As we enter the very last stage of campaigning, political leaders are trying every trick in their books to garner some extra votes. It is a race to the finish and nobody wants to stay behind. After indirectly evoking the Ram Temple issue on Monday, Narendra Modi played the caste card today leaving his opponents taken aback, seething and fuming.
Priyanka Gandhi while rebutting Modi’s speech in Amethi had referred to “neechi rajniti” (low level politics) of BJP. Modi, the forever street smart politician completely latched on to this jibe to throw the last role of the dice. Modi in a rally accepted that he hails from a lower caste. But he said that it is not a crime and assured the voters that his politics is not of low level. He tried to completely turn the tables on Priyanka Gandhi by rhetorically asking the crowd, “Is it a sin to be born in a lower caste, have I done anything wrong?”
Modi, many believe consciously opted for this line of attack just a day ahead of the crucial phase of polling in caste ridden Uttar Pradesh. He later took to Twitter to post barrage of tweets to elaborate his points. Gujarat C.M said that his so called “low level “of politics will solve people’s problem. He accused that since he hails from a lower caste, his politics has been castigated as lower level. He urged the Election Commission to take action against people hurling abuses. His punchline was “I sold tea, not the nation”.
Congress spokespersons had a difficult time fire fighting this brutal onslaught by BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate. They deemed him “spin master”. Union Minister Kapil Sibal said that, “He (Modi) has not misinterpreted anything; he is doing it on purpose”. Spokesperson Rashid Alvi said that Modi is trying to divide the country on the basis of caste. All of them tried to say that Priyanka had merely alluded to Modi’s brand of politics and not about his family background.
One person who was particularly bothered about Modi playing the caste card was BSP leader Mayawati. She (quite ironically many will suggest) said that Modi is resorting to “despicable” politics by raking up his caste. She alleged that Congress and SP are silent over this matter as they think this will hurt BSP.
Mayawati looked a bit confused about whether Modi truly belongs to a backward caste or not. She once said Modi is not an OBC and dared him to mention his caste. Later she said that even if Modi is from a backward class BJP has done very little for those people.
Experts believe that the battle of Purvanchal is between BJP and BSP, and Modi may have just hit the knockout punch by evoking his caste at the last moment upsetting the caste arithmetic in those seats.
AAP leader Kumar Vishwas wanted to campaign till the last moment in Amethi. Now this has landed him and other AAP leaders in trouble. FIR on Tuesday was registered against Kumar Vishwas, his party associate Somnath Bharti and two others for violating EC’s order. Apparently they campaigned even after stipulated campaign time was over. Also police created ruckus over presence of Vishwas’s family and other AAP leaders who according to them had to leave Amethi after completion of campaign.
Modi today got a big vote of approval from the architect girl, whose activity was tailed by Gujarat government. She has approached the Supreme Court and has tried to put an end to the entire “Snoopgate” controversy by saying that “she is thankful to the Gujarat police” for their surveillance. She has asked the Supreme Court to pass an order to stop probe in this matter by both Gujarat and Central government. The court will hear the matter on Friday.
Congress has tried to make a political issue out of this surveillance of a young girl by alleging that it was done on the behest of Narendra Modi and was supervised by Amit Shah. But with the girl breaking her silence and lauding the Gujarat police this issue may soon have a natural death.
Meanwhile Modi continued his effort to reach out to the minority community. In an interview he clarified his stance on Uniform Civil code saying that its implementation doesn’t mean that Hindu laws will be enforced on citizens. He even criticised the Hindu code saying several provisions of it are obsolete.
Seeking to allay apprehensions among Muslims, Mr. Modi ruled out scrapping any existing constitutional and statutory mechanisms meant for their welfare and said he would instead work to strengthen them. He was also critical of the narrow definition of “secularism” saying that parties for long have just used Muslims for vote bank without helping them.
Modi very recently has been accused of stoking riots in Assam with his comment over forcing illegal migrants out of the country. But today Arun Jaitley, put up a fiery defence to argue that BJP can’t be blamed for the unfortunate incidents in Assam. He accused the opposition parties of trying to polarise the situation. Jaitley alleged that Congress has tacitly encouraged infiltration in Assam which has resulted in a huge change of demography.
There is an apprehension among section of Congress and other opponents that if Modi comes to power, he will try to topple many state governments. The first sign of such an exercise was hinted by Bihar BJP leader Sushil Modi who said that nearly 50 JDU MLA’s are in close contact with them. He even went on to say that all those MLA’s are actively supporting BJP candidates in this election. The lesser known Modi expressed confidence that Nitish Kumar’s government will fall owing to their own contradictions after the elections.
The Lok Sabha elections for 2014 will have its penultimate phase tomorrow. 64 seats are up for grabs covering seven states of Andhra Pradesh (25), Bihar (7), Himachal Pradesh (4), Jammu and Kashmir (2), Uttar Pradesh (15), Uttarakhand (5) and West Bengal (6). It is a phase where bigwigs like Rahul Gandhi, Mohammad Kaif, Varun Gandhi, RamVilas Paswan , Rabri Devi, Basudev Acharya, Moon Moon Sen are trying their luck with voters. So far on an average 66% turnout has been recorded and it is widely expected that the trend will continue. Special attention will be on Election Commission’s role in Bengal after it faced flak for lax security in the last phase.
Finally, Rahul Gandhi after getting a bit sidelined in the later phases of elections has made a grand comeback albeit on the social media. But for that he can thank his speech writers. He said in one of his rallies, “I want to see a day when the American president is asked the time and he will look at his watch and see ‘Made in Mirzapur’ written on it. He will then ask, ‘Where is this Mirzapur’?” Rahul also said that American President is afraid of the youth of Uttar Pradesh!! His speech got amusing reactions in Twitter and made Mirzapur and American President “trend ”on the social networking site.
These were all for today. We will be back with all the updates from the big polling day tomorrow.
Related Information:
Amethi Election Result
Election Result Uttar Pradesh
Gujarat Election Resulst
Andhra Pradesh Election Results
Bihar Election Result
Himachal Pradesh Election Result
J&K Election Result
Uttarakhand Poll Results
West Bengal Election Results
Result of Election 2014
