BJP's attack on Rahul Gandhi likely to get sharper

AHMEDABAD: The Somnath temple visit controversy may be the latest to flare up but is not the first instance where BJP has attacked Rahul Gandhi since the Gujarat election campaigning picked up pace. The ruling party has gone beyond making fun of the Congress VP now to raking up old issues posing questions on his nationalism stating that he is visiting temples for electoral gains and even raising eyebrows about why he has not visited a mosque. In the past BJP targeted the Congress leader mainly to take jibes at him and brand him as a naive and reluctant politician. There is an ostensible change in the BJP strategy in the Gujarat election where he is the primary focus of the party s attack. This move has been visible since Gandhi s address at Berkeley US and serious campaigning in Gujarat subsequently. His imminent elevation to the post of Congress president may also be a trigger. BJP has been flying down Union ministers to Ahmedabad to hold press interactions mainly aimed at slamming Gandhi. Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman came down to pose five questions to the Congress leader. These pertained to the National Herald case the Doklam standoff and his meeting with the Chinese ambassador and the Congress calling the surgical strike khoon ki dalaali . Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad held a press conference in Ahmedabad on November 28 where he raked up Gandhi s purported statement in 2009 to the then US ambassador Timothy Roemer that Hindu terror was a bigger worry than LeT. After the surgical strike last year Prasad said Gandhi had asked for proof. PM Modi who in the past elections took jibes at Rahul calling him Shehzada and BJP chief Amit Shah have also gone beyond rhetoric and questioned the Congress leader s stand on certain issues. BJP began its campaign against Gandhi during the Gujarat polls by raising eyebrows about his visit to temples. It sought to emphasise that he was doing so only for electoral benefits. Prasad even said Rahul Gandhi did not know how to perform aarti in a temple. BJP has been closely watching Gandhi s yatras speeches and the response to his rallies. His criticism of GST which he termed as gabbar singh tax and his charge that there had been no conspicuous development in Gujarat got wide publicity leading Union ministers and even the PM to counter it. BJP did not face any worthwhile challenge from Gandhi before the Gujarat elections as he would make a splash and then go off the radar. His frequent holidaying gave ample space to the ruling party to breathe easy. He left many agitations like the farmers protest in Mandsaur in MP a few months back when they were gathering momentum. However the Congress VP has been consistent in the Gujarat elections till now. His new social media team has taken on BJP effectively and there have been few faux pas too. His newfound seriousness in campaigning the traction his Navsarjan Yatra received his refusal to get drawn into efforts to polarise the election his visit to temples have all been a matter of concern for BJP. This augurs well for Gandhi in the run-up to his elevation as the Congress president. The Somnath controversy has turned out to be a spin by Rahul baiters. As the Gujarat election campaign peaks the attacks on the Congress VP both on social media and through BJP leaders are likely to get more vicious. AMRELI/ VADODARA: Congress VC Rahul Gandhi hit out at the controversy over his being registered as non-Hindu in Somnath Temple on Thursday insisting that he does not need to show any certificate of his religion. My grandmother and my family are Shiv bhakts...We do not speak of such things because we think our religion is our personal affair said Gandhi in Amreli while addressing a small gathering of traders the video of which went viral later on Thursday. Our faith is our personal matter. We are not required to show a certificate to anybody in this regard. Hum is cheez ki dalali nahi karna chahte (we re not brokers of religion). We do not want to use it politically said Rahul. A row had erupted after Rahul s name was registered as non-Hindu along with Sonia Gandhi s political secretary Ahmed Patel in Somnath temple s register during his two-day visit to Gujarat on Wednesday. At a rally in Bhavnagar he promised if Congress comes to power a loan waiver for farmers would be announced in 10 days. He promised college fees would be cut by 80% . Amreli: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi clarifying on Somnath Temple register controversy has said he and his family members are Shiv bhakts (devotees of Lord Shiva) and he does not use his faith for political mileage.Gandhi also said that he did not sign on the (non-Hindu) register. I didn t sign on the register... BJP s people had done that. I just signed on the visitors book he said.File image of Rahul Gandhi. PTI My grandmother my family... we are