By Arun Srivastava
Trying to arouse the sub regional feeling, exploit the sensibilities of the local people towards Sachin Pilot and more than this to feast on the factional differences at the top in Rajasthan Congress, Vishwaguru Narendra Modi came up with the most nonsensical lie. A master of manipulation and half-truths, Modi claimed that the late Congress leader Rajesh Pilot had supported rebel Jitendra Prasad, when the latter contested elections against Sonia Gandhi for the Congress presidency in November 2000. Rajesh Pilot had dared to challenge the authority of the Gandhi family.
According to Modi, this has been the reason that even today Sachin Pilot continues to be punished by Gandhi family. Modi said: “Rajesh Pilot challenged the Congress just once, for its own good. He failed but this family is such that it not only punished Rajesh-ji, but is also punishing his son.” In a normal situation, his speech writer should be blamed for this ignominious lie. But being the prime minister, and in fact being in power for over two decades now, he ought to have checked if his accusations were factually correct. But in his desperation to feed the people with disinformation, he preferred to take recourse to utter fabrications.
To put the facts straight, Rajesh Pilot had contested the election for the post of Congress president in 1997 against Sitaram Kesari, but lost. It can well be mentioned that in1971, the then young Turk face of the Congress, Chandra Shekhar, had contested the election for the membership to the CWC, much against the caution of Indira Gandhi. Contesting election for the party post is certainly the sign of healthy democratic functioning.
Modi twisted and obliterated the historical fact by emphatically saying that Rajesh Pilot had supported the rebel Jitendra Prasad, when the latter contested the elections against Sonia Gandhi for the Congress presidency in November 2000. This is nothing but the worst kind of lie. Rajesh had died in a road accident in June 2000. That Modi can use a late Congress leader’s name to besmirch not only Sonia Gandhi but also the Pilot family itself, shows how out of serious campaign ideas the prime minister happens to be at present.
Of course, in 2020, Sachin Pilot had made an unsuccessful bid to revolt against Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot, and since then the BJP has been trying to fish in the troubled waters of Rajasthan Congress. But as the assembly election has entered into a decisive phase, Modi, who has staked his image in the Rajasthan election, has resorting to all kind of falsehoods.
For him, the basic reason for speaking lies is he cannot offer an alternative. He is following in the footsteps of Joseph Goebbels, the infamous Nazi-era propaganda minister of Adolf Hitler, who said speak a lie hundred times and people would ultimately subscribe to it as true. Modi has nothing concrete to offer to the people. True enough, his only mission is to prepare the ground for changing the character and identity of the country: from a democratic republic to a theocratic Hindu Rashtra. There is no place for truth in this path.
If he starts speaking the truth, the entire philosophical and political edifice of the RSS and BJP would crumble. He would be denied the advantage of insinuating that the Congress and Nehru-Gandhi Raj weakened India, shaking the foundation of the saffron political ecosystem. For example, Modi is not tired of claiming that he has finished off terrorism in the country, but the data of his own government speaks the opposite. Incidentally, only during last fortnight, some army officers became the victims of terrorist attacks.
People have been using the phrase “Entire Political Science” to explain his ignorance of history. In 2014, he had brought Taxila to Bihar. The list of the lies is quite long. He announced a grand stimulus ‘package’ that he claimed was worth Rs 20 lakh crore or ‘10 per cent’ of India’s GDP. But barely a fraction of this money was pumped into the economy. The so called stimulus simply turned out to be mirage and part of a grand loan mela. During the Covid pandemic outbreak, he had announced to pay train fares for the desolate and hungry migrant labourers. There’s barely any data on how many labourers indeed benefitted. Of course, after the government found it untenable to implement the promise, it said it was paying 85 per cent of the fare and the state governments were paying the rest of the 15 per cent. Truth was that the 85 per cent was simply notional subsidy; as expected, the migrants were made to pay the usual fare.
Another glaring example has been his stand on National Register of Citizens, which he had equivocated about while Amit Shah was ready with the shamefully discriminatory scheme. The revelations of former Jammu and Kashmir governor Satya Pal Malik, who has demanded a Supreme Court-monitored investigation into the Pulwama terror attack of 2019, which led to the avoidable deaths of 40 CRPF soldiers, question Modi’s credibility and expose how he cynically exploited the terror incident for electoral gains. The written statement by the Union minister of state for home affairs on December 19, 2018 in the Lok Sabha exposes the lies of Modi. At least 872 terrorist attacks took place in Jammu & Kashmir, 1366 acts of terrorism in the North-East and 3045 acts of terrorism involving Naxalites during this period.
There is no denying that Modi is a remorseless liar. Apart from his original empty promises, that of Rs. 15 lakhs in every citizen’s family account, return of black money, creation of 2 crore jobs, he has been uttering only falsehoods all this time. In 2016, he said that if demonetisation didn’t work, he would quit in 50 days. This is 2023. He still is PM. He said black money stashed overseas has been brought back. Recently, it has been revealed that there are Indian funds worth Rs. 20,700 crores in Swiss banks. Deposits of blackmoney in foreign banks is constantly on the increase, notwithstanding Modi’s abysmal claims. Never before Modi, India had a pathological liar as the prime minister. He has to hide behind lies and this is the basic trait of an autocrat. (IPA Service)
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