Give me one thing that connects B.S. Yeddyurappa, Narendra Modi and Yogi Adityanath like nothing else. False charges. Yes, you heard it right; the three iconic leaders have been prosecuted on false, malicious charges by people with vested interests. However, refusing to be cowed down, the trio bounced back in style, and have positioned themselves as key players in Indian politics.
Rahul Gandhi, the designated ‘Yuvraj’ of the Congress [I] party, who once branded those going to the temples as molesters, ironically went on a ‘Temple Run’ of his own, visiting the important temples in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat etc., be it the Kashi Vishwanath Mandir in UP, or the Somnath temple in Gujarat. While his campaign failed miserably in UP, with Congress only managing to scrape a mere 7 out of the 105 seats it contested, Rahul Gandhi’s temple tourism, coupled with their caste cards, bore some fruits in Gujarat, where Congress won a whopping 77 seats, giving a tough fight to the ruling BJP.
Buoyed by this “moral victory”, Rahul Gandhi is now ready to try his luck in the upcoming Assembly elections in Karnataka. However, Rahul Gandhi led Congress has now shed their cloak of Hinduism to play the game only they’re the best at: Divide and Rule. The latest campaign schedule that has been issued for the upcoming elections in Karnataka reek of the same, as noted below: –
According to the schedule, starting from Bellary, Rahul Gandhi would visit the Lingayat mutts and temples, and then will proceed for road shows with buses. Keeping up with the ‘secular tradition’, the Congress President will cater to the party’s prime ‘vote bank’, in order to make a dent on the possible unity of ‘Hindu votes’. It must be noted that CM Siddaramaiah ordered to drop charges on Muslims currently serving jail terms. After much roar this order was called off.
This is not new for either the Indian masses or the BJP. From Akhilesh Yadav to Siddaramaiah, the priorities remain the same. Interestingly, B.S. Yeddyurappa hails from the same Lingayat community the Congress is trying to woo in order to consolidate their presence in Karnataka, and it won’t be uncalled-for to say that Congress is once again doing the horrible mistake of underestimating B.S. Yedyurappa.
Yeddyurappa, not at all impressed with Rahul Gandhi’s temple tourism, gave a sarcastic welcome to the Congress President in his tweet. To quote him,
Yeddyurappa heartily welcomed Election Hindu Rahul Gandhi to Ballari to fulfil BJP’s dream of a Congress Mukt Karnataka,” Yeddyurappa said in back to back tweets.
Dear #ElectionHindu @OfficeOfRG, I welcome you to our great land of Karnataka. I wish that you #Care2Ask your #10PercentCM @siddaramaiah on how the sorry state of affairs in Karnataka have left him unanswerable to the many questions I have asked. Do you #Care2Ask him? pic.twitter.com/5I105wNBbP
— B.S.Yediyurappa (Modi Ka Parivar) (@BSYBJP) February 10, 2018
PART 2: Dear #ElectionHindu @OfficeOfRG, I welcome you to our great land of Karnataka. I wish that you #Care2Ask your #10PercentCM @siddaramaiah on how the sorry state of affairs in Karnataka have left him unanswerable to the many questions I have asked. Do you #Care2Ask him? pic.twitter.com/OsLFwrjXlX
— B.S.Yediyurappa (Modi Ka Parivar) (@BSYBJP) February 10, 2018
Adding further salt to the wounds, Yeddyurappa stated that Congress has faced setback and BJP has won wherever Rahul Gandhi has campaigned in the past, in another tweet in Kannada he said “Rahul’s arrival is like arrival of good fortune for BJP.”
With that, Yeddyurappa has given an official signal: The elections are not going to be a cakewalk for Congress at all. Moreover, unlike the fragmented opposition that Congress faced in 2013, this time the Grand Old Party is facing a rejuvenated and unified BJP, raring to go. With Yogi Adityanath and PM Modi having given nightmares to Siddharamaiah in their limited campaigns, this is nothing less than a golden opportunity for Yeddyurappa to strike back in a royal style and liberate Karnataka from the scheming Congress. Nothing would be a sweeter revenge than this.
As for Rahul Gandhi, it’s high time that he drops this farce of ‘seasonal Hinduism’, and stick to the basic principles of politics, if he wants to be considered as a ‘serious force’. Else, he can surely see his cronies biting dust the same way he and Akhilesh Yadav saw their parties losing miserably to BJP in the 2017 assembly elections.
