PM Modi losing on penalties, ‘hit wicket’ in cricketing terms

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his back-to-back rallies in Siliguri, North Bengal, and Kolkata launched scathing attacks on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who responded in her signature combative style. If this had been a football match, we could say that Modi lost on penalties.

The burden of Modi’s attack on Banerjee was borne by his characterisation of the Bengal chief minister’s record on development and her commitment to the national interest. Banerjee’s acerbic response focused on Modi’s pathological propensity for falsehood.

In doing so, she effectively rebutted the prime minister’s clever but jejune remark that there was a ‘speedbreaker’ to development in Bengal and it went by the name of ‘Didi’. Banerjee pointed to a number of schemes her government has implemented, including the internationally recognised ‘Kanyashree’ project that has provided educational opportunities to help retain girls in schools – by 2017, 4 million beneficiaries had been enumerated. Bengal’s growth rate has also outdistanced the national average over the past few years.

That’s an achievement even if one considers the fact that the state started from a relatively low baseline. In other words, not many people were buying Modi’s barbs.

But, in a very real sense, the debate was about national security. Modi targeted both the Congress and the Trinamool for compromising national security, and as before, accused them of being ‘anti-national’, an all-embracing charge that actually means opposition to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the governments it runs.

Ever since coming to power at the Centre, the BJP has been consistently guilty of conflating itself and the prime minister with the nation and its people. Sample this. ‘Some people in their hate for Modi, have started speaking against India. Who doubted the [post-Pulwama] air strike? Who asked for terrorists’ body count?’ Modi declaimed.

If Opposition parties did ask for a body count – and, for the record, no one ‘doubted’ the air strikes – it was only because the Modi government has an unenviable record for fudging facts. It’s called lying in normal language. International agencies put out satellite images that contradicted the government’s case. As for Modi’s allegation that the Congress was ‘bowing its head’ to terrorists and trying to weaken the army by mooting a review of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, there is a simple response.

Pulwama would not have happened in the first place and the Balakote strike would thus have been unnecessary had it not been for the ineptitude of the BJP government and especially Modi’s blue-eyed National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval.

Between them they turned down a request from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) brass to the effect that the forces being sent to Kashmir be airlifted. Instead, either in the absence of credible intelligence or in spite of it, the jury is out on that determination, the BJP government sent out a huge convoy without ensuring that the route was properly sanitized. The convoy was a sitting duck. If anybody is responsible for the death of 40 CRPF personnel, it is Modi, because the buck stops at the prime ministerial desk.

After his party has relentlessly politicised national security, even in the immediate aftermath of the Pulwama attack when the Opposition was maintaining exemplary restraint, Modi had the gumption to attack others: ‘Some of our own were pained when Indian Air Force entered Pakistan and hit terror camps. Didi felt the pain more than Islamabad and Lahore. Anti-BJP leaders became a darling of the Pakistani media.’

This statement was of a piece with others made by Modi, BJP president Amit Shah, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and others accusing opposition parties of being anti-national and traitorous.

Obviously, these are not supported by a scintilla of evidence and, in fact, they undermine the foundations of constitutional democracy. Now that the Model Code of Conduct is in force, the Election Commission (EC) has the ineluctable duty to issue a notice to the prime minister seeking an explanation for his uninhibited use of defamatory language. The culture of impunity that acts as a shield for the ruling party must be shattered and it falls to the EC to do it.

The BJP claims 800,000 people attended Modi’s Kolkata rally. Independent estimates puts the number at closer to a fourth of that – around 200,000. As we all know, attendance at rallies, especially one being addressed by a prime minister, does not translate into votes and seats. The BJP has two seats in the Lok Sabha from Bengal. That is unlikely to go beyond three – if that.