devotees of Lord Shiva and we don t need any certificate from others. Faith is a personal matter we don t want to do dalali (brokerage) on our faith... Don t want to use our faith for political mileage of it said Gandhi on Thursday while addressing a meeting in Amreli in Gujarat. These issues are personal and usually kept in private. We don t want any certificates on our faith from anyone he said.A major controversy broke out on Wednesday over the Congress vice-president s visit to Somnath Temple with the BJP questioning his faith while the Congress hit back accusing the BJP of playing dirty politics and maintained Rahul Gandhi was a devout Hindu .The controversy arose over Gandhi s media coordinator Manoj Tyagi signing the register meant for non-Hindus which the Congress claimed was manipulated later by adding the names of Rahul Gandhi and Ahmed Patel.Moments after his visit the social media was abuzz with pictures of a register showing the signature of Manoj Tyagi with names of Gandhi and Patel on the left side.Tyagi issued a statement that he had just signed the register in order to take media personnel inside the temple and not entered Rahul Gandhi or Ahmed Patel s names. These would have been added later he said in the statement.Click here for detailed coverage of Gujarat Assembly Election 2017 The Big Story: Touching faithOn the face of it there is little in common between Zahid Hamid who was Pakistan s Federal Law Minister until Monday and Rahul Gandhi vice-president of India s largest Opposition party.Yet in a curious coincidence political debate in their countries walked the same path this fortnight as both these figures were accused of concealing their true religious identities for political gain. Hamid was attacked for going soft on the Ahmadis a religious group whose members identify as Muslim even as Pakistani law refuses to accept them as such. They are have frequently been the target of vicious violence from other Muslims in Pakistan who see the Ahmedi creed as heretical. This resulted in a siege Islamabad last week as clerics demanded Hamid s resignation suggesting that he was Ahmedi himself. Alarmed the minister released a video message denouncing the Ahmedi creed. He resigned a little while later. Meanwhile in Gujarat the Bharatiya Janata Party jumped up to accuse Rahul Gandhi of not being Hindu. This claim was based on an allegation that Gandhi had registered as a non-Hindu when he visited the Somnath temple on Wednesday. Amit Malviya the head of the Bharatiya Janata Party s Information and Technology cell accused both Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi of not being Hindus asking rhetorically Gandhis lying about their faith? Large parts of the media took the BJP s cue to make this a major news point on Wednesday. Zee News asked if Rahul Gandhi is not proud to be a Hindu and Times Now conducted its prime time debates with the hashtag #RaGaSomnathSelfGoal. Republic TV bluntly asked #RahulGandhiHinduorCatholic even as the Times of India ran with the story on their front page on Thursday. Amidst this an anchor on CNN News 18 declared categorically that he was a proud Brahim and proud Hindu .Alarmed at this charge the Congress refuted the allegation on social media and even held a press conference. Like Hamid a few weeks earlier the Congress sought to reassure people about Gandhi s faith and even his caste. A senior Congress leader said that not only was Gandhi a Hindu but a janeu dhari a Hindu who wore the sacred thread that would mark him out as a Brahmin.The accusation that Gandhi had registered as a non-Hindu was later found to be false a fact backed up even by the temple.That of course is hardly the point. The real concern is how easily controversies about religious heresy and excommunication have come to find takers in India. This phenomenon is witnessed frequently across the border but is new for India. While religion has been part of Indian politics for some time the manufactured controversy around Rahul Gandhi s faith represents a new level of cynicism: even the personal religious beliefs of leaders have now become fodder for their rivals.Centering politics around religious hysteria has few benefits as Pakistan s experience shows quite clearly. The BJP is pulling out all stops to win this month s Gujarat election. But its decision to infuse debates about religious heresy and personal faith into mainstream politics will have an impact that will go far beyond just one election.Subscribe to The Daily Fix by either downloading Scroll s Android app or opting for it to be delivered to your mailbox. For the rest of the day s headlines do click here.If you have any concerns about our coverage of particular issues please write to the Readers Editor at readerseditor@scroll.inPunditryPakistan s original sin: It is its treatment of Ahmedis. It needs to overcome that anxiety to liberate itself on several fronts writes Pratap Bhanu Mehta in the