By
Aditya Aamir
Congress President Rahul Gandhi alone
kept his word and did not extract political mileage from the deaths of the 41
CRPF martyrs whose mortal remains started reaching homes across India Friday
morning. The bodies will be barely recognizable, missing as they will body
parts. Rahul Gandhi did not let politics dictate the day but there are
Rahul-loyalists who believe Prime Minister Narendra Modi is taking him for a
ride; that Rahul should not forget he has to win the elections and, as in war
and love, everything is fair in elections.
Rahul Gandhi stuck to his resolve to
stand firm with the Government, the armed forces and the families of the
martyrs. The Congress President had declared Thursday evening that he and the
Congress would back the Government in any decision it takes to make Pakistan
pay for Pulwama. It was unequivocal and sincere. Friday, soon after the Cabinet
Committee on Security meet, Prime Minister Narendra Modi named Pakistan and
vowed to extract a heavy cost from the bankrupt nation. Rahul Gandhi on his
part reiterated the Congress’s decision not to politicize Pulwama.
And the promise was kept. The Congress
refrained even when some parties chose to make noises here and there. Whoever
said Rahul Gandhi lacked patience spoke out of ignorance. Why, even Modi
breached the unspoken rule and spoke about his intent to make Pakistan and its
proxies pay for Pulwama from venues of a public function and a political rally.
Soon after the CCS meet, Modi took his convoy to New Delhi Railway Station and flagged
off the Vande Bharat train to Kashi which, don’t be fooled, is one of three
names given to Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary
constituency. Vande Bharat will fetch some first class votes for Modi.
The politician and campaigner in Modi
probably could not resist. He should have rightly held a press conference and
announced to the world that India is going after Pakistan’s sorry a** and God
save that country from retribution coming its way for committing a “big
mistake”. But the world knows, Modi and pressers are North Pole and South Pole
and the twain shall never meet!
Modi has Man Ki Baat, Twitter, rally
and a couple the never failing to please Modi TV anchors. One, never short of
time and speaks in an ear-splitting baritone. The other, so artificially angry,
one evening he will drive rage into fureur, French for rage! Point is Prime
Minister Narendra Modi used Vande Bharat to flag off his tough man image, which
had taken a beating in Pulwama. He repeated the resolve at a rally in Jhansi
and, shortly thereafter, actor Kangana ‘Manikarnika’ Ranaut warned that anybody
“anti-national” will be beaten on the streets.
That said, Modi was no patch on Home
Minister Rajnath Singh, who flew to Kashmir to salute the martyrs and take stock
of the situation. Singh weighed in by becoming pallbearer. Then, later, at the
hospital, where injured CRPF jawans were admitted, he handed envelopes to each
one of them with a pat and a word! Now, what did those envelopes contain? Let’s
not speculate, what was in the envelope should remain in the envelope. Pushing
the envelope too far will only bring out the ‘Raj!’
So, as it turned out, Rahul Gandhi
happened to be the only top leader of any party who took his vow seriously.
Mayawati, who took to twitter only recently, tweeted Bahujan Samaj Party’s
assessment of Pulwama and it will make Modi and his government sit up and
think. The most number of the Pulwama martyrs are from Uttar Pradesh where the
BSP and SP are in a gathbandhan.
The third player in the electoral
arithmetic is the Congress, which with the induction of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra
is seeing a revival of sorts and could cut into the Yadav-Dalit vote-bank of
the SP-BSP alliance. Thursday evening, Priyanka cancelled her first press
conference since taking over as Congress General Secretary, citing Pulwama and
the sacrifice of the martyrs as reason. Friday, she kept her distance from
‘politics’ and it was like brother like sister!
So, moral of the story, let’s keep our
emotions bottled in. Death is not a game to win elections. At least, not today,
tomorrow and the day after. From now, till the enemy is brought to book, keep
the slogans and the divisive rhetoric in check. The Modi Government cannot
delay retaliation, time is running out on it and the enemy has been warned. Jai
Hind! For those who don’t know, ‘Jai Hind’ was coined by
Thiruvananthapuram-born Chempakaraman Pillai. (IPA Service)
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