Michael Vaz
With few days left for the voting in Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the campaigning is witnessing an unprecedented passion unheralded perhaps in Indian electioneering, with the party-men of both the ruling dispensation and the opposition sparing no means to prove their point and attacking the other at times stooping to a new low in political legacy. What we find extremely unacceptable is the way these parties are using religion as the trump card to seek advantage over their adversaries.
Ever since the campaigning has taken off, we are seeing Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi making a beeline to the various temples in Gujarat, may not be so much to seek the blessings of the deity but to please the religious-savvy electorate. Just take a peep at what happened in the Somnath temple where Rahul Gandhi along with Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel had visited the shrine.
Rahul Gandhi’s name was registered as non-Hindu in the temple registry. The BJP was quick to capitalise on this issue and proclaimed that the Congress Vice President was not a Hindu. Rahul Gandhi retorted saying that he need not show the certificate of his religion to anyone and that his parents and grandmother were Shiv bhakts. Some Congressmen even displayed photographs of the Gandhi family marrying in traditional Hindu culture. Congress leader Kapil Sibal went a step further and challenged that Modi is not a real Hindu and in fact has quit Hinduism to embrace Hindutva.
Where are we heading to? Are we in the realm of governance or only browbeating on the paradigm of religion? After all who is interested in anyone’s religion! Does the Constitution of India stipulate that a person should be of any particular creed to hold any position in government? Objecting strongly to such state of affairs we strongly suggest that no matter what is the political standing of a person no importance should be attached to his religious affiliations. For that matter there is no need to create hype on any politicians’ visit to the religious places.
People are interested in the governance and not in their visits to places of worship. It wouldn’t be wrong to assert that all constitutional functionaries should ensure that they do not disclose anything in public to showcase their religious attachment. People like Yogi Adityanath, Uma Bharati and their ilk should have a second thought on their religious-centric dress code.
