Garlanding bigotry

Openly feting convicts is a dangerous trend

With the Lok Sabha elections less than a year away, the ruling regime can be expected to leverage its incumbency by courting the electorate in a variety of ways and shaping the public discourse to its advantage. All parties in power do this but when such early quasi-campaigning involves openly feting convicted criminals, as Jayant Sinha has done in his Hazaribagh constituency over the weekend, it sends ominous signals about the tone and tenor of the electioneering in the coming year. It is not clear why Mr Sinha, a deputy civil aviation minister, chose to garland and serve tea and