Congress survey claims people blame BJP for politicisation of airstrikes
Take it with a pinch of salt but a survey conducted by the Congress party suggests that over 50 per cent people feel the IAF strikes in Pakistan’s Balakot were politicised. Of these, 80 per cent believe that it was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which politicised it.
Over 92 per respondents are not in the favour of this politicisation, found the survey.
The survey, conducted by the data analytics department of the party, covered five lakh voters across six states — Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.
The department chairman, Praveen Chakravarty, says, “I can say with confidence that a very large survey clearly tells me that a large majority of people are unhappy with the politicisation of the IAF operations and this will not significantly alter voting behaviour in favour of the BJP.”
It was these survey results that prompted Congress president Rahul Gandhi to resume his attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the alleged scam in the Rafale deal.
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Narendra Modi’s unique connection with V.K. Singh
Many in the BJP are pointing to the party’s campaign coincidences featuring V.K. Singh, minister of state for external affairs, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In mid-September 2013, Modi, then Gujarat chief minister, kicked off his prime ministerial campaign with a rally of ex-servicemen in Haryana’s Rewari. It was the first public event Modi attended after being anointed the BJP’s PM candidate. Also present on the dais and addressing the rally was Singh, a former army chief.
Now, with his current term as PM about to finish and Lok Sabha elections due to be announced any day, Modi is scrambling to finish a spate of last-minute official events. One of his last public events as PM before the model code of conduct kicks in is Friday’s rally and function in Ghaziabad where he will inaugurate various development projects. In a coincidence, Singh will be present on the stage along with Modi even at this event, given it is in his parliamentary constituency.
The BJP MP who has appeared most with Modi in last few days
The one BJP politician who seems to have got maximum public time with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the final days before the announcement of Lok Sabha polls is Tamil Nadu MP Pon Radhakrishnan.
The MP was on the stage with the PM during his rally in Tamil Nadu’s Kanyakumari last week. He was among the politicians on stage when the PM addressed a big NDA rally in Kancheepuram Wednesday. And then on Thursday, when Modi released a new series of visually impaired friendly coins in Delhi, it was Radhakrishnan who flanked the PM, along with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
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(Contributors: Neelam Pandey and Ruhi Tewari)