Ahmedabad : The `exit poll’ results giving a clear victory to BJP in Gujarat elections seem to be far from truth. It seems to be the work of some motivated groups masquerading as “independent researchers” or the journalists who are ideologically aligned to the BJP. When every community is in the street: Patidars, politically the most influential group forming about 15 per cent of the population are agitating, OBCs accounting for another 40 per cent of the electorates are agitating, Dalits are agitating, all against the BJP-how can an exit poll show that BJP will win with a comfortable majority. Only a “jadugar” (magician) can predict such an outcome. But magic is always unreal and illusionary.
Currently, there are four types of journalists operating in the country. One, who are ideologically aligned with the BJP and nothing can make them change their stand and they are in brute majority. Two: those who have been won over by some kind of allurement by the ruling party to project its image no matter what is the reality on the ground. Third: journalists who have been forced to surrender their independence and objectivity by threats to initiate action against them or their organisations if they refuse to obey the party in power at present. So, the policy of “saam, daam, dand, bhed” (Chankaya’s policy of getting work done through any means) is being used to coerce journalists-print as well as television- to fall in line and do what the party in power wants them to do and this seems to be the reason why we see similar `exit poll’ results on all television channels today. Four: those practicing independent and objective journalism like Ravish Kumar of NDTV(Hindi), despite all kinds of threat but such species are very rare and are at the brink of extinction.
BJP came to power in Gujarat in 1995 by practicing the politics of polarisation and since then, it has been perpetuating in power till now only by using the same card of polarising the electorates, that is, by dividing the Hindu and Muslim voters on religious lines, with its its zenith witnessed after 2002 communal riots in most parts of the state.
The Congress understood the game very late and this time, it took utmost precaution to prevent polarisation. Rahul Gandhi visited more than 25 temples during his election campaign to counter BJP who always painted Congress as a pro-Muslim and anti-Hindu party. Rahul and other Congress leaders also avoided showing themselves up in public with Muslims. Though Rahul covered more than 3000 kilometres during his roadshows and addressed dozens of public meetings in Gujarat, he did not use the word Muslim or minority even once in any of his public meetings. But this does not mean that the Congress did not want the votes of Muslims. This was done under a carefully crafted strategy based on the recommendations of the AK Antony committee report of June 2014. This approach of the Congress may be called soft-Hindutva, but this strategy successfully blunted all the weapons of the BJP to project Congress a pro-Muslim party.
Coupled with it are the caste mobilisation by Patidar agitation leader Hardik Patel, OBC leader Alpesh Thakor and Dalit activist Jignesh Mewani whose movements overshadwed every trick of BJP -(from linking the name of Ahmed Patel to ISIS to a retired Pakistani Army officer being interested in seeing Ahmed Patel as chief minister of Gujarat)-to bring communal and emotional issues to the centrestage in elections, by bypassing the real issues of development, unemployment, inflation, education and health.
The anger among the farmers owing to failure of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to get them enhanced minimum support price(MSP) created anti-BJP atmosphere in state’s agrarian community. The MSP for cotton during Congress-led UPA government was Rs. 1400 per 20 kg and for groundnut, it was Rs. 800 per 20 kg. Modi, during 2014 lok sabha elections, had promised to raise MSP to Rs. 2000 per 20 kg for cotton and Rs. 1200 for groundnut if he became prime minister. He always complained that it was the Congress in power at the Centre that had obstructed him from raising the MSP as decision about raising the MSP was taken by the Central government only.
But the reality is that MSP came down to Rs. 900 for cotton and Rs. 620 for groundnut after Modi became prime minister. And the saddest thing is that there are no buyers in this season even at this low price also because of uncertainty in market due to high rate of GST, resulting into severe sufferings for the farmers. That is why the farmers are up in arms against the BJP and Modi. This is one of the major reasons why all the public meetings of Modi flopped from Bhuj to Ahmedabad but media did not report it perhaps due to government’s tight control over it.
Media also did not report that Prime Minister Modi was forced to shift the venue of his public meeting from Kamrej(Patidar dominated) in Surat to Kadodara(north Indian migrants dominated), 18 kms away, owing to threat of disruption by Patidars. Owing to fear of Patidars, Modi’s public meeting at ceramic manufacturing hub of Morbi was organised within the campus of a ceramic factory, with the crowd consisting of ceramic factory workers only while Patidar agitation leader Hardik Patel organised a public meeting in an open place, near Morbi, the same day and around the same time with a huge turnout of public who came in tractor trollies and other vehicles on their own. And the crowd for Modi’s public meetings at all places was arranged by police and brought by BJP in air-conditioned buses and yet, the public used to leave midway while Modi was still speaking.
Almost half of the chairs in Modi’s public meetings were empty. This was not the case in one meeting but in all the election meetings of Modi. He was also shown black flags on his way to Ambaji temple, after landing at Dharoi dam in a seaplane. But media did not report all these things. And if any reporter mustered courage to write about it, it did not find space and the news report was “brutally killed”. This also speaks volumes about the independence of media in contemporary India, making it very difficult to know the truth from the mainstream Indian media now, particularly about Modi and his politics.
At present, the social media is the only source left to know the truth till it is also gagged. Free media in India has been completely demolished, like other democratic institutions that are being similarly discredited and destroyed in a systematic manner by the present political rulers, without any formal declaration of “Emergency”.