- PM Modi accuses Pakistan of manipulating Gujarat election
Perhaps taking his hallucinatory cue from the 2017 US Presidential election which Russia allegedly engineered to defeat Hilary Clinton by hacking and planting fake stories, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi sprang a huge surprise on both sides of the border by charging Pakistan with similar conduct in the ‘litmus-test’ Gujarat elections on December 14. The Russian interference might be partly true or a figment of the lately fevered American imagination, but it can safely be said that the absurd notion of Pakistan swaying an Indian state election is an utter distortion of the truth, simply a ‘below the belt’ dig. The canard is being widely condemned in India with ex-PM Manmohan Singh demanding an apology from Modi for vilifying innocent participants, the former holders of high offices, and riposting why the latter visited Pakistan uninvited after two terrorist attacks in India, and allowed ISI investigators entry in Pathankot air base.
A blameless one-hour meeting on December 6 at the residence of a ‘dovish’ Congress leader, attended by former foreign ministers (Khurshid Kasuri from Pakistan)and foreign secretaries, Pakistani diplomatic officials, a former Indian vice president, a retired Indian army chief and, point to note, senior journalists, was twisted by Modi into a sinister ‘secret meeting’ to ‘influence’ the election outcome, whereas all the selected participants talked about was Indo-Pak relations. Gujarat was not even mentioned, and poor Manmohan Singh hardly uttered a word. It was also preposterously claimed that a former Pakistan army chief ‘Arshad Rafiq (sic) had favoured Congress candidate, Ahmed Patel, as chief minister of Gujarat!
Actually, PM Modi faces the possibility of an embarrassing defeat in his home state, which the BJP has ruled for the last 22 years with little to show for it in development, and this explains his ‘fabricated conspiracies’, which the Pakistan foreign office rejected with the disdain they deserved. Slandering and isolating Pakistan at every turn is a no-win policy, and India should seek peace in the region, avoiding US sponsored security ‘closed blocs arrangements’, as was wisely suggested by the Russian foreign minister at the recent RIC (Russia, India, China) foreign ministers moot in Delhi.
