With the heat of the election campaign at its height the BJP is not ready to let go even a “single” word that is uttered by Opposition leaders.
This also underlines the fact that every politician must chose his words extremely carefully this election season lest it come back to haunt him or her.
Recently what’s snowballing in the political arena is the word “Shakti”.
It has become a bone of contention between both BJP and Congress.
It is interesting to see how the BJP has been able to completely overturn the meaning in which probably Rahul Gandhi used it, as he and Congress have tried to clarify, but then the damage has already been done.
No other than Prime Minister Modi himself has castigated Rahul for having used the word and has taken the opportunity to champion the cause of women of India and declare himself as the protector and saviour of Indian women, for whom he was ready to lay down his life.
Modi has made scathing attacks on Rahul Gandhi for having used the word “Shakti” and that he wants to destroy Shakti.
Modi has also declared that the coming elections are going to be pitted as a fight between “those who worship Shakti, versus those who want to destroy it”.
Clearly Prime Minister Modi was using the term of Shakti as denoting woman power.
Everyone knows that in the Hindu pantheon “Shakti” is used to denote the primordial female creative power of the Universe, as against the male principle of Shiv. There are number of female deities who are worshiped as part of Shakti puja in India.
Women are considered to be representative of “Shakti” and we talk of “Nari Shakti” or woman power as a significant part of our national discourse.
On the day when the Nyay Yatra of Rahul Gandhi had ended, and he addressed the massive rally of the INDIA alliance in Mumbai he used the word “Shakti.”
He said, We are fighting against one Shakti. Question is, what is that power? …A senior leader, whom he did not name. who left Congress party had told Soniaji crying that he was ashamed that he did not have the courage to fight.. these people … this power, I do not want to go to jail… there are thousands of people who have been instilled with fear…”
Many people of different parties, he said,have left and joined BJP not just like that, but because the “shakti” or power, which he talked about led them towards BJP by the scruff of their necks.
Clearly, Rahul Gandhi was not using this term “Shakti” as woman power.
The word Shakti, he used as he has later clarified was like used by lay men, where the term means “power” without any religious connotations.
However, his mistake was probably that he prefaced his statement with the words, “Hindu dharma mein ek shabd hota hai shakti”( There is a word in Hindu dharma – Shakti).
If he had said there was a word in Hindi called Shakti that may not have resulted in this kind of a response but using the word Hindu Dharma, gave BJP the chance to say that Rahul Gandhi used it as it is used in Hindu Dharma, denoting woman power.
The BJP not to lose the opportunity to attack Rahul Gandhi gave an interesting spin to the story by making Rahul Gandhi, the villain who wanted to destroy “Shakti” or women of India.
They alleged that Rahul wanted to fight women of India and Prime Minister Modi went on to say that he would never allow it.
But as Rahul Gandhi and Congress later clarified Rahul was speaking against and wanted to fight against the “power” which was misusing agencies like Enforcement Directorate and Central Bureau of Investigation and other institutions to serve its interests.
He was berating those who were misusing their seats of power.
Rahul Gandhi and Congress have also clarified that the words are being misconstrued, mis-interpreted and taken out of context.
The question is why Rahul Gandhi or for that matter any politician would speak against the women of India openly in a public meeting just before elections knowing fully well that in a few days he would be seeking their precious votes. No politician who has any political ambitions can afford to antagonise the women.
Rahul Gandhi and Congress have clarified that he did not mean the word shakti in the kind of interpretation or twist that was being given to it by the BJP. But the word is such a loaded word that naturally in the election scenario BJP could not have let it go unnoticed.
Rahul Gandhi has tweeted in social media X in Hindi, stating that “Modi ji does not like my words, he always tries to change their meaning by twisting them in some way or the other because he knows that I have spoken a deep truth.”
He has said “The ‘shakti’ (power) that I mentioned, and we are fighting against, Modi ji is the mask of that power.”
The entire constitutional structure including India’s voice and institutions including CBI, ED, Income Tax, media and industry among others were in the clutches of that power, he said.
Clearly the power he means here is not women power. Rahul said, Prime Minister Narendra Modi waives off the loans of those who have taken loans worth thousands of crores from Indian banks, while an Indian farmer commits suicide when he is unable to repay a loan of a few thousand rupees.
Rahul Gandhi’s target is those who benefit from getting their thousands of crores of loans being waived off by banks.
Naturally, he is pointing towards crony capitalism and the nexus between political establishment and business figures. He is speaking out against the power and influence they wield over the government and its institutions.
He also alleges that “same power is given India’s ports, India’s airports, while India’s youth is given the gift of ‘Agniveer’ that breaks their courage.”
He alleges that the media salutes the same power and suppresses truth.
To make that power stronger country’s wealth is auctioned and GST is imposed on the poor of the country, without controlling the inflation, he adds.
In his clarification, Rahul Gandhi has said, “I recognise that power and so does Narendra Modi ji. It is not any kind of religious power, it is the power of unrighteousness, corruption and falsehood.”
In view of the twist given to a secular term Shakti by the BJP, Congress has also tried to reply in the same coin by stating that the elections will decide whether the country would be run by ‘Asuri Shakti’ (demonic power) or ‘Daivik Shakti’ (divine power).
This controversy has come soon after another on “parivarvad” when in response to Opposition leader Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad’s comment that the PM had no family, Narendra Modi had gone onto say that every poor person in India is his family.
All BJP leaders started appending “Modi Ka Parivar”to their social media handles.
The moral is to weigh every word before you utter in public.
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