General Elections 2014: BJP braces to polarize votes for political gains

NEW DELHI: BJP general secretary Amit Shah’s call to voters in western Uttar Pradesh to take revenge for the Muzaffarnagar riots through their votes is not an aberration in the saffron party’s election campaign as it is set to polarize the masses to gain maximum traction in the Lok Sabha elections.

Party leaders say the BJP campaign will get shriller and its PM candidate Narendra Modi as well as others plan to make direct attacks on Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul.

While many within the BJP blame the Congress for taking the electoral battle this far, others concede that this is a conscious attempt to get as many votes through all permissible means. BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi maintained that his party is not trying to rouse passions on communal lines but only answering back to the Congress and Samajwadi Party (SP) in UP for the recent riots.

Asked about Shah’s reported comments to the people in Muzaffarnagar to “take revenge for the insult” heaped on them during the riots, Naqvi said: “Rahul Gandhi had gone to the riot affected areas for secular tourism.”

He also attacked SP Chief Mulayam Singh Yadav on the issue. “Mulayam Singh Yadav said the people living in camps are not riot affected but political workers of a particular party.

The way the riot affected have been treated is shameful.” BJP is also feeling cornered due to the sting operation by news portal Cobrapost which shows its leaders and VHP accepting that the 1992 Babri mosque demolition was planned. Referring to the sting as “Congress-sponsored” and “Congress Post”, BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad wondered why this has been made public at the time of elections.

Justifying Shah’s remarks in Muzaffarnagar, Prasad said, “Though I have not seen what Amit Shah said, I would like to say that people cast their vote on different considerations. Some vote against price rise, some because there is no development. Similarly, people may vote in a certain way because there is a great sense of pain.”