Rahul Gandhi stuck to his resolve to stand firm with the Government, the armed forces and the families of the martyrs. The Congress President had declared Thursday evening that he and the Congress would back the Government in any decision it takes to make Pakistan pay for Pulwama. It was unequivocal and sincere. Friday, soon after the Cabinet Committee on Security meet, Prime Minister Narendra Modi named Pakistan and vowed to extract a heavy cost from the bankrupt nation. Rahul Gandhi on his part reiterated the Congress’s decision not to politicize Pulwama.

And the promise was kept. The Congress refrained even when some parties chose to make noises here and there. Whoever said Rahul Gandhi lacked patience spoke out of ignorance. Why, even Modi breached the unspoken rule and spoke about his intent to make Pakistan and its proxies pay for Pulwama from venues of a public function and a political rally. Soon after the CCS meet, Modi took his convoy to New Delhi Railway Station and flagged off the Vande Bharat train to Kashi which, don’t be fooled, is one of three names given to Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency. Vande Bharat will fetch some first class votes for Modi.

The politician and campaigner in Modi probably could not resist. He should have rightly held a press conference and announced to the world that India is going after Pakistan’s sorry a** and God save that country from retribution coming its way for committing a “big mistake”. But the world knows, Modi and pressers are North Pole and South Pole and the twain shall never meet!

Modi has Man Ki Baat, Twitter, rally and a couple the never failing to please Modi TV anchors. One, never short of time and speaks in an ear-splitting baritone. The other, so artificially angry, one evening he will drive rage into fureur, French for rage! Point is Prime Minister Narendra Modi used Vande Bharat to flag off his tough man image, which had taken a beating in Pulwama. He repeated the resolve at a rally in Jhansi and, shortly thereafter, actor Kangana ‘Manikarnika’ Ranaut warned that anybody “anti-national” will be beaten on the streets.

That said, Modi was no patch on Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who flew to Kashmir to salute the martyrs and take stock of the situation. Singh weighed in by becoming pallbearer. Then, later, at the hospital, where injured CRPF jawans were admitted, he handed envelopes to each one of them with a pat and a word! Now, what did those envelopes contain? Let’s not speculate, what was in the envelope should remain in the envelope. Pushing the envelope too far will only bring out the ‘Raj!’

So, as it turned out, Rahul Gandhi happened to be the only top leader of any party who took his vow seriously. Mayawati, who took to twitter only recently, tweeted Bahujan Samaj Party’s assessment of Pulwama and it will make Modi and his government sit up and think. The most number of the Pulwama martyrs are from Uttar Pradesh where the BSP and SP are in a gathbandhan.

The third player in the electoral arithmetic is the Congress, which with the induction of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is seeing a revival of sorts and could cut into the Yadav-Dalit vote-bank of the SP-BSP alliance. Thursday evening, Priyanka cancelled her first press conference since taking over as Congress General Secretary, citing Pulwama and the sacrifice of the martyrs as reason. Friday, she kept her distance from ‘politics’ and it was like brother like sister!

So, moral of the story, let’s keep our emotions bottled in. Death is not a game to win elections. At least, not today, tomorrow and the day after. From now, till the enemy is brought to book, keep the slogans and the divisive rhetoric in check. The Modi Government cannot delay retaliation, time is running out on it and the enemy has been warned. Jai Hind! For those who don’t know, ‘Jai Hind’ was coined by Thiruvananthapuram-born Chempakaraman Pillai. (IPA Service)