Editorial
With results of assembly elections out today, Haryana and Maharashtra have sent some clear and loud messages to the country. Communalism and hate campaign in the name of fabricated Love Jihad are not acceptable to the people. Stung by its own hate campaign in the Uttar Pradesh assembly by-polls last month, BJP did not raise any controversial or communal issue, nor did any of its leaders deliver hate speeches in election campaigns in the two states as Yogi Adityanath had done in UP only to damage the party. Prime Minister Narendra Modi led his party’s campaign and pulled crowds on the development plank.
The BJP capitalized on the anti-incumbency factor against the ruling Congress both in Haryana and Maharashtra. Weaknesses of Congress, its constant failure to deliver and mounting corruption – all these came as handy for the BJP to wrest power from India’s Grand Old Party as it did in the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year.
The results also show that people want an alternative to Congress and BJP has emerged as the single pole around which Indian politics will revolve in coming years. BJP has virtually replaced the Congress. The electorates want development and progress.
No development is possible unless there is peace and everybody feels secure and has equal opportunity to progress and free environment to live in. If the BJP is really committed to progress and development it will have to check hate campaign and communalism of sister organizations of Sangh Parivar. The BJP brass should accept the hate campaign and communalism are the big hurdles in the way of development, because unless all sections of the society are united and live with peace there cannot be development and progress.
The Haryana and Maharashtra results have strong messages for Congress also – Perform or Perish. It is right time the party introspected to see what went wrong. The original identity of the party was to speak and act true secularism and safeguard all sections of the society. But over the time, Congress has failed to deliver and practice what it was for. The party was unable to check the hate campaigns and the BJP took advantage of weak policies of Congress. The Congress could not counter Modi’s campaign.
And if BJP commits the same mistake and does not deliver on development plank, it will also meet the same fate as has the Congress. The voters have become very smart, and the rising star of BJP and Modi will depend upon how he performs on education, employment and price rise.
