PM Modi knows how to keep the election 'POT' boiling
Congress social media must understand that PM Modi knows how to keep the election 'pot' boiling
Much hue and cry has been raised ever since the Congress party’s social media head in Karnataka made a jibe at prime minister Narendra Modi by asking whether his use of the acronym "TOP" (for tomato, onion and potato) was an outcome of him being on "POT" (also a popular term for marijuana).
Is this what happens when you’re on POT? pic.twitter.com/fwSATJoQoP
— Divya Spandana/Ramya (@divyaspandana) February 4, 2018
You didn’t want to tag me cos you didn’t want people to watch the Modi video pinned on my timeline? Come on! Be a sport- And hey, POT = Potato ???? Onion Tomato ???? what were you thinking? ???? https://t.co/zOEthGQry8
— Divya Spandana/Ramya (@divyaspandana) February 4, 2018
Reacting sharply to this obviously sarcastic remark, BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao shot back, "Most people of the country and our party members won't even know what you are referring to (including PM himself), but your leader will connect with it instantly. While you have insulted people of India with your atrocious comment, your leader will be proud of you."
The insinuation that Rahul Gandhi shall connect with the remark instantly is an equally dark proposition since marijuana is illegal in this country , in case people are forgetting. The fact that he could be proud of such a state of affairs is weird enough in its own way.
The BJP spokesperson also said that it is somewhat shameful that an attempt to glorify the tomato, onion, and potato and consider the farmers a "TOP" priority should be met with such disdain from one who considers "POT" a more essential item in one’s vocabulary.
To somewhat borrow a page from Plato, our ideas are what we compare a reality reference to. The idea of the ideal PM is compared with a living PM, and the latter is judged according to that. Similarly, a man who consumes pot is compared to an idealised version of a pot-user, who has a higher potential of being poorer than an alcohol consumer, and allegedly less harmful too. The same analogy holds for "neech", the snide remark made by now-expelled Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar during the course of the recent Gujarat Assembly elections.
The "neech" comment did not go well with the masses in Gujarat. Similarly, when a comparison is now drawn between the PM who promises vegetables to the hungry and the hypothetical man who sits and smokes pot all day - an idea one is acquainted with through TV shows and social media today, the common man could ask why it is that the Congress has such verbal difficulty in being polite, or at the very least, the BJP might present it this way to take political mileage.
At a time when farmers are being marginalised, a reference to Modi as a cannabis user is akin to him being compared to the idealised version of the perfect "neech aadmi" in Mani Shankar Aiyar’s head. It is but obvious that here the idea of a man of the masses, who may hypothetically be consuming a cheaper intoxicant like marijuana instead of the usually expensive alcohol, is at a lower level of appreciation from the end of the Karnataka Congress social media chief.
Cheap men’s intoxicants do not hold well with the elite. Apparently the poor man’s budget doesn’t hold as well. To quote BJD MP Tathagata Satpathy, “The thinking is that if you hold a wine glass people will consider you belong to the upper class. You roll a joint and people will call you 'charsi'. It is an elitist bias. It was during Rajiv Gandhi's time that the Indian state was most elitist.” Incidentally, that was a time of the Congress governments’ strongest run in India’s history as well.
For all you know, Modi, with his strong verbal skills might use it against the Congress party itself. Just as "chaiwala" was counter-productive, and "neech" too proved to recoil on the Congress party’s own prospects in Gujarat. So this loose verbal game can yet again go to the party’s disadvantage.
Let us not forget how Modi with his mastery over play of words turned the tide in his favour in Gujarat, largely because of Aiyar’s folly. For all you know, Modi’s backroom boys may also try to give this a religious twist by highlighting the fact that Hindu sadhus have been for centuries patronising and propagating the use and virtues of the same pot that the Congress leader used in reference to run down Modi. After all, the poor Hindu "baba" who smokes cannabis is well known across the length and breadth of India.
The audacity of a poor man to get high on non-alcoholic beverage and in fact declare religion as its basis is ridiculed. But the man who claims to be with the masses can add a new angle to suit his political objectives very easily.
"Shiv bhakts" often consume marijuana and its derivatives. But Modi is no bhakt of anything other than his own skillful table-turning strategies.