Indian Express.India s reticence on the Rohingya crisis undermines its democracy and global standing argues Suhasini Haidar in the Hindu.Do Gujarati Patidars constitutionally qualify for reservation asks Alok Prasanna Kumar in Bloomberg Quint.Giggle #Sohrabuddin pic.twitter.com/kiLwhfZb89 R Prasad (@rprasad66) November 30 2017 Don t MissIn Assam a massive eviction drive throws new light on old pressures on land reports Arunabh Saikia. What further complicated things according to Sarmah was the discovery of Assam s tea-growing potential. Since there was so much free land available the colonial government in the 1840s declared vast tracts of Upper Assam as wasteland and gave them to British tea planters almost free of cost.But since so much land was occupied by non-agriculturists Assam faced a food crisis in the 1880s. Sarmah said: The British realised that that the food deficit problem had to addressed so they started promoting the migration of cheap Bengali Muslim labour from across the border. They were given huge plots of land and with documents in exchange for money of course. These are the people who are often unfairly referred to as illegal migrants. LATHI (GUJ): Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi today tried to woo farmers in Gujarat amid a high- stakes poll battle promising that their loans would be waived if his party forms government in the state. Calling Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani a rubber stamp he alleged that BJP president Amit Shah was remote- controlling the government in the western state. (Prime Minister Narendra) Modiji waived loans worth Rs 1.25 lakh crore of his five-ten industrialists friends but Modiji and (Finance Minister Arun) Jaitleyji say that it is not their policy to waive loans of farmers when they ask for it Gandhi claimed. He was campaigning here in the Patidar-dominated Amreli district on the second day of his two-day tour of Gujarat. Modiji talked for 22 years about farmers but you have not got anything your land has been taken away your water is diverted to industrialists and you do not get crop insurance he told a poll meeting. We make this promise to you that we will frame a policy within 10 days of forming government in Gujarat to waive your loans he said. Gandhi said for the first time he has seen that all sections of the society in the state were protesting whether it was the Patidars Dalits anganwadi workers or farmers. Only five-ten persons are not protesting. They fly in chartered planes and are Modiji s friends he said alleging that some of them get Rs 33 000 crore (loan) to make Nano car . If you ask questions whether you are Patidar farmer Dalit they will fire at you beat you up and will beat up women. But if five-ten people will ask for your land electricity water Modiji will immediately sign for them he said. Earlier Modiji used to do so. Now Amit Shah does the same. I have not taken the name of Rupaniji because he runs on remote control. Shahji can change the channel whenever he likes Gandhi said attacking the BJP leadership. He said the previous UPA government allocated Rs 35 000 crore in MNREGA and waived loans worth Rs 70 000 crore of farmers of the entire country. The amount of money that I put in MNREGA was given by Narendra Modiji to Tata Nano car factory. You lost your land it was snatched from you and given to Nano factory he said. Breaking its silence over Gandhi s charge that the BJP- led Gujarat government extended undue favours of Rs 33 000 crore to it for its car manufacturing facility at Sanand Tata Motors said it got Rs 584.8 crore as loan and not grant. The investor-friendly environment created by the Gujarat government encouraged Tata Motors to set up its manufacturing plant in Sanand with a long-term vision to make it one of the leading automotive hubs further enabling the state to contribute to the prosperity and growth of India the company said in a statement. At the election rally Gandhi said You will not get Narmada water when you ask for it but Modiji s friends will get it immediately. They get 14 hours power supply while you get it for a few hours. He also said that the farmers were not getting the minimum support price for their produce inspite of the promise by Modi to provide them a high MSP. A massive controversy erupted on social media when reports suggested that Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on his visit to the Somnath temple in Gujarat registered as a non- Hindu during his visit. This news was originally published by Zee Gujarati after it was tweeted by their journalist Tejash Modi. The tweet by Tejash Modi claimed Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi visited the Somnath temple. Signed the temple trust register for non-Hindus. Ahmed Patel also registered. Amit Malviya the head of the Bharatiya Janata Party s Information and Technology cell latched on to this tweet and in no time many other Twitter handles who