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In a move seen as his last-ditch effort to polarise religious opinion in his party’s favour, Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) prime ministerial candidate, on Monday spoke about reclaiming BJP’s ‘Ram’ legacy. He was addressing a public meeting in Uttar Pradesh’s Faizabad district (under which Ayodhya is a tehsil).
With a picture of lord Ram in the background, Modi did not directly issue a religion-based appeal but asked people “living” in lord Ram’s birthplace to teach the Congress a lesson for not fulfilling its electoral promises.
Modi did not refer to building the temple at the disputed Ayodhya site but made several references to lord Ram while exhorting people to support BJP and defeat the Congress, the Samajwadi party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
“This is the land of lord Ram, where people believe in praan jaaye par vachan na jaaye (promises must be kept, even at the cost of lives). Can you pardon those who broke their promises,” asked Modi, referring to the ruling party’s vow of providing 100 million jobs. The BJP leader, however, said nothing about his own party’s promise of “mandir wahin banayenge (will build the temple at the same disputed site)”.
He also took on SP, which is in power in the state, and the Mayawati-led BSP, saying these parties were enemies in Lucknow but friends in Delhi.
“They save the ‘maa-beta’ sarkaar (mother-son government, referring to Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Vice-President Rahul Gandhi). The Congress saves them from CBI (the Central Bureau of Investigation). It protects netaji (SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav) from CBI,” Modi said.
The BJP leader also dwelt upon the issue of governance. “Law and order is so bad that people prefer buying guns to providing medical care to their parents and good education to their children.”
Addressing the gathering, Modi said: “I assure you from lord Ram’s land that I will fight corruption through my life. I have seen poverty, so I have the courage to say this.” He also invoked lord Ram’s name while making a pitch for BJP, saying the people of Faizabad should allow a lotus to bloom in the “land of Shri Ram”.
Modi also courted controversy as he said even Mahatma Gandhi had invoked the name of Ram: “When Gandhi was asked about his idea of an ideal nation, he had said there should be Ram Rajya.” By Ram Rajya, Modi said, the Mahatma meant development for all.
Commenting on the speech, BJP leader Yashwant Sinha said it would have been unnatural if Modi had not mentioned Ram in Ayodhya.
UP chief electoral officer Umesh Sinha said the Election Commission had sought a report from the Faizabad district magistrate on Modi’s speech and the stage backdrop.
