New Delhi: As the lion's share of Sikh voters in India is going to polls in a week as Punjab and Haryana head to polls on the sixth and seventh phases of Lok Sabha polls, BJP airs a new election campaign ad on social media depicting that Congress will favour Muslims over Sikhs.
After dividing Hindus and Muslims, BJP wants to provoke Sikhs against Muslims.
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The ad gives nothing but a clear idea that the BJP has the veiled aim to pit Sikhs against Muslims to gather the formers' votes. However, the ad gathered severe flak and condemnation online.
The ad, released on Friday, is the latest among many similar digital ads and animated videos that purportedly targeted Muslims, instilling fear among Hindus and other non-Muslim communities. The ads attempt to propagate anti-Muslim rhetoric and fake claims.
The video starts with a nameplate in front of a house that says 'Shaikh Irrfan'. A Congress worker is then shown filming a Sikh man's house and his properties with a phone camera. The Sikh man and he argue about this, and the Sikh man questions him.
In response, the video taker says that if Rahul Gandhi said that when Congress comes to power, he will distribute Sikhs' properties to his community. Then, the Sikh responds that the wounds of being divided once have not gone away. Then, the other person replied that Rahul was doing this division for the sake of justice.
In that case, the Sikh suggests that the property of 'Irfan Mia' (representing the Muslim community in the ad) should also be divided. The reply to this suggested a claimed favouritism of Congress towards Muslims.
When the ad gathered severe flak from the public, the Election Commission was strongly criticized for not taking appropriate action against such hate-mongering and preventing it from happening again.