Two days after Wajib Ali, the Congress candidate for the Nagar Assembly constituency, filed his nomination papers on November 6, a video went viral on social media, purportedly showing people in a crowd accompanying him raising the “Pakistan Zindabad” slogan. Police investigations found that the video was doctored and a 32-year-old man who posted the video on YouTube was arrested. But that has not stopped the falsehood from gaining a life of its own.
In Nagar, Hindu voters are using the video to rail against the “anti-Hindu” and “pro-Muslim” stance of the Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government. As the polling date nears, the communal schism is taking centre stage in Bharatpur district, which is a Congress stronghold. In the 2018 election, the Congress won four out of the seven seats in the district and two Bahujan Samaj Party MLAs also joined the party, supporting Mr. Gehlot, during former Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot’s 2020 revolt.
‘Mini-Pakistan’
At his farm implements shop, Kesar Singh, who belongs to the Gujjar community, is upfront about his choice. “Here, it is a mini-Pakistan,” Mr. Singh said. To support his point, he flags the reported fake video. “They raised ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ slogans at Ali’s nomination rally and fired from country-made pistols. We have lived alongside them [Muslims] for centuries, but this new generation is far too belligerent. We need a government that will discipline them,” Mr. Singh said. He dismisses the police action against the video as a last favour done by the Rajasthan Police for the outgoing government.
The video is picked out over and over again by pro-BJP voters, especially the Gujjars, who are also disappointed about the Congress sidelining Mr. Pilot, a Gujjar leader. But they are clear that even an appeal from Mr. Pilot will not make a difference now.
The complaints against Mr. Ali, who was elected to the seat on a BSP ticket and switched to the Congress midway through his tenure, vary from “selective development” limited to only Muslim pockets, to promoting “their interests”.
Echoing PM’s speeches
Vikram Singh Poswal, a 32-year-old driver, is carelessly scrolling through his phone on the verandah of his home. When asked about the primary issue in the election, he responds without missing a beat: “Hindu-Muslim”. Pointing at the overflowing drain outside his home, which has garbage heaped at regular intervals, he says, “Look at this, does it show there was any development here? Congress only brings development to Muslim villages.”
Mr. Poswal, like many other BJP supporters are drawing a cue from the speeches made by the party’s leaders. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah lead the list of BJP leaders whose speeches repeat how the Gehlot government has failed, over and over again, to protect the interests of the Hindus.
At an election rally in Bharatpur on November 18, listing out only Hindu festivals — Holi, Ram Navami, Hanuman Jayanti — Mr. Modi: “You are unable to peacefully celebrate any festival.” The festivals are interrupted by “stone throwers”, “rioters”, and “curfew”, he claimed, adding, “Wherever the Congress rules, terrorists, criminals, and rioters get a free run. The Congress can cross all limits for the politics of appeasement, even at the cost of your life.”
Communal divide
Nagar is not the only constituency where the PM’s words are finding resonance. In the neighbouring Kaman constituency, Congress legislator Zahida Khan, the State’s Education Minister, is once again in the fray, facing off against BJP candidate Nauksham Chaudhary. Ms. Chaudhary, whose last electoral contest was in the Haryana Assembly election of 2019, is considered an outsider here; still, the BJP has been able to centre the campaign around the “Hindu-Muslim” divide.
A group of farmers from the Saini community, listed among the other backward classes (OBCs) in the State, is engrossed in playing cards, but set their game aside to temporarily don a psephologist’s cap, each one clamouring to be heard. Swarup Chand Saini, a committed BJP voter, claims that the results are a foregone conclusion, since it will play out along the usual caste and religious lines. “Meo Muslims vote en masse for Zahida, she will win again. The same story will be repeated,” he said.
Prem Chand Saini strongly intercedes with an emphatic no. “We have no problem with the government, neither Modi nor Gehlot,” he declares, listing out the benefits — free LPG cylinder, electricity, and up to ₹25 lakh insurance — provided by the Congress government in the State. “CM ne toh chokho kaam kiyo hai (Gehlot has done good work),” he says. His grievance is solely with Ms. Khan, whom he accuses of working only for her religious compatriots.
‘Sanatan dharma is the larger cause’
In Nandbai, Ram Mohan Singh, a Jat, rants and raves against the Congress, echoing BJP leaders’ speeches line-for-line. He speaks about “bharosa (trust)“ on the BJP and specifically on Baba Balak Nath, Alwar MP and the BJP’s candidate from Tijara. Mr. Singh has never heard Mr. Nath speak or attended any of his political meetings. But his emphatic support for Mr. Nath is due, Mr. Singh says, to the “larger cause” of saving “sanatan dharma”, which is being endangered by the Congress according to Mr. Modi’s election speeches.
Why Mr. Nath, who is yet to complete his first term as Lok Sabha MP? “He is a photocopy of Yogi Adityanath. He will bring out the bulldozers in Rajasthan, just like Yogi brought it in Uttar Pradesh,” says Mr. Singh.
