There was a time when an election had some meaning. Parties would provide a vision for society and the candidates who would implement the vision if the Party came to power. Candidates campaigned in their constituencies. Workers would go among people and spread the message of the Party and their candidate. The media would cover the campaigns and there would be much debate and discussion. The Election Commission would take great pains to ensure a free and fair elections. On polling day, crores of voters would turn out, cast their vote and fulfill their responsibility towards democracy. The Party or coalition that managed a majority would form a government. We would all celebrate with rightful pride at India’s ability to change governments peacefully.

All of this still happens. But now, if the BJP is not part of the government that has been formed, a few more sordid chapters are added to this story. Soon after oath-taking, a puppet agency of the Union Government will open investigations into real and imagined wrong-doings by MLAs in the state government. These investigations are not meant to discover any proof. Instead, they merely punish those being investigated with a process that is itself a punishment. The MLAs who have been thus threatened will then be encouraged to find others who will be paid astronomical sums to abandon their Party. When the required number of MLAs has been threatened or purchased, this entire crew is flown to a five-star resort in a BJP-ruled state where they are hosted for as long as needed by the tax-payers of the vacation destination. Very often, this story ends with the fall of an elected state government. In summary, if the election results are not to Modi Ji’s liking, he and his political goons will deploy every dirty trick they know till they get the government they want; The will of the people be damned.

On the other hand, anyone asking questions to Modi ji is treated like a criminal by the Government. Teesta Setlavad, who has worked tirelessly to bring justice to the victims of the 2002 riots is now herself behind bars. Sanjiv Bhatt and Sreekumar who dared to stand up to the murders in Modi’s Gujarat are similarly imprisoned. Mohammad Zubair whose fact checking site exposes fake news is behind bars. A filmmaker in Gujarat has been arrested for tweeting a picture of Amit Shah with an IAS officer who is now in jail for corruption. So insecure and tyrannical are these people that they took away the job of a poor sanitation worker after images of Modi and Yogi were found in the trash.

Can democracy be even said to exist in a Country where the mandate of the electorate is repeatedly demolished by dictators and where dissent and questioning are equated to ‘CRIME’? It is not just the Parliament building in Delhi that the Modi and the RSS are dismantling, they are gleefully uprooting the very foundations of our democracy. Jai Congress. Jai Hind. Jai Jagat.