No Modi, not again! Gujaratis not ready to be duped again, send strong message to BJP

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appears to be facing a credibility crisis in its Gujarat bastion as far as poll promises go. This is getting reflected on ground in the form of protests that the Gujarat government and the party are facing during its ongoing Gujarat Gaurav Yatra.

The opposition, in the form of political parties like the Congress as well as social groups, are also taking to social media in a big way to play up the resentment of the masses.

After the 'Vikas gando thayo chhe' (Vikas aka development has gone berserk) and the 'Mara haala chhetri gaya' (I have been duped), there is yet another social media campaign launched by the BJP detractors. This time the target is none other than former Gujarat chief minister and the present prime minister Narendra Modi himself.

This campaign is in the form of a song that has the tagline 'Aavya paacha chhetrva' (He has come back to dupe). It has several images of Modi with the song being played in the background.

The song talks about various promises that Modi has been making to the people of Gujarat over the last 16 years without delivering on them and is about the people having always come to listen to what he has been saying and believing in it only to get disillusioned.

It ends with the line 'Have ame nathi chhetrashu, jav jav tame nahin smbhalva' (We will not get duped now. Please go away we will not listen to you now). The song is going viral like the previous two campaigns.

The song reminds Gujarat of all the promises that Modi made right from improving education and health facilities in the state to improving things for the farmers and bringing about the Goods and Services Tax (GST). It also touches on subjects like people dying without oxygen in hospitals while Modi talked of providing affordable health care, the issue of gauraksha etc. There is also a reference to Modi's tall claims ahead of the last Assembly polls on building one lakh houses under the affordable housing scheme.

The song says that people never got what was promised to them and now Modi has been making trips to his home state on the eve of the Assembly polls once again with new promises.

Brains behind the campaign

While people are attributing the campaign to the opposition Congress party, party spokesperson Manish Doshi told Catch –

“Like the previous two campaigns this is also something started by the common people. The Congress only supports the public sentiment.”

“The truth is that the people took Modi's promises on face value for all these years. This reached its pinnacle when the BJP, under Modi, won all the 26 Lok Sabha seats in the 2014 Parliamentary polls. Before that, the people had elected him into power in the state with a landslide win on three consecutive occasions. The question is what now?” Doshi asked.

“The people are angry at being cheated and not given what was promised to them. On top of this, there is an attempt to strangulate their voice when they are raising it against the injustice done to them,” he added.

Please keep calm...

One can see the desperate attempts being made by the Gujarat government to convey that there has been no attrition in the public support for the BJP all over social media. One just has to look at the tweets coming from the accounts of the Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and other top functionaries that are full of pictures of large crowds welcoming and participating in the ongoing Gujarat Gaurav Yatra.

But at the same time, there are videos circulating that reflect the anger of various groups against the state government. There is a video where people are seen forcing government functionaries to take down the banners of Gujarat Gaurav Yatra amidst a hostile crowd.

There is another video showing Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel addressing people at a venue where chairs lie strewn on the floor and chaos all around.

Things have come to a pass that the BJP leaders are having to speak amidst hostile crowds that reach the Gujarat Gaurav Yatra venues to create a scene. They are left with no other option but to continue with their speeches while chaos rules.

There have been attempts to counter the onslaught against the BJP on social media with the party supporters circulating videos of the Congress vice president 'accidentally' entering a ladies' toilet during his recent Gujarat visit but it has not taken off.

“Modi has always sold dreams to the masses but all that was done was showcasing of a few cities while the plight of those in the rural and tribal areas remained ignored. While one comes across posh localities, swanky malls and hotels with all the latest amenities in certain parts of cities like Surat, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Rajkot and Bhuj, the picture in some of the tribal and rural areas remains dismal. And this is something which the media too has never presented for the obvious reasons. All this has culminated into the anger on display,” pointed out a political observer based in Ahmedabad.

In such a scenario, the golden question that still needs to be answered is that whether this anger will get converted into votes or whether Modi will once again be able to sell more dreams and get the people again on his side?

Edited by Jhinuk Sen