Modi makes it clear, Gujarat polls is about pitting Hindus against Muslims. Not vikas
In January this year, the Supreme Court in a landmark decision banned political candidates from seeking election on the basis of religion, caste or language.
An election won by soliciting votes along the lines of identity politics could be considered corrupt practice and the result set aside, the court had said.
Yet a month later during the high-stakes Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, the country's prime minister thundered at an election campaign: "If you create kabristaan (graveyard) in a village, then a shamshaan (cremation ground) should also be created. If electricity is given uninterrupted in Ramzan, then it should be given in Diwali without a break. Bhedbhaav nahin hona chahiye (there should be no discrimination).”
The PM's timing was highly questionable since UP was voting on the same day in the third phase of the state elections. The PM's targetted audience though got the message. Everyone could see that experimenting with religious polarisation in the first two phases could have cost the BJP the Muslim votes (the places going to polls in the first two phases were Muslim-majority areas).
A month and a massive victory later, the BJP named firebrand controversial Hindu priest Yogi Adityanath as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.
It was very clear from the beginning that the Supreme Court order banning the practice of soliciting votes on the basis of religion could neither be enforced nor would it make a difference to how political parties play the great game of elections.
In the run-up to Gujarat elections, PM Modi is back to his "cagey game" of religious-baiting sprinkled with development rhetoric and animated jibes against the Nehru-Gandhi family. Nationalism, of course, is another potion in this heady mix of development and religious polarisation.
Although on other occasions, especially after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections victory, development and economic growth used to be the primary facade behind the soft stoking of religious sentiments, this time around the BJP is playing a more cautious game ahead of its biggest prestige battle.
With the Patidar and Thakor agitations, and respective leaders from the two communities taking an aim at the BJP government in Gujarat for rising unemployment and an unprecedented crisis in the agrarian sector, the cult of Modi built on the much-touted Gujarat model of development is seemingly crumbling. And the BJP knows it well. A reason why the party is refraining from mentioning the Gujarat model of development or "Vikas" in Gujarat.
Instead, the party leadership is dishing out surgical strikes against Pakistan, Kashmir and even the remotely related Rohingya Muslim issue in Gujarat.
Interestingly, the main Opposition in this largely bipolar elections - the Congress - despite managing to create considerable buzz on the ground after a long time, is easily falling into the trap laid out by the BJP.
The latest being Rahul Gandhi's visit to the Somnath temple. The Congress vice-president's visit snowballed into a controversy after news channels reported that Gandhi's name appeared in the non-Hindu register of the temple along with that of Ahmed Patel. (For the uninitiated, all non-Hindus have to declare their identity, in other words, seek special permission for entry at the temple.)
The Congress' issued a clarification and accused the ruling BJP of circulating a "fake entry" to discredit Rahul. The saffron party soon jumped into a scathing attack. BJP's Amit Malviya asked Rahul to come clean on his religion. "If he isn't a Hindu by faith, let alone a practicing one, then why has he been fooling people with these temple visits?" he asked.
Taking the bait, Congress spokesperson Randeep S Surjewala added: "Rahul Gandhi is a 'janeu dhari' Hindu".
Not only is Rahul Gandhi ji a Hindu, he is a 'janeu dhari' Hindu. So BJP should not bring down the political discourse to this level: RS Surjewala,Congress pic.twitter.com/YY5MKQEKt5
— ANI (@ANI) November 29, 2017
Religion, however, is an old game that the BJP has mastered by now.
In 2015, the high-stakes Bihar saw all opposition parties coming together to give a tough fight to the BJP. The "pradhan sevak" of the country here too weighed all his options - from development to introducing bumper financial package for the state. When the scales still appeared to be tilted in favour of Nitish Kumar and Lalu Yadav, BJP president Amit Shah launched his "brahmastra" - Pakistan - at a rally in Raxaul. “Agar BJP galti se bhi Bihar me haarti hai to jay-parajay to Bihar me hogi, pataake Pakistan me chhutenge (if BJP loses in Bihar by mistake, then victory-defeat will be in Bihar but crackers will be burst in Pakistan).” It was left to everybody's imagination if he was hinting at Muslim voters supporting the mahagathbandhan or he actually meant that the mahagathbandhan enjoyed supporters in Pakistan too.
Even though the BJP couldn’t win Bihar, it did manage to make another of its famous back-door entries months later by splitting the mahagathbandhan and wooing back Nitish Kumar's JD(U) to align with the BJP.
In Gujarat, after falling off its edifice of vikas, the BJP is finding itself in a precarious position. So what initially started as an election season where both the BJP and the Congress avoided raking up the communal muddle, is now a campaign laced with religious language.
Even though most pre-poll surveys have predicated a BJP victory, it is not taking any chances and carefully taking out notes from history to polarise the campaign.
In 2002, Narendra Modi, as the state chief minister prematurely dissolved the Gujarat Assembly on July 19, 2002, so that fresh elections could be held even as the state struggled with violence and chaos following the riots. The then chief election commissioner JM Lyngdoh said although the elections were scheduled to be held by October, this was "not possible because the state was in turmoil, the electoral rolls were not ready even as the electoral machinery needed reinforcement".
But, many believe, for Modi that would have meant a possible disaster on two counts. Firstly, the elections getting postponed till normalcy was restored - something that the BJP didn't want. Secondly, there was a possibility that Modi would have been displaced by President's Rule, by October.
Modi, then in his famous style, launched sly attacks against the chief election commissioner saying why a "James Micheal Lyngdoh" doesn't want the elections to be held. In every speech, the CEC JM Lyngdoh became James Micheal Lyngdoh.
Similarly "Miyan Musharraf" was another favourite in Modi's name-calling game. One may wonder why a chief minister of one state during the Assembly election campaign was challenging a dictator from a neighbouring country. Well, everybody's guess is as good as Pakistan's (a clear usage of a name to refer to the larger Muslim population in the state, in other words, the attack on the Sabarmati Express train in Godhra in 2002).
In 2012, "Ahmed Miyan" (for Ahmed Patel) became the prime jibe against the Congress.
"I am the BJP’s candidate for the CM’s post, who is of the Congress? Why can’t they say they have a secret plan to have Ahmed Miyan as chief minister?” The same "Ahmed Miyan" jibe was used vociferously by the BJP during the Rajya Sabha elections in Gujarat earlier this year.
While Gujarat has been primarily turned into a Hindu-Muslim battleground by the BJP in recent history, religion and caste for long has driven politics across India. And whether one likes it or not, no one does it better than New India's Hindu Hriday Samrat - Narendra Modi.