Modi wields corruption, nepotism sticks for 2024 polls
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, August 15: Sporting a safa with brushes of tricolor, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Independence Day speech sought to arm the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party to go after the regional parties for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections by building the plank against nepotism, as he linked it with corruption.
Modi stuck to predictable themes in the Independence Day speech, touching nationalist and social fervours with Tiranga campaign and a call to weed out all forms of abuses, including verbal and non-verbal, against women.
If Modi began sounding predictable, he sprung his prowess to deliver sharp political message and set the narrative for the next few years.
He linked nepotism and corruption, as deformities of Indian democracy.
The target obviously is regional parties, who are the foremost patrons of nepotism in politics, as they have turned the identity-based political parties into family-owned enterprises.
Modi sought a stronger response from the people against nepotism by arguing that the malaise has now infected every institution in the country.
The prime minister sought a social hatred for corruption and nepotism.
Nepotism denies opportunity, and there are some who have looted so much that they don’t have space to hide the loot, said Modi.
Nepotism and corruption plank is likely to resonate well on the back of the Enforcement Directorate’s overdrive to pack jails with political leaders as seen in West Bengal and Maharashtra.
While the BJP went past the 300 mark in the Lok sabha by decimating the Congress in the northern and western states, the saffron outfit’s ambition to scale past the 400 wall has regional parties as roadblocks in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, and Tamil Nadu.
Modi wishes that the BJP shouldn’t give any breathing space to the Congress, as he without taking names said “there are some who are facing corruption charges and also actions by courts are being glorified” in a clear reference to the main Opposition party’s hitting the street against the interrogations of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.
The prime minister wants to beat the Congress with the corruption stick as that has been seen to be applauded by the people with vigour.
By giving a social call to weed out all forms of abuse against women, while also asserting that they would help India grow manifold in the next 25 years, Modi has sought to further cement his appeal among the half population constituency of the country.
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