Congress general secretary (national) Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in Sanwer Assembly seat in Madhya Pradesh on Wednesday
By Our Special Correspondent
New Delhi, November 8: The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is seeking out emotional connections with the electorate in Madhya Pradesh on the Ram Temple construction plank. The Congress appears to have taken shelter with Hanuman to blunt the BJP’s Hindutva offensive on the Madhya Pradesh poll turf.
Congress general secretary (national) Priyanka Gandhi Vadra compared the BJP wresting power in Madhya Pradesh after a large scale defection from the party’s ranks to an act of ‘Ahiravan’. “Three and a half years ago, you had chosen a government. But that government was stolen just the way Ahiravan had kidnapped Ram and Lakshman and taken them to patallok,” said Vadra, while addressing a public meeting in Sanwer Assembly constituency in the state.
The BJP had returned to power in MP after losing the Assembly election to the Congress in the 2018 state poll. The rebellion by Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and the accompanying defection in the Congress legislature party in the state had helped the BJP form the government in MP with Shivraj Singh Chauhan as the chief minister.
“The government that you had chosen was kidnapped and taken to the corruption lok (abode). The democracy was stolen,” said Vadra, while further stating that it was “Hanuman who went to the patal lok to bring back Ram and Lakshaman after defeating Ahiravan”.
The Congress leader urged upon the people to act like “Hanuman and bring back the government that was stolen three and a half years ago”. Vadra held three public meetings in MP on Wednesday, while also holding a roadshow in Indore, which is considered to be the BJP’s pocketborough.
Incidentally, former MP CM Kamal Nath has been instrumental in the installation of a tall statue of Hanuman in his Chhindwara constituency. Nath had also hosted Baba Bageshwar, who tells stories of Lord Hanuman, while drawing mammoth crowds. With the Congress seeking to connect with the people through tales of Hanuman, the party is seen to be taking a guarded stance against the BJP’s ploy to reap electoral dividends from the inauguration of the Ram Temple on January 22.
The Congress had earlier complained to the Election Commission against the BJP for putting up large hoardings across the state of the Ram Temple alongside picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The BJP had hit out at the Congress for allegedly being a roadblock to the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya.
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