Will saffron continue to darken India?

 

Five states are going to the polls next month and four of them are being ruled by the saffron party. Will saffron continue to cast its dark shadows there?

If the voters go by reason rather than by religious sentiments, the BJP will not have a cat in hell’s chance of winning. But do voters ever go by reason, especially in a state like UP? Already hate speeches are flowing like venomous rivers in that state. And most of the speakers are ‘holy’ people! Let us not forget that the massive victory of the BJP in the 2014 general elections was preceded by a murderous communal riot in UP’s Muzaffarpur. Now the BJP is trying to do the same thing all over again. There have been open calls for genocide against Muslims from BJP leaders and others like sadhus. Repressive measures are being taken against minority institutions like those of the Missionaries of Charity. A lot of Christian churches and schools were attacked recently in many North Indian states.

When you have nothing to show for progress and development, bring in communal hatred and violence. Modi has done this again and again, right from the post-Godhra days in Gujarat.

What a pathetic governance has it been after those events in Gujarat which made Modi the Hindu Hriday Samrat!

One lakh farmers committed suicide during Modi’s reign, from 2014-2021. Lakhs of Adivasi and Dalit children die due to poverty and malnutrition in Modi’s India. There is severe unemployment. There are serious economic problems in every state. The prices of essential commodities keep rising day by day and the government doesn’t seem to give two hoots. Yes, the PM cares for one particular group of people: the corporate sector. Their loans amounting to a whopping Rs 10.72 lakh crore was written off. When the poor farmers demanded the waiving of their meagre loans, Modi said there was no money for that.

Modi has no money for the poor. He has money, thousands of crores, to advertise himself, to go on foreign tours, to refurbish his wardrobe, to build a splendorous palace for himself in Delhi…

The people of Punjab are not likely to vote for Modi’s party in the coming election there. They did not even allow Modi to move on their road. More informed people say that Modi did not want to move and the alleged threat to his life was only sheer drama. The actual reason was that only 3,000 people were attending the meeting for which 70,000 chairs had been arranged. Punjab has rejected Modi, in other words.

Will UP vote for him? Well, possibly yes. That’s a state where religious frenzy decides too many things. But the western UP’s farmers are not likely to vote for Modi. And that region has as many as 135 seats. And then there is the Akhilesh Yadav factor which cannot be ignored. He seems to be offering better things to the people of UP than dead bodies floating in the Ganga and children dying in hospitals.

I’d certainly love to see Goa, Manipur and Uttarakhand exhibiting more sense than UP.