Battleground 2019: Political temperature soars as bigwigs trade charges

New Delhi: The countdown to the Lok Sabha polls next year has well and truly begun, with top political leaders of political parties from North to South already in poll mode, making combative remarks, and hurling accusations at their political rivals. The shrill poll rhetoric is sending political temperatures soaring, even as assembly polls to the three states of Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Rajasthan are scheduled later this year ahead of the parliamentary general elections in 2019.

AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi lashed out at the BJP, accusing BJP chief Amit Shah of saying in Hyderabad that a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya will be built before the Parliamentary polls. Mr. Owaisi asked whether Mr. Shah was “going to write the judgement” when the Supreme Court is deciding the Title dispute. He said it would be better if the Supreme Court judgement be delivered after the Parliamentary elections “for free and fair elections”.

The BJP immediately hit back, saying its chief Amit Shah did not make any statement on the issue during his Telangana visit. The BJP tweeted, “Yesterday in Telangana, BJP President Shri Amit Shah didn’t make any statement on the issue of Ram Mandir as being claimed in certain sections of the media. No such matter was even on the agenda.”

As if this wasn’t enough, BJP leader and minister Nirmala Sitharaman lashed out at the Congress party, accusing it of playing communal politics. Ms Sitharaman was quoted as saying, “It’s playing the religion card. It’s frightening that it may lead to division and communal disharmony... the likes of which prevailed during the Partition in 1947. The Congress party shall be solely responsible if any disharmony plays out between now and the 2019 polls.”

But senior Congress leader and former finance minister P. Chidambaram was quick to take a jibe at Ms. Sitharaman, by tweeting, “The Defence Minister says there are ‘plans to incite riots in the run-up to Lok Sabha election’. She should share her secret (?) information with the Home Minister”. In remarks dripping with sarcasm, he also said the defence minister had “all the time in the world” to inquire into the religious affiliations of parties and persons.

In J&K, following the collapse of the PDP-BJP coalition, both parties meanwhile are busy attacking each other. PDP chief and former J&K CM Mehbooba Mufti was quoted by media reports as saying, “Agar Dilli ne 1987 ki tarah yahan ki awam ke vote pe daaka dala, agar iss kism ki todfod ki koshish ki, jis tarah ek Salahuddin ek Yasin Malik ne janm liya, agar Dilliwalon ne PDP ko todne ki koshish ki uski nataish bahut zyada khatarnaak hogi (If, like in 1987, Delhi tries to plunder the people’s mandate and attempts to break the PDP, it can have serious repercussions and spawn forces like Salahuddin and Yasin Malik).

Soon after, it was the turn of the BJP to hit back. A BJP woman leader from J&K Veena Gupta  challenged Ms. Mufti, and was quoted by reports as saying, “If you create one (Salahuddin), we will send 10 Bhagat Singhs from Jammu.”