New Delhi: The 2014 Lok Sabha elections seem to have become one of the ugliest polls in the country with political leaders engaging in a no-holds barred slugfest with the opponents and using choicest of words that include mad, moron, murderer, dog, goon and slave.
The level of political discourse has gone down so low in the run up to the polls and during the campaigning that even several senior Union Ministers are using derogatory language. BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi looks to be the punching bag and has been facing most of the verbal abuse. However, Modi is also hitting back at opponents by questioning their patriotism and alleging that some of them were “agents of Pakistan”. Samajwadi Party leader and Uttar Pradesh Minister Azam Khan called Modi an elder brother of a “dog’s pup” while Congress leader and Union Minister Beni Prasad Verma dubbed the BJP Prime Ministerial candidate as the “biggest goon” of RSS.
He also called BJP chief Rajnath Singh as Modi’s “slave”. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi accused Modi’s government in Gujarat of “stealing” farmers’ land and charged the BJP with misusing money for schemes launched by the Congress-led UPA.
Without directly naming the Gujarat Chief Minister, Gandhi alluded that Modi works like “Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler” and attacked him for retaining “corrupt” ministers in his state cabinet while talking big about fighting corruption.
Modi often terms Rahul as “Shehzada” despite strong objections from Congress and attacked his mother and Congress president Sonia Gandhi over the Italian marines issue, questioning at whose behest they were given a chance to leave the country.
Congress candidate in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur, Imran Masood, stoked a controversy by threatening to “chop” Modi “into pieces”, a remark that landed him in jail after authorities took strong objection to it. Union Minister Salman Khurshid has described Modi as “impotent”. “We don’t accuse you(Modi) of killing people… Hamara aarop hai ki tum ‘napunsak’ (impotent) ho. (Our accusation is that you are impotent). You couldn’t stop the killers,” he said.
‘Napunsak’ is a term used for impotent men in Hindi. Agriculture Minister and NCP chief Sharad Pawar said Modi needs to be “treated in a mental hospital” for talking “rubbish”, while BSP candidate from Moradabad, Haji Yakub, termed the Gujarat Chief Minister a “barbarian”.
Addressing a rally in Jammu, Modi called Defence Minister A K Antony and Kejriwal “agents of Pakistan and enemy of India”.
Former Delhi chief minister and AAP leader Kejriwal courted controversy after he retweeted music director Vishal Dadlani’s contentious tweet apparently aimed at Congress vice- president Rahul Gandhi and Modi. (PTI)
