ENARADA, March 29, 2014
BY AJAY N JHA
With great power and unmatched reach of the kind provided by the social media comes great opportunity which Indian politicians and parties are increasingly embracing. Along with door-to-door and mass-contact canvassing, the battle lines are being drawn in the world of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs and other apps specifically meant for the Lok Sabha elections, in 2014.
The big two, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as well as the others, are not letting go of traditional means to win votes, but none wants to be trailing online and all kinds of messages, videos and texts, cartoons, spoofs and so many other things have been uploaded with increasing ferocity.
In the process however, social media has also becoming a double –edged weapon and sometimes, it has been cutting both ways. Congress party candidate from Saharanpur Imran Masood and former JD(U) leader from Bihar, Sabir Ali are two latest examples of the power of U tube and Twitter. In fact, social media sites are so hungry for juicy and spicy contents that they can consume anyone.
Lurid and lunatic statements have a life of their own on internet and during election times, they are used as the most potent weapon to fell even the strongest of political rivals.
No one knows the embarrassment and loss of face caused by such reckless utterances better than BJP’s Uma Bharti whose old video clip of calling Narendra Modi a “Vinash purush” than Vikas Purush. Uma Bharti was since expelled from the party and re-inducted as well and is contesting on BJP ticket from Jhansi. But those old clips would not go away.
The second most talked about such goof-up was from seven term CPM MP Anil Biswas who not only got expelled from the party but also ensured that her remarks became a huge catalyst in getting sympathy vote for Mamta Banerjee and see the end of 32 years old left rule in Bengal.
Apparently, when Basu made those obscene remarks against Mamta Banerjee, he thought he was just mocking her. A little earlier he had also talked about holding Mamta by hair and dumping her at her home in Kalighat during the height of Singur dharnas. When television cameras picked up those comments and both facebook and U tube started beaming them ad nauseum, the chappal was on the other foot of Basu. It generated a huge amount of sympathy of voters for Mamta and the Left front government led by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was blown away to the wind.
In the same way, the intemperate remark of Congress party’s Saharanpur candidate Imran Masood against Narendra Modi has already landed him in 14 days judicial custody and made him the villain. Contesting candidates may say many things in the heat of election campaign speeches, often fired by the energy of a partisan to draw their applause. But in an age where even a mobile phone can double up as a camcorder, nothing needs to remain unrestricted to the heat and dust of the election campaign.
Whether it is Salman Khurshid berating Narendra Modi or Nagma getting smooched by an elder leader of the party at a Meerut meeting, the camera becomes the villain and when those images juxtaposed on social media sites and TV channels, they work like deadly explosives to taint and tar the image of even those holy political cows.
In reality, no would believe that a pigmy like Imran Masood would dare to go after Narendra Modi with an axe or dagger in his hand. But the fact is that brazen and bizarre statements like “If Modi tried to make Uttar Pradesh into Gujarat, then we would chop him into tiny pieces… I am not scared of getting killed or attacking someone” create instant kind of revulsion and spread like wildfire across the board.
As expected, it did stir up the nation. BJP complained to EC and Imran Masood was arrested and sent to judicial custody. Congress Vice president Rahul Gandhi had to cancel his Saharanpur rally today. The Congress party spokesperson, defending Masood pointed out that Masood’s video was six months old and his remarks came at a time when he was with Samajwadi party and not in his current avatar as a Congress nominee. This kind of defence sounded absolutely frivolous as it amounted to saying that in the process of his induction into Congress, Masood underwent some kind of ritual purification whereby his slate was wiped clean and his past could not be held against him.
Secondly, the logical extension of this argument was that it was Masood’s record as a Samajwadi party leader rather than his private citizen qualification that made the Congress party put him as its Candidate in Saharanpur!!
The fact remains that this slur and tar has already stuck on him and the Congress party cannot duck and dodge this stigma. The Congress could have learnt a lesson from the BJP which could also not duck the fallout from Varun Gandhi’s alleged remark about Muslims a few years ago. It is a different matter that the case fell apart later and Varun Gandhi was acquitted at a time when the BJP top brass was left scrambling to contain the damage.
Election time is the opportune moment for many political turncoats and almost all of them try to wipe their political resume clean by the act of switching parties. Some of them do with a lot of fanfare like MJ Akbar but known Narendra Modi baiter like JD(U)’s Sabir Ali get crushed under their own baggage.
When Sabir Ali joined BJP, BJP President Rajnath Singh acted magnanimous by saying that “in a party, there are several people who come from other parties and accept its ideology and hence, there should be no objection”.
But Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi who had not forgotten Sabir Ali’s fulminations against the BJP on TV, raised the howler by tweeting against induction of expelled JD(U) leader Sabir Ali whom he called a “friend” of terrorist Yasin Bhatkal and mocked that Dawood Ibrahim could be the next entrant.
Terrorist Bhatkal friend joins BJP…soon accepting Dawood…,” Naqvi tweeted, hours after Ali was inducted into the party with much fanfare as it was seen as a boost to the BJP’s attempts to attract muslims.
“Whatever has happened today, I am pained and have already expressed my anguish in the party. Somewhere there has been a mistake committed by the party and the party needs to correct that by reversing the decision,” Naqvi said.
This raised a howl of protests from other leaders like Balbir Punj, Sangh Spokesperson Ram Madhav and sent the BJP leadership scrambling and scurrying for over and finally the BJP had to put his induction on hold.
By then however, the damage had been doene. Interestingly, Sabir Ali row came barely a week after the induction of Sri Ram Sene chief Pramod Muthalik in Karnataka. The entry was scrapped within hours after strong criticism from both within and outside the party as Muthalik had been involved in attack on women in pubs few years back.
The biggest takeaway from these two incidents is that political parties in India would not only have to be careful in opening their doors for political turncoats with non-too pleasant past, but also ensure that their past records and public pronouncements don’t land their present party into any kind of embarrassment and ignominy. Those tail-blazers would also have to constantly remind themselves that they are always watched and recorded and any of such quips and quotes could be put into rewind mode and played over and over again to put their head into mud.
(Posted on March 29, 2014 @ 10pm)
(Ajay N Jha is a veteran journalist from both Print and Electronic media. He is Advisor to Prasar Bharti. The views expressed are his personal. His email id is Ajay N Jha <ajayjha30@gmail.com> )
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