(Image source from: How Modi and BJP is fooling Election Commission everyday?})
Much ado was made after BJP's prime ministerial prospective, Narendra Modi tweeted a selfie — displaying his inked finger and waving a white lotus — as well as addressed the press after casting his vote on Wednesday — something that stood in clear breach of Election Commission's model code of conduct.
Although a lot of hullabaloo was made, with EC registering two FIRs against NaMo — under sections 126- 1(a) 126- 1(b) of the Representatives of People's Act for holding up the party symbol while addressing a press conference — know that this isn't the first time when the BJP or its PM candidate have transgressed EC norms.
While EC was busy hosting elections in spaced phases across the country, both Modi and his party ensured that they drew buzz and dominated headlines, every day of the elections. If you take a closer look at each election day over the past month, you will be shocked to see how Modi generated maximum publicity. After all, the key strategy for NaMo and BJP this elections seem to be the popular filmy saying: “Jo dikhta hai, wo bikta hai.”
On the first day of polling on 7 April, the BJP went ahead and hosted a massive press conference to launch its manifesto. It was the same day when constituencies in Assam and Tripura went to the polls. Despite Congress throwing a fit, the event was telecasted live across channels.
Again on 9 April, when the north-eastern states of Mizoram, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh went to the polls, the BJP prime ministerial candidate filed his nomination in Vadodara after an enormous road show in Gujarat. He also grabbed headlines the day after, after he acknowledged being married to Jashodaben for the first time ever in a poll affidavit. This unlikely, untimely scandal wasn't something that Modi or the BJP would have wanted to handle at the hour, given the upshot. Nevertheless, they did and it earned them huge press.
On 17 April, when all of Rajasthan, Karnataka, and parts of Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh went to the polls, Modi dominated all news once again, thanks to the interview that he had given to a news agency a day earlier. And then on 24 April when parts of Maharashtra, including Mumbai, West Bengal, all of Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh and Assam went to the polls, the BJP's prime ministerial candidate hosted a gargantuan road show in Varanasi and filed his nomination. The entire roadshow was telecasted live by national television channels even as parts of Uttar Pradesh were in polls.
While Modi naively defended his 30 April action by saying that he didn't point a gun at people, but merely a lotus. "I will never forget April 30. One can understand if someone points (threatens with) a knife, a pistol or a gun (and FIR is registered). But do you know why a FIR was registered against me? Because I showed a lotus to the people," he defended himself during one of his recent campaign rallies. But are we to fall for it?
With most political parties now familiar with the Election Commission's doings and workings, have devised ways to manipulate its strategies. For example, parties now make strategic leaks on internal or doctored opinion/exit polls in the early phases of polling to impact voting trends in the later phases.
Parties have deluged an already overloaded Election Commission with so many code of conduct violations that now it doesn't know where to start and how. Politicians have pushed the tolerance of the Commission and some like Mamata Banerjeeeven chastised it to play a victim card ahead of WB polling.
While the BJP's prime ministerial candidate has flatly denied all charges of consciously and prominently displaying his party's symbol at a live televised press conference, the truth is something else. If you are still wondering the "purpose" of it all, understand that all the hype and hoopla holds the key to the election win. The real idea behind so much of media exposure is to seep deep into the subconscious of the voters so that they will instinctively vote for “lotus” when they stand in front of an EVM on election day.
Given that the display of the party symbol wasn't as innocent as the BJP's prime ministerial candidate claims, it is time for the EC to deal with such defeated code of conduct with an iron hand so that the naïve voters can't be misled into voting just because someone has more media presence than other, or should we say, a better PR strategist?
AW: Suchorita Choudhury
