A far cry from today’s politicians, whether those from north or south India. Politicians these days attack each other viciously; the attacks personal and harshly so. And it has a lot to do with the emergence of Social Media, Facebook and Twitter. The exchanges between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress President Rahul Gandhi are illustrious (no irony intended) of the depth and spread of the malaise.

Rahul Gandhi taunts Modi with ‘Chowkidar Chor Hai’ and Modi returns the favour with equal venom, “Ma-Beta Dono Bail Par Hain”. Their election rally addresses are replete with un-parliamentary words for the other. The Supreme Court decision to allow leaked documents as valid for petitioners to use in cases against the Rafale deal will make the rhetoric even more personal and vituperative.

In Tamil Nadu, DMK chief MK Stalin and AIADMK Chief Minister Edapaddi K Palaniswami are blaming each other for the death of J Jayalalithaa and M Karunanidhi, respectively. It started soon after an AIADMK minister cast doubts on the cause of Jayalalithaa’s death and Stalin sought a probe. The EPS government constituted an inquiry commission headed by former High Court Justice A Arumughaswamy.

There has been end to the mudslinging between the two parties since then. Stalin started attacking AIADMK Ministers from public platforms, accusing them of corruption, sexual harassment and murder, after a series of murders and thefts at Jayalalithaa’s Kodanad estate in 2017, Stalin alluded that EPS himself was involved.

This invited a defamation case. Just this week, the Madras High Court told Stalin and EPS to stop the personal attacks and “become friends”.

But then, EPS accused Stalin of “ill-treating his father” M Karunanidhi and keeping him under “house arrest” for two years, all to become “DMK president.” He asked, why Stalin did not take Karunanidhi abroad for treatment. The Chief Minister said a probe should be ordered. The question is ‘does EPS have proof?’ and, if ‘yes’, why and what is holding him back? EPS should come clean or shut up.

Earlier, leaders fought with facts and logic. They used constructive criticism based on party and government functioning. There were never personal attacks. If EPS has evidence on Karunanidhi’s “house arrest”, he should take action and not raise it during elections, just to use it for electioneering.

Or somebody else should bring it to the notice of the court, and the media. Like in the Rafale case, which the Congress and Rahul Gandhi have made into an election issue and are refusing to let go. Sections of the media are carrying reports based on “leaked documents”. With the Supreme Court ruling that there’s nothing privileged about the leaked documents, Rahul Gandhi’s scathing personal attacks on the Prime Minister are gaining a degree of legitimacy.

The next one and a half months will get worse. The verbal attacks will get worse by the day. And it’ll be reflected on both Social and legacy media. These general elections are different from earlier ones in the amount of verbal debris flying around. Every politician seems to have a cache of dirty words to throw at a political rival. The ‘tu-tu-mein-mein’ has touched nadir. (IPA Service)