BJP, Congress sound poll bugle

The context was Amit Shah's visit to Ayodhya and his announcement earlier in the day that a grand temple of Lord Ram would be built in Ayodhya soon

At least a part of the stage for the upcoming elections in the states and the 2014 general elections was set today as a delighted Congress lambasted the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for reviving the Ram Janmabhumi campaign, triumphantly asserting that the BJP’s divisive agenda was now out in the open, for all to see and evaluate. 

 

The context was Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's aide and BJP's Uttar Pradesh in-charge, Amit Shah’s visit to Ayodhya and his announcement earlier in the day that a grand temple of Lord Ram would be built in Ayodhya soon. 

 

Shah, who visited the Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya, said that he had come to offer his prayers to Lord Ram. 

 

'It is a center of faith for crores of Hindus. I have prayed that there should be good governance in the country and it should be freed of the Congress. I have also prayed that we should all together build a grand temple for Lord Ram here as soon as possible,' Shah said. 

 

The Samajwadi Party (SP) was a little slow to react but the Congress wasted no time in saying ‘we told you so’. 

 

Fastest on the draw was Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid who said the BJP had raised this issue several times, and that it couldn’t mislead the nation any more. 

 

'They have raised this not once, but many a time. They have even formed the government after that. Why didn't they do it when their government was at the Centre? And the second thing is that this matter is before the Supreme Court. One can move ahead only after getting the Supreme Court's orders,' said Khurshid. 

 

'People have become clever now and they won't be misled,' he added. 

 

Congress General secretary Madhusudan Mistri has been warning reporters at party briefings that the BJP had and would continue to have a divisive agenda. Finance Minister P Chidambaram had also alluded to the communal leanings of Narendra Modi, virtually saying that it was a matter of time: the BJP’s liberal, good governance façade slipped and its real agenda revealed. 

 

Behind the statements war was a strategy: the BJP knows that if it can divide the minorities between the dominant Samajwadi Party and the Congress in UP, it could benefit from the resultant polarisation. Amit Shah’s statement was the first step in this direction. By referring to good governance and the Ram temple in the same breath, Shah indicated the political argument that the BJP was going to adopt in UP: promise good governance with a positive bias towards the majority to polarise the communities but also divide the minorities between the Congress and SP. 

 

This will have the effect of neutralising the pan-India issues of high prices, mismanagement of the economy and corruption that LK Advani supporters have been arguing, are more potent issues than whether the Ram temple should or should not be built.