Temples and worship places of all religions that always had thronging crowds of believers and also beggars for divine favours became isolated with humans shunning them. The temple of the Siddhi Vinayak to the Vatican, the Jerusalem walls and Mecca had deserted looks. The Guru Dwaras had no visitors and temples had no worshippers. The political edifice of the ruling party in India collapsed as its foundations based on the sponsoring of belief of religion and supremacy of its gods’. The government had to direct temples to close doors to keep crowds away. Thinned attendance at religious functions and reduced crowds in temples does indicate the precedence to the materialism over religious fervor among poor. Above all the NaMo government had to take steps to halt crowding of temples and the religious congregations. It went against the foundations used to build the political edifice for the supposed wing of the Sangh.

The Sangh came in existence in 1925 for preserving superiority of the majority religion in the face of efforts to arouse conscious of lower classes for their political rights. It had potential of ending the social superiority of upper classes in the societal construction of more than 3500 years. MK Gandhi also became a figure of dislike. The Sangh chief did not want participation in the political arena. Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee had hard time to convince Guru Golwalkar to add the political wing to make the Sangh voice be heard in the political arena. After six rounds, he conceded to allow the Sangh trainees to be participant in the Bharatiya Jan Sangh’s political activities.

The outcome of the first election turned out to be a disaster. The congress had attractive slogan and its nominees were known for their contribution of sacrifices and services in the freedom struggle. The Jan Sangh had overwhelming number o former rulers and Jagirdars known for their oppressions during the empire. Even though higher proportion among voters was of socially and economically deprived classes, they did not vote for religious slogans. The second election did not improve the outcome for the Jan Sangh. Even in the fourth election, it could improve its performance only after joining other political groups opposed to the ruling party. But the state Jan Sangh leaders were guided more to be in tune with the Sangh targets rather than follow the long term needs to be better than the ruling party.

Atal Behari Vajpayee attempted to be part of a larger unit with merger of one group known as the Janata Party in 1977 but the merger of four groups could not transit into a homogenous party as an alternative to the Congress. The group collapsed as merged group but independent of each other. Atal Behari Vajpayee was convinced despite prevalent poverty religion oriented politics is not acceptable to masses. He attempted to raise the secular political edifice without overshadow of the Sangh. His effort did not meet with success as their old association with the Jan Sangh became the barrier. The surrender to the Sangh in 1989 converted his party to be rabid propagator of the Hindutva philosophy. It did not allow it to win the mandate in five elections despite pushing to the back burners its’ pot of philosophy, it remained not acceptable.

Narendra Modi proved to be more innovative through his comprehension of the public mind. He completely ignored not only the religion riding the horses but touched the nerve of the public yearnings for rapid economic improvement in their life. He pushed the party on side tracks to get a clean mandate on the election symbol that had consistently failed fifteen times. His strategy for using the dread of the Corona virus infection to display his independent ways is also a tribute to his political comprehension.

Corona virus is not new to India. Dr. Ramesh Gupta has referred to severe cold and cough due to Rhino and Corona virus in his medical course book published half a century earlier. It spreads more rapidly now due to deteriorated environment due to several kinds of pollutions. It is being used now to beat China that remains undefeated and has become an economic super power with manufacturing units flocking in after it opened doors of is economy for exploitation of is cheap labour force and ample availability of services in 1979. In every country, shop selves were half filled with goods made in China. It led to serious crisis of unemployment in America as several big corporations shifted manufacturing units to China. Donald Trump won the last election on promise of restoring employment. Chin born virus came handy to spread scare of everything that has direct association with China.

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi seized the opportunity to ride the virus scare, intensified more due to the reported heavy toll in the European countries and America, to prove once again that in the modern era, old religious practices cannot deliver miracles. He showed not reservation in conveying that large congregations for darshan, worship of idols or performance of other rites can endanger lives. Hence he directed closure all of all such establishments. His party men can fret and fume over the step hat can directly hit their basic political grounds but people have welcomed it. The desertion of temples in Bengal that attracted thousands every day was a clear sign demanding the directive. Dilip Ghosh, president of the Bengal unit of the BJP was claiming that Prasad taken by dipping unwashed and unclean hands would ensure to keep people free of the Corona Virus attack. Large congregation in every temple was his political need in view of the impending civic elections. How can he counter what Narendra Modi ordained?