Herald View: EC must stop Modi’s attempt to communalise 2019 polls

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was his usual self, bashing the Congress party while addressing an election public meeting at Wardha, Maharashtra on April 2. The Congress had already announced that its president Rahul Gandhi would contest for the Lok Sabha election from Wayanad seat in Kerala while contesting from his old family seat of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh too.

There was nothing exceptionally surprising about it as Indira Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi, both party presidents earlier, had contested from the southern state of Karnataka earlier. Rahul Gandhi’s decision to contest from Wayanad was also very much within the electoral rules as well. Yet, Prime Minister Modi decided to take on Rahul Gandhi for his move to southern Indian.

There was nothing surprising about it as it is common for rivals to hit at each other during election campaigns. After all, democracy is a competitive game wherein rivals attack each other for their respective failures. But here, Rahul Gandhi had not committed any lapse. Yet, the Prime Minister went off the tangent and attacked Rahul for choosing the ‘minority-dominated’ constituency of Wayanad which incidentally has high percentage of Muslim and Christian population.

Modi’s charge against Rahul was that he is running away from Hindus and was taking shelter amongst Muslims and Christians to win an election? Does it behove a Prime Minister to use such polarising language during an election campaign? Certainly not! But Narendra Modi is a law unto himself whose entire politics revolves around polarisation. You cannot expect anything different from the man whose entire political claim to fame rests upon the infamous Gujarat riots of 2002 after which he projected himself as Hindu saviour and adorned the title of Hindu Hriday Samrat.

Modi is once again attempting to turn the 2019 electoral battle into a polarised election. Because it is the simple way of fooling people to forget basic issues of their lives and get carried by emotions against an imaginary enemy and vote on the basis of a diversionary issue. Modi cannot bank on his past five years’ performance as his delivery has been zero. He has ruined the economy; destroyed jobs and driven our farmers to penury. So, he needs diversion and polarisation to deflect people’s attention from basic issues that ought to dominate an election.

The Wardha speech was one such desperate attempt at deflecting attention. But Wayanad is surely not an isolated case which could be ignored. Narendra Modi is a master player of the politics of polarisation. Coming from the school of hate politics of the RSS, Modi has mastered the art of winning election on generating hate between the communities. It should not be allowed again. As a neutral umpire of conducting elections, it is the job of the Election Commission of India to take note of the danger lurking over the 2019 elections and stop this nonsense by all means.