Intro: Congress’ anti-Hindu perception has led the party to a rapid decline in 2014 General Elections. A well crafted strategy was adopted by the Congress to create fear syndrome amongst the Muslim voters to vote en masse against the BJP. But they failed drastically.
An interesting TV debate has revealed that Rahul Gandhi, after manthan, has reached the conclusion that it was the anti-Hindu image and perception of the Congress party that led to the debacles in elections after elections. How arrogant of him to realise now?
Had he not listened to the coterie the defeat of the Congress Party would not have been so shameful. Congress has now realised the importance of social sites like Face Book, which has done maximum damage to the Congress Party’s prospects. The 500 crore spent by the Congress to revamp the image of Rahul has gone down the drain after the election results of 2014 were out.
The Congress party with the tactical understanding of large number of media houses had deployed and employed battery of journalists on the TV channels to rake up the Godhra and Ishrat Jahan encounter—to malign; abuse and hound the Indian Prime Minister Modi and the Hindu nationalists. The debates on the news channels were a well crafted strategy of the Congress party to arouse passions and create fear syndrome amongst the Muslim voters against the BJP, Modi and RSS, as Muslims are known to vote en masse against the Hindu Nationalist Party—BJP.
During debates, many TV anchors could be seen nodding in favour of the Congress spokespersons or the so-called spokespersons of RJD, SP or BSP, but same TV anchors could be seen raising their eyebrows or shaking their heads in disagreement with the replies of the BJP spokespersons. The intelligent voters understood the Congress game plan and denounced the established Media.
For years, Congress made all out efforts to build and revamp Rahul’s image among the Indian voters. He was on excursion to villages to project his larger than life image amongst the voters; Rahul visited Noidas’ villages on a bike with entire media fraternity. He visited Muzaffarnagar and interacted with the Muslims. Did he ever visit Kashmiri Pundits who were made refuges in their own country? He should have remembered that his nana was himself a Kashmiri Pundit.
Sushil Kumar Shinde, Former Home Minister was in the habit of making controversial remarks. Shinde had put his shoe in his mouth with his controversial and slip in the tongue statements. Shinde at the Jaipur’s Chintin Shivir, made a controversial statement when he blamed the BJP and RSS of promoting the Hindu terrorism and later regretted. He wrote letters to the CMs of states asking them not to arrest innocent Muslim youth.
If Shinde was not enough, Congress had lined up other leaders like Digvijay Singh, Salman Khurshid and Manish Tiwari who all had made irresponsible statements to placate the Muslim voters. One day, Digvijay was asked by a journalist on inflation and this seasoned politician shot back that nation had to deal with communal Hindu forces that were out to destroy the social fabric of the country. In his statement he was referring to the BJP and RSS to sound politically correct amongst the Muslim voters. His rigid stand on the Batla House further alienated the Hindus. Digvijay’s insisted that Batla House encounter in Delhi was fake one, despite the fact his demand for judicial enquiry was rejected by the then Home Minister Chidambram.
Salman Khurshid went at great lengths to explain at a rally to the people of Azamgarh that Sonia Gandhi cried bitterly on seeing the pictures of Batla House encounter. Sonia’s silence was construed by Hindus that Congress was sympathising with Muslim terrorists. Rahul’s statement that one day Muslim could be the PM further angered the Hindus, knowing very well that Hindus are at the receiving end in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The Wikileaks revelations unmasked Rahul’s opinion about Hindus. 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks were dubbed as the handy work of saffron terror by Congress leaders. Rahul Gandhi must know that brand ‘Nehru’ and ‘Indira’ are now on the wane. The Gandhi family members now are constantly and continuously being investigated and questioned by the so-called ‘Mango men’.
The politically ill- motivated acts of Congress had instigated and alienated the Hindus from the grand old party. Since the manthan has taken place in the grand old party of India. It is high time for Rahul to sound politically correct to Hindus on issues related to Article 370, Uniform Civil Code and Sri Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.
Let Congress give up their controversial stand that what was demolished in Ayodhya was a mosque. The construction of grand Ram Mandir in Ayodhya will only strengthen social fabric of this Akhand Bharat. Rahul has to firmly tell his party men that Congress can’t further ill afford to lose Hindu votes just to sound politically correct amongst the Muslim voters.
Manoj Sharma (The writer is a senior columnist)
