The political-cum-election narrative is shifting, has already shifted, with Wayanad behind and Amethi behind and five phases of the elections behind, opposing parties are in the home run and that means a final push. Rahul Gandhi’s fate is locked in ballot boxes north and south of the country. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s is still in limbo with Varanasi going to polls in the last phase.
The interregnum between sixth and seventh phase will see a concerted attack on Modi and Varanasi aka Banares and Kashi will be bitter battleground. The euphoria of the Modi Roadshow in the BJP/NDA camp has petered out to a large extent and it appears like Modi will have to begin all over again. Modi will of course stick to his national security narrative with Balakote and airstrikes thrown in for good measure but the presence of ex-Border Security Force jawans in camouflage t-shirts in the constituency, running an anti-Modi campaign on alms and food grains begged from the holy city’s populace, gives a new dimension to Modi’s national security plank, one that will not sit well with him.
The ex-BSF jawans are supporters of fellow ex-BSF jawan Tej Bahadur who was dismissed on charges of “indiscipline” following his you-tube revelations on the quality of food ladled out to BSF jawans. Tej Bahadur filed nomination papers to contest against Modi but his candidature was rejected by the electoral officer of Varanasi and he has taken the rejection to the Supreme Court. Right now, he is one of the many thorns in Modi’s back. And whatever the apex court’s ruling, Tej Bahadur is not going away.
And while Bahadur and his band of ex-BSF jawans seek to shoot holes in Modi’s national security narrative with the old logic that an army fights on its stomach, the Congress and the SP-BSP gathbandhan plan to take on Modi on a gamut of other issues that they say Modi is deliberately avoiding to talk about. Notably his government’s five year record on a number of promises he made during his 2014 campaign and on the back of which he won a brute majority. These include his promise to create 2 crore jobs. Unemployment today is at a 45 year low and Modi is refusing to take questions.
The Congress, particularly, is going for Modi’s jugular using his utterly disappointing record on the jobs front and by highlighting his government’s failures in implementing his many so-called flagship programmes. These include Namame Gange, Digital India, Swacch Bharat Abhiyan, Skill India, Amrut Scheme, Adarsh Gram Yojana,Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bhima Yojana and even the– much quoted by Modi– Mudra Yojana. The Congress believes that Modi cannot run away from his failures and that he has to be held to account and made to answer for them; that voters in Varanasi have the right to be aware of these humongous defeats and only then think of whether he deserves a second chance or not.
Top Congress speakers such as Navjot Singh Sidhu are already attacking Modi on these fronts and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has also weighed in with his 100 cents. Manmohan Singh, who blasted the Modi government for being poor receptors of economic data, said Modi and his cabinet were clueless on business and economics. Sidhu said the Prime Minister will “sink in his own wave of lies.” But while Modi will be the centre of attack, the Congress will also make a final push to put Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Nyay’ front and centre of its remaining campaign; inform the people that the guaranteed minimum income of Rs 6000 will be in the bank accounts of all those who qualify for ‘Nyay’, have not got ‘Nyay’ under Modi’s regime.
The writer is a freelance journalist.
Views are personal.
