BJP's Gujarat campaign reveals how it inverted reality, built false narratives: CPI(M)

The CPI(Marxist) has alleged that the election campaign run by the BJP in Gujarat showed how the saffron party "inverted reality and built false narratives."

In the latest edition of party mouthpiece People's Democracy, the party has called the BJP campaign in Gujarat "vicious" stating that it gives an insight as to how the state became a laboratory for the Hindutva forces.

"Some of Amit Shah’s assertions in his election speeches have been startling for many outside Gujarat, but they reflect how the RSS-BJP have succeeded in inverting the reality and building a false narrative."

According to Shah, the communal pogrom against Muslims in 2002 was actually an instance of "rioters" being "taught a lesson."

"They were put down firmly by Narendra Modi who was the chief minister then. Since then, ‘permanent peace’ has been established in Gujarat. Peace of the graveyard as far as the Muslims are concerned," the editorial said.

Infographic | How SC/ST-dominated constituencies voted in Gujarat in 2017

The editorial also said that the BJP's campaign's common refrain was that the opposition parties support anti-national or anti-Gujarat forces, so translating the "defence of secularism and the rights into being soft on terrorism and therefore, anti-national."

"The current campaign echoes what has been the approach during the entire tenure of Modi as the chief minister – a continuous effort to conflate Pakistan and terrorism with the minorities and accusing the secular parties of minority appeasement and hence complicity with terror.

"All those who question this narrative are branded anti-national and anti-Gujarat," it said.

The editorial also said that the growth story in Gujarat has been distinctive for the emergence of the corporate-communal regime.

The party alleged that the "target" of the "communal campaign" were the Muslims.

"In the cities, there is a visible divide wherein the Muslim localities are in deplorable conditions deprived of basic civic facilities."

“The BJP is confident that its mix of toxic Hindutva propaganda and promises of more benefits to labharthis (beneficiaries) should be enough to get its way with the electorate."

"There is nothing to check the poisonous communal propaganda. It has become normalised because of the failure of the election commission to intervene and act against repeated violations of the model code of conduct in previous assembly elections and the Lok Sabha elections of 2019 when Narendra Modi and Amit Shah were the culprits," it said.