support the BJP made this viral.Ambassador Meera Shankar UPA s representative in US had referred to Sonia Gandhi as a Christian leader. The reference was soon deleted. Now Rahul Gandhi declares he is a non-Hindu but their election affidavits claim that they are Hindus. Gandhis lying about their faith? pic.twitter.com/iFE4AhVnRM Amit Malviya (@malviyamit) November 29 2017 TV news channels played along. Zee News ran the story with the title Rahul ko Hindu hone ka garv nahi? with the hashtag #RahulHinduVivad whereas Republic TV ran the hashtag #RahulHinduorCatholic and asked questions such as: When you were 27-years-old the NYT listed you as a Catholic. Did you correct them? and Did you despite accepting the NYT description as a Roman Catholic call yourself a Brahmin in 2012? Different descriptions for different geographies? Times Now conducted a prime time debate at 8 pm and 9 pm with the hashtag #RagaSomnathSelfGoal. The Times of India made this story the front page lead on Thursday.Handwriting analysisThe easiest way to ascertain whether a piece of text was written by a person or not is by doing some handwriting analysis. It is a technique that is used widely by forensic organisations around the world. Considering that Rahul Gandhi has represented Congress at various events a simple search on Google throws up many of his handwritten notes. Let us take a couple of these samples and compare it with the entry from Somnath Register being passed around.The image above clearly shows that the samples of Rahul Gandhi s handwriting available on public websites doesn t match the handwriting in the register which is being claimed to be his entry while visiting Somnath Temple.Moreover if the handwriting of the two consecutive lines corresponding to the entries of Rahul GandhiJi and Ahemad Patel are compared they appear to the written by the same person.Also Ahmed Patel s name has been misspelled as Ahamed Patel while Rahul Gandhi has been written as Rahul Gandhiji . It is highly unlikely that Ahmed Patel would misspell his own name or the Congress vice president would put down his name as Rahul Gandhiji .Some simple hand-writing analysis makes it obvious that it wasn t Rahul Gandhi who himself put in his name. While Malviya has an agenda considering that he s representing a party and has been caught peddling misinformation multiple times (1 2 3 4 5) what stopped the various news organisations from doing this simple analysis?Congress party s standThe Congress party was swift to react. In a press conference Congress spokespersons produced the original document that has the signature of Rahul Gandhi in the visitor s book of the Somnath temple. They also claimed that Rahul Gandhi was never given the register in which it is claimed he signed himself as a non-Hindu .Rahul ji made an entry into the visitor s book The signature which is being talked of is different neither it is the signature of Rahul Gandhi nor was this register ever given to him: RS Surjewala Congress pic.twitter.com/8w6hkKxRHQ ANI (@ANI) November 29 2017 Congress party tweeted the following from their official Twitter handle.Clarification: There is only one visitor s book at Somnath Temple that was signed by Congress VP Rahul Gandhi. Any other image being circulated is fabricated. Desperate times call for desperate measures? pic.twitter.com/KOokFOH83z Congress (@INCIndia) November 29 2017 Alt News spoke with Divya Spandana who heads Social Media and Digital Communication of the Congress Party. She suggested that Manoj Tyagi who is a media co-ordinator in the Congress party was asked to sign the register so that media personnel who were accompanying the Congress troupe could enter the premises of the temple. She also stated that the entries corresponding to Rahul GandhiJi and Ahamed Patel were not present when Tyagi signed the register and that they were added later. Alt News tried to reach Tyagi multiple times to confirm this assertion but he was unreachable.Further Handwriting AnalysisDoes the handwriting in the visitor book that Congress party is claiming to be Rahul Gandhi s actual entry match his publicly available handwritten samples? We juxtaposed images of the latest and previous samples and we found that they do match.The assertion by Divya Spandana that the names Rahul Gandhiji and Ahamed Patel were not written by Tyagi himself is corroborated by the differing style of writing numerals in the date section of the entry and the mobile phone number which was put in by Tyagi under his signature.Media follow-upFirstpost spoke with Somnath temple trust s secretary PK Laheri who stated that Rahul Gandhi only signed the visitor book and nowhere else an assertion which is line with the Congress Party s defence.In the months leading up to the Gujarat elections it has been witnessed that a brazen effort is underway to shape the popular narrative away from the real issues facing the state while trivial issues take centre stage. There