Relentless Attempts To Defame India’s Prime Minister Modi – OpEd

During the last several months before the recent parliamentary election and during the parliamentary election campaign and in the subsequent weeks after the declaration of results, opposition parties in India, who named themselves as INDI group, with clear objective of defaming and defeating Modi, have been carrying out well planned relentless attacks with falsehood to defame Prime Minister Modi.

Obviously, these opposition parties thought that the only way they could defeat Bharatiya Janata Party was to weaken Prime Minister Modi by constantly abusing him in person. Several abusive terms were used freely against Modi such as” thief”, “merchant of death,” “dictator”, “arrogant” and so many other unprintable derogatory remarks. Even the elderly mother of Modi was not spared, while using abusive terms. Prime Minister Modi has, by and large, tried to ignore such kind of campaign to the extent possible, though at times during his election campaign ,expressed his annoyance about such methods of opposition parties.

Now that number of parliamentary seats won by BJP during the recent election is less than the seats won during the earlier elections, the opposition parties, particularly Congress party, seem to be convinced that their abusive campaign against Modi has paid them much dividend. They seem to have decided that such vicious campaign to further weaken Modi’s image and popularity must continue.

Several political researchers have been examining various factors to conclude as to what caused the comparatively poor performance of Modi’s party in the recent elections. Most of them seem to have concluded that the abusive campaign against Modi carried out in public meetings and in social media such as X platform, Instagram, TikTok , Facebook and YouTube have considerably helped the opposition parties to make section of voters turn against Modi.

Further, several political researchers seem to be of the view that several false accusations were made against Modi such as that Modi would destroy the constitution, Modi would withdraw the job reservation in government and reservation in educational institutions for those people described as “scheduled caste, scheduled tribe” and so on. In addition, some opposition parties including Congress made false promises such as Nyay Promise to provide Rs.1 lakh per year to poor women. Though anyone with rudimentary knowledge of economics know that such cash promise is impossible to provide considering the financial implications for the government, Congress party and allies even went to the extent of providing guarantee letters in writing in thousands to the poor women.

Now that Modi has assumed power again as Prime Minister and with the commencement of parliamentary sessions, it appears that the opposition parties are determined to stall the proceedings and prevent the discussions by raising all sorts of issues , to convey an impression to the public that Modi government is having confrontation attitude and do not want to yield to the demand of the opposition parties at any cost. As a matter of fact, yesterday Sonia Gandhi has attacked Modi personally by stating that Modi is undermining democracy and dignity, while accusing Modi of coercing opposition leaders. Discerning observers know that all such allegations are false.

Now, it appears that the opposition parties will use every “opportunity” to abuse Modi in person in the coming days and disrupt the parliamentary proceedings under one pretext or the other.

In India, media are largely owned by business houses with profit motive or political parties with vested interests. Media, whether print media or visual media, give undue publicity to the mindless abusive language used by the opposition parties against Modi, as they seem to be of the view that this would increase their readership / viewership and help them to achieve their objective. It has become increasingly rare to hear sane voices in the media these days.

Now, where could Indian politics go from here?

The track record of Prime Minister Modi during the last ten years has been very impressive by all accounts. India’s stature in the world forums have gone up significantly. Foreign exchange reserves have reached record level. Several infrastructure projects are being carried out with high speed. Several schemes have been introduced to promote industrial growth, economic development and social upliftment. But, these positives are not highlighted in the media adequately and are totally ignored by the opposition parties.

Possibly, before long, the opposition parties will realise that their abusive personal campaign against Modi would provide only short term gains and would become counter productive before long. When such negative abusive campaign continue endlessly, people would feel frustrated and become tired.

As Prime Minister Modi will stand his ground in such conditions and continue to move on to achieve the goal of building a strong India, it is likely that the opposition parties will lose the steam sooner than later, as they have nothing to offer except abusive language