Congress bigwig of yesteryears from Maharashtra Vilas Muttemwar mocked at Modi’s parentage when he hinted at Narendra Modi’s father’s humble background drawing a comparison with Rahul Gandhi’s lineage.
It goes to Modi’s credit that he has not used power to enrich his family and friends by showering favours on them in the style of Congress bigwigs. If Hiraben is impoverished, it speaks well of her son Narendra’s values of integrity which are worthy of emulation.
Another Congressman, a prime leader from Rajasthan, C P Joshi, a Brahmin by birth, mocked at the credentials of Modi in talking of establishing a Ram temple in Ayodhya when he is from a backward caste. It is a shame on Joshi and his leader Rahul Gandhi that such obscurantist views are expressed so freely in a party that has had glorious traditions.
Evidently, the likes of Raj Babbar, Muttemwar and Joshi have not heard of how Rajya Sabha MP Mani Shankar Aiyar botched up the Congress party’s chances in the Gujarat Assembly elections earlier by referring to Modi’s brand of politics as ‘neech’ or lowly. Cleverly, Modi made it appear that Aiyar was being casteist. For form’s sake, Aiyar was suspended from the party but only in name.
There is no denying that Modi is an orator par excellence and he is a master at responding effectively to jibes in a manner that sways the masses. He exploited Aiyar’s jibe to his party’s benefit and turned the tables on a Congress that was seeing dreams of upsetting the BJP from power in Modi’s home state of Gujarat.
This time around, it is the likes of Raj Babbar, Muttemwar and Joshi that have served an emotive issue to Modi on a platter which he is using to the utmost. It is well on the cards that the Congress would lose votes in the northern belt due to the indiscretions of some of its leaders who thought they were ingratiating themselves to the ‘high command.’
That Congress president Rahul Gandhi has failed to reprimand Raj Babbar and Muttemwar whose attacks on Modi were personal is an indication that he likes his sycophants to take on his opponents with no holds barred. As his friend Omar Abdullah, the chief of the National Conference, has pointed out, Rahul and the Congress are hurting their own cause and arousing avoidable public anger.
Modi’s own jibes against veteran Congressmen have been no less biting. “They (the Congressmen) are worried that Shivraj (chief minister Shivraj Chouhan) is (fondly) called ‘mama’ (maternal uncle). He said at an election rally in Madhya Pradesh: “Have they (Congressmen) forgotten their own Quattrocchi mama, whom his (Rahul Gandhi’s) father had given a permit to steal money allocated for the security of India?” while alluding to the Bofors payoffs’ middleman at a public rally in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh.
It was Modi who had professed to make development the focus of the 2014 election campaign. But today’s Modi is shifting the focus back, wittingly or unwittingly on non-issues which he deems have better saleability. The BJP had, for long, exploited the Hindutva plank to polarise Hindu votes. After the bashing it got in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress realised that by unabashedly wooing the Muslims, it was alienating a big chunk of Hindu voters.
Therefore, it thought it was making a course correction when Rahul Gandhi went about visiting Hindu temples and flaunted his Hindu credentials. However, in the ongoing campaign its chief ministerial hopeful in Madhya Pradesh Kamal Nath raised many an eyebrow when in his address to a gathering of Muslims he pleaded that Muslims must come out to vote for the Congress in massive numbers otherwise his party would be doomed. He indeed made common cause with them.
The Congress felt embarrassed and some leaders attempted a cover-up but Kamal Nath himself denied that he had been misquoted. Evidently, the Congress is attempting to sell different narratives to the Hindus and the Muslims while seeking to broadbase its vote bank.
Were it not for the fact that there are other reasons, too, like anti-incumbency which are dictating the people’s preferences, the Congress would have fallen between two stools. Now, however, the results are waiting to be unravelled.
Kamlendra Kanwar is a political commentator and columnist.
He has authored four books.
