Chennai: Arrangements for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Kanyakumari for his three-day meditation on the Vivekananda Rock memorial from Thursday are on with the security agencies swinging into action even as political parties and social media users in the State launched a scathing attack on the Prime Minister with TNCC president K Selvaperunthogai calling the move as a ‘political fraud.’
CPM State secretary K Balakrishnan, in a statement, said that though canvassing for votes directly or indirectly after the completion of campaign was not allowed, Modi was coming to Kanyakumari just before the last and seventh phase of polling with a view to circumvent the election rules.
Modi’s plan was to campaign indirectly for his party through the meditation that would garner wide media coverage and generate a discussion on social media, he said and urged the Election Commission of India to not allow the meditation, besides imposing a ban on the telecast of the event.
Selvaperunthogai said that 57 Lok Sabha constituencies would be going for polls in the last phase on June 1 when Modi would be enacting his ‘meditation drama,’ which he described as a shame on not just Tamil Nadu but on the entire nation.
The prohibition on tourists visiting the Vivekananda Rock Memorial on the three days when Modi would be sitting on meditation was a denial of basic rights of the people, he said, adding that it was an irony that it was on the same rock that Swami Vivekananda meditated on 131 years ago.
Swami Vivekananda stood for communal harmony and was against people who wanted to protect their own religion and destroy other faiths but Modi would have neither read his preaching nor would find them acceptable, the Congress leader said.
At the local level, the DMK had approached the Kanyakumari district collector to stop Modi from undertaking the exercise.
Several social media users flayed Modi for the meditation and pointed out that it went against the Model Code of Conduct. Political parties have also written to the Election Commission of India to take action and prevent the meditation programme.
In the meantime, central security agencies have landed in Kanyakumari to sanitize the place and ensure that the programme went on without a hitch. Before starting his meditation, Modi has planned a temple visit after landing in Kanyakumari by helicopter from Thiruvananthapuram, where he would reach by a special flight.
Instructions have been reportedly given to the BJP party cadre to not crowd the place when the Prime Minister sat on meditation. However, they would accord him a grand welcome on his arrival.
