Vibha Sharma
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, April 2
With a few days to go before the first phase of polling in 91 parliamentary constituencies on April 11, the BJP has revived its tested and tried Hindutva plank.
Using the Samjhauta Express blast verdict to augment the election pitch on national security and national pride, the saffron party has intensified its attack on the Congress. The BJP has accused the Congress of coining the “Hindu terrorism” theory and “hurting the sentiments” of the majority community.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday said Congress chief Rahul Gandhi was “running” to a seat (Wayanad) where “the majority was in a minority” because he knew that Hindus would teach him a fitting lesson for the term “Hindu terror”. Other senior leaders like chief Amit Shah and Arun Jaitley are also using it to corner the Congress for trying to “defame Hindus and giving them a terror tag”.
Meanwhile, the saffron party’s ‘Hindutva’ poster boy, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, is also on the job. Recently, he referred to the Indian Army as “Modiji ki sena”— Modi’s Army. Addressing a rally in Ghaziabad, he used the phrase repeatedly as if to remind the people of “Shri Ram ki sena”.
Interestingly, responding to a query on the BJP attack, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi today almost ratified a RSS theory saying “sab Hindu hain”. According the BJP’s ideological fountainhead, all people living in India are Hindus in terms of identity.
Observers see the BJP’s revival of the core ‘Hindutva’ agenda as an “expected eventuality”. In 2004, the then BJP’s Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had tried to return on the basis of development and the “India Shining” card, sidelining its long-standing emotive “Hindutva” plank. But the party paid a heavy price for it and remained out of power at the Centre for the next 10 years, they say.
from The Tribune https://ift.tt/2uF2idG
via Today’s News Headlines
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