The Modi government’s move to confer India’s high civilian award, the Bharat Ratna, on veteran Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader LK Advani along with Bihar’s socialist leader and icon Karpoori Thakur, makes a major political statement ahead of the general elections. The message is that the BJP is heading into the polls on the twin planks of Hindutva and social justice, a combination the opposition is finding hard to counter.
Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/opinion/op-eds/india-why-bharat-ratna-for-lk-advani-and-karpoori-thakur-matters-1.100935555
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV
#UAEnews #India #politics
Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/opinion/op-eds/india-why-bharat-ratna-for-lk-advani-and-karpoori-thakur-matters-1.100935555
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV
#UAEnews #India #politics
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, which are now just weeks away, the Modi government's
00:08decision to award the Bharat Ratna to two leaders, LK Advani and Kapuri Thakur, is politically
00:14very significant. Mr. Advani, of course, is the original Hindutva poster boy, the man
00:19who led the Rath Yatra in the 90s that led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the
00:24spot at which the Ram Temple now stands, after a Supreme Court verdict in favour of the Hindu
00:28petitioners. On the other hand, you have Kapuri Thakur, who was awarded the Bharat Ratna posthumously.
00:35He was a two-time Chief Minister of Bihar, the man credited with the rise of backward
00:39caste politics in the state and subsequently in other parts of the country. With this,
00:44what the BJP has signalled is that as far as religion, Hindutva are concerned, as far
00:49as social justice politics is concerned, this is the plank with which they are going into
00:54the Lok Sabha polls. And that's a very formidable plank with which to campaign. The opposition,
00:59on the other hand, is still struggling to find a narrative. By giving the Bharat Ratna
01:04to Kapuri Thakur, in a sense, their entire sting around the opposition's caste census
01:08campaign has been taken away by the BJP. And we saw how Nitish Kumar also jumped ship and
01:13went back into the arms of the NDA days after this announcement was made. So, it's going
01:19to be an interesting battle, a very hard-fought one. But at the moment, it's clearly advantaged
01:25BJP as we head into election time.