U.P.ELECTION RESULTS : BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE FAKE SECULARISM

With the announcement of the results of the recently concluded Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, all non-BJP parties, indulging in fake secularism for the last 70 years, are shocked and surprised. They are simply shocked that their age-old, tried and tested methods of dividing the voters, based on their caste, community and religion did not work this time.

These parties are yet to reconcile with the very fact that people have not only defeated them, but have also defeated the unholy practice of "fake secularism", which had been rampant in the country for the last seven decades. Our mainstream media has been fan and great supporter of such fake secular practices adopted by the non-BJP parties.

Before we proceed further, let us understand, what is meant by "fake secularism"? Fake secularism is the communalism of the worst kind which is a practice of taking the majority population of the country for granted and appeasement of minorities and certain sections of the majority population based on their caste, community and religion. However, nobody raises a voice against these questionable methods because the mainstream media and certain self-styled `intellectuals' become the cheerleaders of these practices to such an extent that indulging in them is considered `secularism' while sensible secularism which says `Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas', becomes communalism.

There was only one reason for adopting this practice of fake secularism by all the non-BJP parties. Over time, it became a pure mathematical formula for these parties to win the elections again and again, by ignoring the welfare and interests of the majority community altogether.

While delivering his address at the 52nd meeting of the National Development Council in December 2006, former Primer Minister Manmohan Singh had stated, "Minorities, particularly Muslims, must have the first claim on resources." This was the height of fake secularism, but sadly no one from the mainstream media objected or raised any questions on this statement. Now imagine, if the same statement would have been delivered by PM Modi with some modifications like – "Majority population, particularly Hindus, must have the first claim on resources," – then not only the mainstream media, but all fake secular political parties supported by self-styled intellectuals would have taken to the streets shouting and demanding PM Modi's resignation. But nothing of that sort happened in the case of Manmohan Singh and he continued as the Prime Minister, till the Narendra Modi government conclusively defeated the ruling UPA in 2014.

These parties had won the Bihar Assembly election by adopting similar sinful tactics and were hopeful that they would be able to replicate the Bihar experiment in Uttar Pradesh also. People of Bihar also later realised what blunder they had done, but by then, it was too late. Bihar returned to its old days of `jungle raj'. However, people of the country in other states and particularly in Uttar Pradesh, took a lesson from Bihar and refused to get trapped in this fake secularism, wrapped and carefully concealed in the beautiful packaging of `secularism'.

After the Modi government came into power in 2014, it soon became a threat to these political outfits, who were simply surviving on the politics of Muslim-Dalit vote bank or minority-OBC vote bank. Since PM Modi is always talking about "Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas", these parties got jittery because this new narrative given by PM Modi does not fit anywhere in the scheme of things crafted by these fake secular parties over the decades. These parties and their cheerleaders sitting in the mainstream media and in the so-called `intellectual world', started finding faults with everything which Modi government was doing for the benefit of the people of the country. They even questioned the surgical strike in POK, also demanding its video proof.

Moreover, these elements did not stop here. When the Modi government repeated a `surgical strike', this time around on black money and counterfeit bank notes, they cried foul as demonetisation posed a serious threat to their very survival. Frustrated with demonetisation, these parties pessimistically said that the people of the country and particularly of Uttar Pradesh will teach Narendra Modi a lesson for his demonetisation drive. But all these threats did not work and the BJP got a huge mandate of 325 out of 403 Assembly seats, creating history.

People of the country have given a suitable response that they are not going to remain trapped in the arithmetics of vote bank politics practiced by these fake secular parties. People are wise enough now and want "development for all without discrimination", which is the real meaning of the narrative given by BJP –"Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas".