View from the right

Both weeklies refer to a book in Marathi called Malegaon: Bomb Sphotamagil Adrushya Hath (“Malegaon, invisible hands behind the blasts”), which attempts to raise “pertinent questions about the whole process, serious lapses and contradictions in the investigation” into the alleged “Hindu Terror” cases. “Targeting nationalist forces while suppressing the evidence against Muslim youths in connection with the Malegaon blasts has betrayed [the UPA] government’s unease before the elections,” says the editorial in Panchjanya, suggesting that its readers read that book. The report in Panchjanya says that the NIA investigations do not reveal the involvement of RSS leaders. The editorial in the Organiser suggests that the Caravan interview is part of the “confusing scripts… written by the ruling dispensation”, since attempts to “demonise nationalists with the communal tag” has been part of the Congress’s “conventional tricks”.

Minority Alert
Both weeklies see the large public participation in Narendra Modi’s rallies as a “consolidation” in favour of Modi. This, they say, is in contrast to the “confusions” in the rival camp of the Congress and the Third Front. An article in Panchjanya, on the significance of the coming Lok Sabha elections, suggests the need to highlight Modi’s image as a “decisive Hindu leader”.

“One of the reason for the popular support for Modi displayed across the country is his popular image as a decisive Hindu leader. This… should be effectively harnessed…”, suggests the article, stressing the need to tell the electorate that the “religious balance in the population is increasingly getting disturbed”, since “according to [the] 2001 census the population of Hindus and non-Hindus will get equal by 2050”.

“Majority should not be assumed just because of Modi wave. This election is not on the issue of [the] Hindu-Muslim question, the issue is whether minorities get to rule through [the] Congress or [the] majority gets to rule via nationalist powers…”

Eastern Wind
While Modi took the lead over Congress leaders in flagging his concerns about the death of Arunachal student Nido Taniam in Delhi at his Meerut rally, both weeklies think it more pertinent to focus on the large crowd Modi attracted in the east. Panchjanya has given more prominence to Modi’s Kolkata rally, calling it a “hunkar” from the east that has rattled the UPA. It has buried the report of Nido Taniam’s death inside, with a picture of Modi interacting with northeastern students in the capital.

The Organiser too has highlighted the “Modi magic in Mamata bastion” with a cover story, but it has tried to balance it with a report on the death and an accompanying story asking  for an end to the “nonsense of racial discrimination” — but only to deplore the incident “being painted by multi-communal secular political brigade and its cohabiting media as a ‘racist attack’”. The report also talks of the RSS and its affiliates’ attempt to bring northeastern people into the Indian mainstream.

Compiled by Ravish Tiwari