Fake news and CBI signal it's election time

Fake videos about attacks on Bihari migrants in TN is an attempt to show that the JD(U)-RJD alliance is incapable of protecting these migrants

What links the fake news about Bihari migrants being ‘hanged’ for speaking Hindi in Tamil Nadu and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) questioning former Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi, mother of Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav? The onset of the 2024 general election.

The first attempts to show that the current government in Bihar (led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Yadav) is incapable of protecting Bihari migrants working in other states. The second, by putting pressure on the Janata Dal (United)-Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) alliance, is a bid to break it.

It may not be a coincidence that the fake news about the alleged killing of migrants began to circulate a day after a grand event organised by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) that was attended by several Opposition luminaries, including Yadav. Calls were made for a united front against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2024. The Tamil Nadu Police has claimed that its preliminary findings point to definite ‘political motives’ for the rapid spread of ‘fake’ news reports and videos.

Also Read | Tamil Nadu migrants: 11 cases filed against those who spread fake news

The Tamil Nadu Police may have good reason to believe that. The fake narratives were spread largely through the social media handles of BJP leaders. Media reports have pointed that besides the BJP Bihar state unit’s official twitter, the involvement of several BJP members from Bihar is evident such as Saharsa MLA Alok Ranjan, Bihpur MLA Kumar Shailendra, MLC and general secretary of the Bihar BJP Devesh Kumar, Harsiddhi MLA Krishnanand Paswan, and party spokesperson Prashant Umrao. Umrao’s tweet was particularly egregious because he claimed that 12 Bihari migrants had been ‘hanged’ to death for speaking in Hindi, and posted it alongside a picture of Yadav with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin!

In addition, media platforms such as Dainik Bhaskar, ABP Bihar, Punjab Kesari, among others used the same unverified and fake videos as the BJP leaders did on their social media accounts, to misrepresent the situation in Tamil Nadu.

Despite appeals by Stalin and the state police, the fake videos continued to circulate and created a political ruckus in both Tamil Nadu and Bihar. The issue was raised in the Bihar Assembly, Stalin spoke to his counterpart Kumar in Bihar to assure him that the migrant workers were safe, and Kumar even sent a four-member team to Tamil Nadu to assess the situation which met the migrants as well as local officials.

Also Read | Ulterior political motive behind fake videos on migrants: CM

The Tamil Nadu government also booked Dainik Bhaskar, Prashant Umrao and a Bihar-based journalist Mohammad Tanveer, for spreading the false reports and circulating fake videos. Tamil Nadu BJP Chief K Annamalai was booked after he claimed that the ruling DMK, especially its treatment of North Indians, was responsible for the spread of fake news about the migrant workers.

There are about 1 million migrant workers employed in Tamil Nadu. Of these nearly half are concentrated in northern Tamil Nadu in Thiruvallur, Chennai, and Chengalpattu. The other half are employed in the manufacturing hubs of Tirupur, Coimbatore, and Erode. There are reports that many migrant workers, who received the fake videos on their mobile phones, left for their home states. It is difficult to disaggregate those who left for celebrating Holi and those who have gone home out of fear induced by the false and mischievous videos and social media posts. If the migrant workers do not return in significant numbers after Holi, then Tamil Nadu’s industrial and manufacturing sector could be adversely affected.

In the case of Rabri Devi’s alleged corruption, the CBI seems to have suddenly woken up to her alleged involvement in a more than a decade-old land-for-jobs scam — Lalu Prasad was then minister for railways between 2004 and 2009. Her son Yadav is putting up a combative front saying, "If you fight with the BJP, if you question the BJP, if you show them the mirror, these things will happen. What's new? … Examples of Ajit Pawar in Maharashtra and Mukul Roy in West Bengal bear testimony to the fact that political figures in the country come under attack, or get reprieve, from central agencies based upon their stance against the BJP.”

The BJP is apprehensive that the Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) of the JD(U), the RJD, the Congress, and the Left parties would stymie its chances in Bihar. Bihar is one of the North Indian states that the BJP is likely to find itself in a tough spot — as well as in Jharkhand, and Maharashtra. In the 2019 general elections, the BJP had 90 of the 102 seats in these states along with its allies. On its own the BJP had only 51. As its political alliances have come unstuck in these states, there is no immediate prospect of the party reaching that number on its own in 2024.

So, the BJP seems to have adopted a two-fold strategy: to consolidate the Hindu (and Hindi-speaker) vote in Bihar and Jharkhand, and to break political alliances formed against it in these states. The campaign based on the fake videos would project the BJP as the true protector of the Hindi-speaking migrant workers. Since the BJP’s electoral prospects in Tamil Nadu are limited at best, the real target seems to be the Bihar and Jharkhand voters. To its arsenal of Hindu-Muslim polarisation, the BJP has now seems to have added the language issue.

The other state likely to see action against the alliances of Opposition parties is Maharashtra. It is by no means certain that the recent BJP successes in splitting the Shiv Sena and bringing down the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government of the Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), and the Congress will pay the required dividends in 2024. Therefore, one might see other socially divisive shenanigans and targeting of MVA leaders in a bid to break that alliance in the coming months.

(Bharat Bhushan is a senior journalist.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.