The political discourse in the ongoing Gujarat election campaign touched a new low with political parties concentrating on sleaze videos, dragging Pakistan in to the campaigning and peeping into personal lives, to counter their political opponents instead of talking on issues faced by the people.
After releasing ‘HAJ Vs RAM’ poster to polarise voters, a new objectionable poster is being distributed in Muslim majority areas in Vadgam assembly constituency, from where Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani is contesting the elections, a day before the second phase of the two-phase polling.
With an aim to evoke a reaction against Mevani, the poster alleges, “Muslim virodhi mansikta dharavato Jignesh Mevani (Jignesh Mevani has anti-Muslim mentality).”
Referring to a press note allegedly published in Forward Press on December 26, 2016, the poster goes on to say that “ek akhbari yaadi ma Jignesh Mevani kabul kare chhe ke ‘mari pratham premika Muslim hati’ (in a press note published in a newspaper, Jignesh Mevani has accepted, ‘my first girl friend was a Muslim’)”.
“Te fakt Muslim samaj ne gumrah kari rahyo chhe...Muslim samaj na bani bethela neta Jignesh Mevani ne fakt Muslimo sathe rajniti karvana ras chhe (He is misleading the Muslim community. He is the self-appointed leader of the Muslim community who is interested in only doing politics with the community),” says the poster.
Vadgam is reserved for a Scheduled Caste (SC) candidate and considered to be relatively safe seat for Jignesh, who shot to fame a year ago when he led a protest march called ‘Dalit Asmita Yatra’ (Dalit pride march) from Ahmedabad to Una against the flogging of seven Dalit youth by cow vigilantes.
Though the assembly segment elected a BJP MLA in 1995 and 2007, the Congress won the seat thrice – in 1998, 2002 and 2012. In the last election, Manilal Vaghela of the Congress defeated former Cabinet Minister Fakirbhai Vaghela by a significant margin of 22,000 votes.
Since Fakirbhai died in 2013, the BJP has fielded a relative newcomer Vijay Chakravarti to take on Jignesh.
Even in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, in which the gap between the vote shares of the BJP and the Congress was a huge 27% in the whole state, it was a mere 1.8% in the Vadgam Assembly seat.
This is not the first time when the young leader is confronting such a situation. He was attacked on December 5 during his campaign at Patosan and Takkarwada villages. So far, he alleged, four such attacks took place on him after he filed his nomination.
Earlier, the BJP had accused the Dalit leader of receiving funds from Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), a political wing of Popular Front of India (PFI), which has been accused of terror links. The allegation was levelled against him after Congress President Rahul Gandhi campaigned in Vadgam in favour of Mevani.
Addressing mediapersons in Ahmedabad, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra alleged that the SDPI had confirmed that it had given funds to Mevani for elections. He added that it is not the BJP but the National Investigation Agency (NIA) which says that the PFI is a terror outfit. Recently, the NIA had submitted a report to the Union Home Ministry alleging that the Kerala-based outfit has links with terror activities.
Mevani denied the charges arguing that he is taking the help of crowdfunding and threatened to file a defamation suit against the BJP once the elections are over.
“Anyone can contribute to our party. The forces, which encourage black money and corruption and allow (only) a few corporates to grow, are questioning our funding. Let the Assembly elections get over, then I will file a case of defamation against the BJP,” Mevani said.