With the hype created around Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to the nation, citizens were anticipating decisive announcements on the covid19 programme and the flareup at Indo-Chinese and Indo-Nepalese borders. Evidently, the hype was built only to belie. Political analyst Kumar Sanjay Singh sifts the chaff from the grain to hardly find any grain.

INDIAN PRIME MINISTER NARENDRA MODI’S address to the nation was more of an exercise to control media headline than to address the two most serious threats to the security of the nation and the lives of its citizens. Extension of relief measures already announced by the finance minister; shifting the onus of ensuring compliance of SOP’s related to covid19 on the public, and a deafening silence on China; was the summum bonum of the speech.

One cannot but wonder at the single-minded pursuit of power by the current political dispensation. Even in the face of medical and political developments that have the potential to imperil the country, electioneering seems to underpin every move of this government.

Covid19 pandemic has been repeatedly utilized as a barometer to test the popularity of the Indian Prime Minister — the prime vote catcher of his political party. As well as, to surreptitiously implement the economic and political agenda of the BJP. From organizing public events for Trump, Operation Kamal in Madhya Pradesh; crushing of anti-CAA protests; amendment of company law; to the promulgation of new labour law — the list is too long to be fully recounted here.

Regrettably, today’s address to the nation follows this oft-repeated strategy. The hype around the address was intended to displace COVID-19 and the crisis on India’s national frontiers from prime time news, and it was also intended to influence the forthcoming assembly elections in Bihar.

Deliberate and calculated reference to chat puja, the most popular mass festival of Bihar, while announcing the extension till November 2020 of free ration to the poor; the Hon’ble PM did not only use the tragedy of job loss and dislocation of migrant Bihari workers (caused by an unplanned lockdown) but also used state resources, to advance the electoral fortunes of NDA in Bihar.

Witness how the address to the nation did not mention of the inflamed northern frontier, Nepal and China. The bulk of the speech focused on the extension of GOI schemes for the poor, which could have been (and should have been) announced by the Finance Minister of the government of India. But then the FM is not a vote catcher, the PM is.

Deliberate and calculated reference to chat puja, the most popular mass festival of Bihar, while announcing the extension till November 2020 of free ration to the poor; the Hon’ble PM did not only use the tragedy of job loss and dislocation of migrant Bihari workers (caused by an unplanned lockdown) but also used state resources, to advance the electoral fortunes of NDA in Bihar.

Unethical and callous, as this episode of address to the nation may be, there’s however a silver lining. We should thank our lucky stars that there were no knee jerk announcements that throw daily life out of gear. No abrupt announcements of demonetization, or lockdown, it was a simple attempt to use miseries of the common people and taxpayer’s money to advance the political agenda of PM’s political platform.

The hype, therefore, may be so much ado about an egg, at least it wasn’t a potato.

Kumar Sanjay Singh is Associate Professor in the Department of History at the Swami Shraddhanand College, University of Delhi with specialisation in Mutations in Indian State formation post-1947, Extraordinary laws especially Internal Security Legislations and Human Rights with special focus on North-east India and Adivasi society.