Gujarat polls: BJP continues to train guns on Congress

As Gujarat advances towards the high-stake Assembly election, the crescendo of ruling BJP's poll campaign is said to have reached its peak with prime minister Narendra Modi and union home minister Amit Shah training guns at the opposition Congress over minority "appeasement".

While Modi has alleged that Congress and other "like-minded parties" use "terrorism as a shortcut to achieve success," Shah has been repeating how the Narendra Modi government "taught a lesson" to "miscreants" in an incident that occurred in 2002 in an apparent reference to large scale communal violence in the state following train burning incident at Godhra railway station.

On Monday, Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge termed these speeches "aimed at provoking Congress to polarize" voters. "BJP leaders are provoking us to say something. It is nothing but an attempt to polarize and divide society. They are claiming that they don't let rioting happen in Gujarat. One must understand its meaning...ask for the list who were involved in this," Kharge said at party headquarters in Ahmedabad.

In the past two days, Modi has mentioned in his speeches the controversial police encounter of 2014 at Batla House in Muslim dominated locality in Delhi and also recalled the 2008 serial bomb blasts in Ahmedabad that killed 56 persons to say that "the then Congress government in Delhi targeted him for taking action against the terrorists."

In the past week, BJP leaders, who are campaigning in the state, have attacked Congress in their public speeches. Assam chief minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma said, "Rahul Gandhi (who is on Bharat Jodo Yatra) looked like Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein." At the same time, citing the murder of Shraddha Walkar by her boyfriend, Aaftab, Sarma told the gathering that "more murders like Aaftab would rise if the country doesn't choose a strong leader."

Political observers are not surprised by such speeches. "This is part of BJP's election campaign to first induce the voters with tall claims of development and then polarize the atmosphere to create fear against one particular community," said an academician working with a reputed institute in Ahmedabad.

"This is not random but part of the design. If you see closely, the government pumped money into infrastructural projects all across the state in the last one year and right before the dates (of assembly polls) were announced, the party announced the setting up of a commission to implement the Uniform Civil Code, which is a highly polarizing issue," the academician said on the condition of anonymity.

As a matter of fact, Modi started visiting Gujarat every month since March and inaugurated or laid foundation stones of development projects to the tune of a whopping nearly Rs3 lakh crore. This included gifting the state with two mega projects, reportedly at the cost of Maharashtra- Vedanta-Foxconn group’s semiconductor project worth Rs 1.54 lakh crore and Rs 22,000 crore manufacturing unit of transport aircraft for India Air Force in Vadodara.

Two days ago, BJP launched its election manifesto pledging the creation of "anti-radicalisation cell to identify and eliminate terror threats and and anti-India forces." Similarly, promised to implement the contentious UCC, enacting "Gujarat Recovery of Damages of Public and Private Properties Act" for recovering damages to public and private properties by anti-social elements in rioting, violent protests, and unrest, among others. At the same time, the manifesto also claimed that "Gujarat Olympics Mission" will also be launched with the aim to host the Olympic games in 2036.