also seems to be an organised attempt to polarise the electorate on communal lines through constant reference to religion. Sections of mainstream media and electronic media in particular have been complicit through their unrelenting coverage on such topics. The controversy over Rahul Gandhi s entry in the Somnath temple register comes across as yet another attempt to distract public opinion and is a sad commentary on the nature of political discourse in India.This article first appeared on Alt News. NEW DELHI: Congress will roll out the process for election of party president on Friday in what will mark the start of the much-awaited exercise which will see Rahul Gandhi take the reins of the party within a fortnight. The notification announcing the election process will be issued on Friday morning with aspirants allowed to file nominations by December 4. The papers will be scrutinised on December 5 and the last date for withdrawal of nomination is December 11. Rahul is likely to submit his papers on the last day of nomination. According to party officials Rahul will visit his office at the Akbar Road headquarters in Delhi where he will sign multiple sets of papers. Much drama is awaited during the nomination as presidents of state units and key party leaders CWC members and AICC office-bearers including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh A K Antony Ahmed Patel would visit the office to file papers for the heir imminent. Chief returning officer for the election and senior Congress MP Mullapally Ramachandran will oversee the process. While Rahul is likely to be elected unopposed AICC may want to go through the process before announcing the outcome. Mumbai: A day after Congress Maharashtra activist Shehzad Poonawalla asked the party s national vice president Rahul Gandhi to resign before contesting the elections for party president the state unit and his family members virtually disowned him on Thursday.State Congress president Ashok Chavan said Poonawalla s remarks were aimed at getting cheap publicity to which the party gives no importance.Questioning Poonawalla s locus standi he said there is no truth in his allegations nor is Poonawalla a representative or leader of the party has remained inactive since the past couple of years and done nothing for the party.File image of Shehzad Poonawalla. Twitter Moreover the newly-elected Pradesh Congress Committee representatives (delegates) have unanimously adopted a resolution asking Rahul Gandhi to contest the Congress President s election Chavan pointed out.He condemned Poonawalla for his reckless utterances when the election process is underway in a free and transparent manner and said it was aimed at deriving media attention.Shahzad s brother Tehseen Poonawalla who is also with the state Congress quickly declared that he officially ended all relationship with (Shehzad) . I have never been this hurt. We needed to defeat the BJP. This is unacceptable. I m very very hurt today. Been stabbed in the back and how Tehseen said in a tweet.Tehseen s wife Monicka Vadera-Poonawalla followed suit and also expressed full support to her husband and all his statements in the matter which has snowballed into a raging controversy. My family and I neither have any relation association nor wish to comment on the issue or the said individual Shehzad Poonawalla. Please refrain from tweeting/contacting me for the same Monicka declared in her tweet.I stand by & support my husband @tehseenp & all of his statements. My family & I neither have any relation association nor wish to comment on the issue or the said individual Shehzad Poonawalla. Please refrain from tweeting/contacting me for the same. Monicka Vadera (@mvadera) November 30 2017State Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant said Poonawalla was not even a primary member of the party so where was the question of him being a leader or a PCC representative. In reality he is a self-proclaimed person using the name of Rahulji for drawing public attention he said.Maharashtra Youth Congress vice president Satyajeet Tambe said every time he sees Shehzad Poonawalla representing the party on television debates I feel ashamed of myself . I have been working in the Congress party for the past 17 years and have been loyal. Only because (such) people can speak a few words in English better it doesn t make them great leaders... Congress should learn and keep such people away he said.Late on Wednesday night Shehzad Poonawalla created a ruckus when he questioned the process to elect the Congress Party President terming it rigged and calling upon Rahul Gandhi to first quit his post before contesting for the top post.He also indicated his desire to contest for the top post if the election was conducted in a genuine manner and wrote a letter to Rahul Gandhi in this connection.Firstpost s Sanjay Singh spoke to Poonawalla earlier this week and you can watch the interview below: