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Rafale: They wanted to pull Modi down to their level

Remember that they don’t have to prove they are better than Modi. They are trying to prove that Modi is just like them.

Did a whole lot of people actually believe the allegations of corruption against Narendra Modi in the Rafale deal? I am talking about real people, not members of the ecosystem who depend on spreading on those allegations for a living.

Probably not.

But the fact remains that if BJP had got just 0.5% more votes, it would have won both Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

We don’t know if 0.5% of votes were swung by the manufactured controversy over the Rafale deal. However, the recent Assembly Elections have established that a big lie, even if believed by a small number of people, can do massive damage.

First, they attacked his mother and they attacked his father. They made fun of his humble origins as a tea seller. Recently, when Senior Congress Leader C P Joshi attacked Modi for being born into an OBC caste, he was merely the latest in a long line of Congress leaders from Ghulam Nabi Azad to Priyanka Gandhi to Mani Shankar Aiyar who had made remarks that could easily be seen as insulting references to his caste. C P Joshi was just being more explicit.

To keep up appearances, Rahul Gandhi suggested that C P Joshi might want to appeal to his own conscience and regret his words. As far as I know, he didn’t.

Why did they so instinctively attack Modi’s parents, his family background and his caste? Because this is what comes naturally to them. They have built their lives around the privilege they obtained at birth. Or by becoming sycophants of those who had such privilege. This is what they understand best.

The other thing they understand is India’s endemic corruption, the result of a system that their party nurtured for decades. In 1985, Rajiv Gandhi presented the report card of four decades of Congress rule by saying that only 15 paise of every rupee spent by the government ever reaches the masses. The rest is grabbed by the “system”.

So when they realized that Modi’s Teflon coated honesty is the obstacle for them, they set out to remake Modi’s image in their own. They didn’t have to prove themselves innocent, they just had to prove that Modi is just another politician like them.

In this project, all they needed to do was create doubt. Evidence didn’t matter so much.

Why?

Because of the very same system that they built. The system that was engineered to take 85 paise out of every rupee spent by the government. We Indians are just so used to it. We have grown up hearing the constant refrain that “politicians are corrupt”. So it doesn’t take more than a few allegations to sow in our minds the seed of doubt.

Even now, after the Supreme Court has demolished all allegations against the Rafale Deal, they are reasonably confident. Some journalists yesterday, anguished by the verdict, hastened to point out that Rafale is a perception game. In other words, they are counting on sixty years of Congress scams to convince people that there must be a scam in the Rafale Deal because there always is.

After all, who has ever heard of a defence deal in India without a scam attached? Try googling Nehru and jeep scam. All the way to the AgustaWestland helicopter scam.

Remember that they don’t have to prove they are better than Modi. They are trying to prove that Modi is just like them.

After the verdict came out yesterday, the liberal ecosystem and its shady PIL activists slammed the Supreme Court left and right. Okay, mostly left. Earlier this year, when a few verdicts went against them, they wanted the Chief Justice impeached. When they lost elections, they wanted the EVMs replaced. And then they say Modi is ‘destroying institutions’.

Some spoke of “people’s court”. Again, they were confident in their ability to spread fake news. And that there would be someone to bankroll it.

Remember that Modi’s Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) has helped in the recovery of Rs 3 lakh crore of bad loans in 2 years. That is a *lot* of money. And those who got big loans in the golden days of the naamdars couldn’t possibly be happy about this.

Now, who would go around knocking on people’s doors, trying to frame the chowkidar in false cases so that he gets fired from his job? What could their motivation be? Something to think about…

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Abhishek Banerjee
Abhishek Banerjeehttps://dynastycrooks.wordpress.com/
Abhishek Banerjee is a columnist and author.  

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