Little too late: Cong invokes Vajpayee in bid to turn voters off Modi

Faced with the reality that their own extensive campaigning has not really worked against the ‘Modi wave’, the Congress has resorted to a ‘He/She ALSO agrees with me’ tactic in a bid to turn voters against the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate. A visit to the official Congress website, usually the bastion of staid photographs of Mahatma Gandhi and the members of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty is now a hotbed of anti-Modi rhetoric. Pride of place on the homepage of the website is a story from The Guardian calling Modi a man with blood on its hands. Along with the picture of the article the Congress says , “The Guardian newspaper questions the credibility of Mr Modi’s development model and indicts Mr Modi for his role in the riots in Gujarat in 2002. It concludes that Modi is much more than a divisive figure. He is a man who “bears a responsibility for some of the worst religious violence ever seen in independent India.” The world doesn’t trust Modi, do you?" [caption id=“attachment_1476109” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] A screen shot of the Congress website.[/caption] But the true piece de resistance is a few scrolls down, which is a photo of former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee with a blood red filter. Congress reminds people of the comments Vajpayee had made on Modi after the 2002 riots. “Shri Modiji ne rajdharma ka paalan nahi kiya (Modi was unable to follow the laws of administration).” The Congress, of course, adds their own little comment to it: “No leader in the BJP can match the stature of former Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The founding president of the party, Shri Vajpayee was the Prime Minister of India from 1998 until the NDA was defeated by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance in 2004. Shri Vajpayee was clear what was the reason for the defeat: Gujarat Chief Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s failure to control the communal pogrom in his state in 2002,” they say. The comment goes on to allege that Vajpayee wanted to remove Modi from the party, which was confirmed by Jaswant Singh. The Congress tirade against Modi hasn’t been confined to its website either. Rahul Gandhi took on Modi over not naming his wife in earlier affidavits. “Don’t know how many elections he has contested till now, but he has revealed for the first time that he is married. In Delhi, he talks about honour of women, but his own wife’s name doesn’t reach the affidavit,” Rahul asked. (Read more here .) Digvijaya Singh had tweeted yesterday, “Modi accepts his marital status. Can women of this country trust a man who stalks a woman, deprives his wife of her right? Vote against Modi.” A huge flurry of activity from the Congress web stable. But is it all a case of too little, too late?