Why is the Congress getting so hot and bothered about Modi’s wife?

In an election where the personal has become intensely political, Narendra Modi’s acknowledgment in a poll affidavit of his mysterious wife Jashodaben has triggered off a political storm that refuses to subside.

At a time when below-the-belt attacks have been flying thick and fast, the Trinamool Congress became the latest to take a nasty swipe at Modi’s record as a husband with its ‘the butcher of Gujarat could not take care of his own wife. How will take care of this great nation?’ barb.

For the Congress, recent unconfirmed reports of Jashodaben having been whisked away by ‘Hindu activists’ to an undisclosed location seem to have served as yet another opportunity to score some political points over the issue. Anees Durrani, a Congress worker, was so moved by his concern for Modi’s wife that he reportedly wrote to the Home Ministry asking the government to provide police protection to Jashodaben.

Unfortunately for Durrani, who was hoping to go on an ‘indefinite protest’ at Rajghat at the height of elections if the Home Ministry failed to determine the whereabouts of Jashodaben, she has been caught on camera casting her vote in Mehsana in Gujarat today.

The BJP, which is still recovering from yoga guru Ramdev’s extremely damaging ‘honeymoon’ remark and TMC’s aggressive come-back to Modi’s personal attack on West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, chose to react with uncharacteristic restraint to the Congress Party’s political gimmicks. BJP spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi limited her response to offering legal advice on Durrani on ascertaining Jashodaben’s whereabouts.

The only party that seems to have so far desisted from using what has become a convenient political weapon to attack Modi with, is the Aam Admi Party, despite its leader Arvind Kejriwal being locked in a direct contest with him in Varanasi.

Commenting on below-the-belt attacks by leaders in this election, AAP’s spokesperson Ashutosh said, “Nobody wants to discuss the real issues. At a time when the election is at its peak, parties are not talking about price rise, they are not talking of the scams. They are talking about who is doing what. This shows the bankruptcy of their political ideology and of their politics.”

Reacting to political parties dragging personal lives of politicians into the campaign, the journalist-turned-politician said, “I personally feel that whatever happens in the private life is none of our business. But anyone who is in the public domain and is operating in a public space should be accountable to whatever is happening around him or her.”

Underlining the point that politics in India has always been characterised by personal attacks Ashutosh said, “If you remember, BJP leader Yashwant Sinha had called Manmohan Singh a shikhandi. Then too the BJP had hit below belt and demeaned the office of the PM. They had used all kinds of names for Manmohan Singh. And the Congress was no different. So this is nothing new in Indian politics.”

Mohammed Badrul Alam, Head of the Political Science Department at Jamia Milia Islamia University, points to the ‘polarised’ nature of this election as one of the reasonsforthe political discourse in 2014 deteriorating into a free-for-all.

“I think in this election a lot of people have very strong opinions one way or another. Many feel that things have become polarised and they want to bi-polarise it or tri-polarise it. That is why we are seeing a lot of back and forth. But I don’t take it very seriously. At the end of the day, I don’t think any of this will stick. The dust will settle down. There will still be camaraderie and cordiality between political parties. Once all this is over, they should sit down and tone down their rhetoric. The political discourse ​could definitely have been more kind, more gentle and more civilised,” said Alam.

Commenting on political parties making an issue of Modi’s belated acknowledgement of his wife, Alam said, “It is a very personal issue. Modi would have been better served if he had mentioned it in the earlier affidavit. What was the harm in mentioning it? But that said, it is his business, it is his personal life. And it is nobody else’s domain or turf.”