The Opposition parties are opposing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to meditate. Dhyan Mandapam They recorded the rally, which took place at the Vivekananda Rock Memorial, and approached the Election Commission of India to ban its broadcast.
The meditation will last from the evening of May 30th until the evening of June 1st, when election campaigning will cease. The opposition argues that promoting the event amounts to indirect electioneering once voting is over.
In 2019, Modi made headlines by meditating for 15 hours in an isolated cave near the Kedarnath temple in Uttarakhand ahead of the final round of voting in the general elections. The prime minister followed up this spiritual journey with a tweet urging voters to cast their ballots in large numbers on the final day of voting.
At the time, the Opposition did not realise that the Kedarnath photo-op and subsequent tweet by PM Modi was electioneering while the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) was in force. In hindsight, they were wise to do so.
The election campaign is also extremely fierce this time around, with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) battling it out for seats as the opposition parties are united in most parts of India.
Besides Modi’s constituency of Varanasi, nine other seats in West Bengal will vote on June 1. The contest between Mamata Banerjee’s TMC and the BJP is particularly fierce. Swami Vivekananda’s influence is felt across India among Hindus, but nowhere is it stronger than in West Bengal, where he holds iconic status. West Bengal is also the home of the Ramakrishna Mission, founded by Vivekananda, whose headquarters are at Belur Math in Howrah district. Banerjee has accused individuals, including Ramakrishna Mission monks, of campaigning for the BJP in the ongoing elections.
“Will a meditator meditate in front of the camera? He basically just wants people to see him meditate?… You cannot campaign in this manner… It will violate the model code of conduct,” Banerjee slammed.
The Indian National Congress has alleged that through the meditation trip, Modi has circumvented the 48-hour silence period and “tried to unfairly exploit the ethno-cultural significance of the selected places to strengthen his election campaign and maximise his vote share, in violation of the Representation of People Act and the Model Code of Conduct”.
However, the ECI is yet to take a position on the complaint now filed by the united opposition.
It is unclear whether Modi’s televised meditation will have a significant impact on the remaining nine seats in West Bengal. The battle lines between the BJP and TMC in West Bengal were decided long ago and the events in Kanyakumari are unlikely to have a major last-minute impact.
Otherwise, why did PM Modi perform this particular ceremony, at this particular place?
Prime Minister Modi has deliberately incorporated Hindu rituals into his public persona for political purposes to appeal to the Hindu masses. It is part of his political persona and public activism.
He is known to perform publicly visible rituals such as wearing black clothes and taking a bath in the Ganges during Kumbh and washing the feet of five sanitation workers. He also visited six temples in the 11 days leading up to the inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. These are Kalaram Temple in Maharashtra, Veerabhadra Temple in Andhra Pradesh, Guruvayur Temple and Tripurayar Sri Ramaswami Temple in Kerala, and Ranganathaswamy Temple in Tamil Nadu, all believed to be associated with Ayodhya and Lord Rama. He also said, “YamaniyamFor 11 days before the inauguration of the Rama temple, the “precepts” defining self-restraint and moral conduct as prescribed in the Vedas will be in force.
On February 25, he donned scuba diving gear and offered underwater prayers in the submerged city of Dwarka in Gujarat, assisted by Indian Navy divers. He tweeted a photo of himself at the center of the event., he tweeted after praying underwater.
But meditating at the Vivekananda Rock Memorial would not only revamp his image as a righteous Hindu leader, it would also reconnect him to the RSS and its project to Hinduise India. Meditating privately in one’s home or garden would not have the same meaning. The Vivekananda Rock Memorial is the brainchild of the RSS. The rock memorial was conceived by RSS missionary Eknath Ranade, and Swami Vivekananda is said to have meditated for three days on the rock outcrop in Kanyakumari in December 1892.
More important than bolstering his Hindu base is for Modi to underscore his ideological ties to the RSS and his dedication to its ideals. If the BJP loses a large majority in the elections, there is speculation the RSS could push for a change in leadership to make it easier to form a BJP-led coalition government.
There is, therefore, no reason to believe that he is simply taking a break at the Vivekananda Rock Memorial after the hustle and bustle of a long election campaign. He remains politically active in the remotest parts of India.
(Bharat Bhushan is a Delhi-based journalist.)
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of DH.
