The elections are slowly winding their way towards Calcutta and on June 1, it will be our turn to vote in the seventh and last phase. One bonus of voting last is that you don’t have to wait long for the results. Another, more important, advantage is that you get a longer time to hear all sides on the campaign trail before you make your choice.
Four phases into polling, here is a list of 10 reasons Narendra Modi has offered Indians to vote the BJP back to power, and off-the-top-of-the-head responses to these as a voter. The prime minister addresses several rallies a day and he would have made more points, but the 10 listed below are those that he has repeated multiple times.
1. Vote for Modi ki Guarantee for five kg free ration to 80 crore Indians for five more years
The free ration promise is not for me, fortunately, but it does affect me. That 80 crore out of 140 crore – or four out of seven – Indians are unable to afford two meals a day and are expected to remain dependent on free foodgrain for another five years worries me as a citizen. While the ration should continue to be distributed, I would much rather vote for the Opposition promise of raising the wages of workers and guaranteeing the right price to farmers and jobs to youths.
2. Vote for Modi ki Guarantee that India will become the third largest economy
This sounds good. But the free ration promise makes it clear the growth in the economy is not expected to be for everyone. India is already the fifth largest economy. But price rise and unemployment are at oppressive levels, government debt has increased, private investment is refusing to pick up, household debts are at an all-time high, household savings are the lowest in five decades, and the value of the rupee is falling. Economic inequality is the highest it has ever been, so much so that 21 richest Indians now hold as much wealth as 70 crore poor Indians. Would I vote for a continuation of this?
3. Vote for the BJP because the Congress will take your mangalsutra or your buffalo or your gold and give it to the ghuspetiya, to those who have more kids, to its vote bank. And it will also fill the cricket team with the Muslims
This I find deeply offensive. The ‘mangalsutra le jayenge, bhains le jayenge, cricket team le jayenge‘ line is an affront to my intelligence. It assumes that I can be taken in by any cock-and-bull story. But more than that, it offends me as an Indian. I grew up believing “Hindu Muslim Sikh Isai, apas mein sab bhai bhai” and “Mile sur mera tumhara toh sur bane hamara”. That all Indians, irrespective of religion and region, are one and that we all have an equal right to our country. My Constitution tells me this. If you abuse one of us, you are abusing all of us.
4. Vote for the BJP because the Congress will change the Constitution and rob you of reservation and give it to Muslims. Modi, on the other hand, will be the chowkidar for the rights of the deprived
The Congress was in power for about 55 years out of the 75 years since Independence. If it had to steal the SC, ST, OBC quota and give it to Muslims, it could have done so years earlier. The party even had 400-plus seats. What then is the basis for this claim?
In 2014, Modi had said he would be the chowkidar of the nation’s wealth. But the government was caught napping when Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and Vijay Mallya decamped after stealing thousands of crores of rupees of taxpayer money. Then, in 2018, the government brought the electoral bonds scheme. Now we discover that using the bonds, the BJP took money from companies that the Modi government was handing contracts to. Whether there was a quid pro quo or not can be ascertained only if there is an investigation, but a chowkidar should be above suspicion.
Now as he offers to be chowkidar for the deprived, the Modi government has been accused of diluting reservation in practice through ‘blind privatisation’ of public sector companies and by failing to fill 30 lakh government job vacancies. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s 2015 call for a review of the reservation policy, which triggered outrage and was followed by a clarification that he had not opposed quotas, remains in public memory.
5. Vote for the BJP because the Congress will make Hindus second-class citizens
Hindus are 78% of India’s population. Numbers matter in a democracy. It is not mathematically possible to win elections in India without Hindus. Only a suicidal political party would want to discriminate against the majority community and alienate it. So, how exactly can Hindus become second-class citizens?
6. Vote for the BJP because Opposition leaders did not attend the Ram temple pran pratishtha ceremony
X didn’t fast on Navaratra, Y didn’t wake up for the morning aarti, Z went for a football match when the family was going to the temple. In Punjabi, the word for such conversation is chugliyan. The English word gossip does not do justice. Whether political leaders pray or they don’t or when and where they pray is their business. When Rahul Gandhi undertook a pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar, did anyone ask why other politicians were not doing the same? When Lalu Prasad Yadav’s family performs Chhath Puja, are all political leaders expected to follow suit? Faith is personal. Coming back to the pran pratishtha of the Ram temple, even the Sankaracharyas did not attend it. Nor did President Droupadi Murmu.
7. Vote for the BJP because women have suffered in Sandeshkhali and the police did not act because the name of the tormentor was Shahjahan Sheikh
Crimes against women must be punished irrespective of who the perpetrator is. This is non-negotiable. But can the BJP be trusted to do this? Prajwal Revanna, an alleged mass rapist accused of sexually exploiting and filming the abuse of women, is a BJP ally and Modi sought votes for him in Karnataka. The son of Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, the former Wrestling Federation of India president who is facing charges of sexually harassing women wrestlers, is a BJP candidate in this election. Protests in Sandeshkhali ensured the arrest of Shahjahan Sheikh. Despite protests by women wrestlers, the BJP has not barred Brij Bhushan from campaigning for its candidate.
8. Vote for the BJP for a strong government, a government that takes the fight into enemy territory (ghar mein ghus ke maare)
This reminds me of the prime minister’s words after 20 Indian soldiers were killed by Chinese troops in Galwan Valley in June 2020: “Na wahan koi hamari seema mein ghus aaya hai aur na hi koi ghusa huya hai. No one has intruded into our territory, and no intruders are present. Nor is any Indian post in anyone else’s control.”
But on January 11, 2024, the army chief, General Manoj Pande, said: “Our attempt is to continue the talks with the Chinese army to go back to the pre-April 2020 status quo. Our first aim is to achieve that.” This suggests there was a change on the border in 2020 and the change was unfavourable to India. Shepherds in Ladakh have said Chinese soldiers try to stop them from grazing their cattle in lands where they could go earlier.
Meanwhile, China has become India’s largest trading partner.
The foreign minister has said about China: “Look, they are the bigger economy. What am I going to do? As a smaller economy, I am going to fight with the bigger economy?” India may be a smaller economy than China but it is a much bigger economy today than it was in 1971 when Indira Gandhi defied the US to help liberate Bangladesh.
If you can order airstrikes at Balakot in Pakistan because it is smaller but cannot even call out China as an aggressor because it is bigger, can you call yourself mazboot? Victory or defeat is not a measure of strength, the will to fight is. Porus lost to Alexander but we remember him for his valour.
9. Vote for the BJP because India is winning recognition abroad (Bharat ka danka videsh mein baj raha hai)
This month, a headline in The Times, London, read: Narendra Modi ‘knew of rape claims against ally Prajwal Revanna’. The Australian, a national daily in Australia, had a similar headline.
On May 1, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom advised the State Department to designate India as a country of particular concern (CPC). The situation in Manipur, the arrest of Arvind Kejriwal and the election-eve freeze on the accounts of the Congress party have been commented upon abroad. India has expressed its displeasure at this.
Canada has alleged that Indian government agents were behind an assassination on its soil, an allegation India has rejected. A similar allegation has come from the US, that an Indian government agent was involved in a thwarted assassination plot on American soil. India has agreed to probe this allegation. Maldives, a close neighbour, has ordered Indian troops out of that country. Nepal, another close neighbour, has issued currency notes with a map that includes Indian territories.
India is ranked 111 out of 125 countries on the hunger index, has been described as “one of the worst autocratisers” in the world democracy report, and ranks below Pakistan on the World Press Freedom Index. New Delhi has rejected these reports.
An invitation to a White House dinner for the prime minister and millets being served at that dinner can hardly make up for all the bad news.
10. Vote for the BJP because the Opposition leaders eat fish and cook mutton
Now this one takes the cake. Choose your political leader on the basis of what they eat! In Bengal, we take machh, mangsho and murgi on the plate very seriously. I would be doing my Bengali friends a great disservice if I backed a party that frowns on fish and mutton. As Mamata Banerjee said: “Everyone should be able to eat what they like, whether it is dosa or dhokla or idli or paratha or biryani or prawn curry.”
Should this be the narrative of a political party in an election? Elections are a time of accountability of work done before, and of hope for the work that will be done in the future to improve the lives of people. But when you have money, the muscle of investigating agencies and the mainstream media on your side, and you can commit foul after foul and get away with it, perhaps you can expect to win even without putting the people first.
Harshita Kalyan is a Calcutta-based journalist.