VHP turns Godhra into a fashion statement

AHMEDABAD: Stopped in its tracks by the Election Commission''s ban on its ''Pat Padshahi Yatra'', the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has gone the whole hog in supplementing the BJP''s election campaign by reviving Hindu chauvinism at a subterranean level across Gujarat.
The latest from its arsenal to be unleashed in the state are the Godhra T-shirts, which several BJP, Bajrang Dal and VHP youth can be seen wearing these days, depicting images of the burning Sabarmati Express.
T-shirts apart, ''Ram Sevaks'' aboard the Sabarmati Express on February 27, who were witness to the attack, would be roped into the campaign.
Keen to make an impact on the outcome of the elections, the VHP has organised hundreds of meetings all over the state, focusing consistently on the Godhra carnage. The VHP has brought out banners, stickers, T-shirts, audio and video cassettes and other publicity material as a medium to reach out to massess.
The very slogans that the EC barred the BJP from using are the corner-stones of the VHP campaign to capitalise on Hindu votes.
Overnight, the VHP''s state headquarters in Paldi has turned into a distribution centre for VCDs and audio cassettes. VHP workers from all over Gujarat are placing orders for cassettes of Pravin Togadia and Acharya Dharmendra, which are full of Godhra rhetoric.
Two audio cassettes by Togadia and one by Acharya Dharmendra are selling like hot cakes. Till date, VHP office-bearers said, they have sold around one lakh audio cassettes of Togadia, costing Rs 45 each.
Around 10,000 VCDs of speeches of Togadia and Dharmendra have already reached remote villages of the state.
The ''Godhra train'' T-shirts are on sale at a price of Rs 35. One such T-shirt has a caricature of Chhatrapati Shivaji on the front and a burning S-6 coach on the back. The VHP has set a target to sell around one lakh such T-shirts in the next week or so.
Stickers depicting a burning S-6 coach and Akshardham, ask for paying tribute to the deceased by casting 100 per cent votes on December 12.
Squarely blaming the Congress for opposing Pota in Parliament, arrest of VHP leaders and imposition of the ban on the Pat Padshahi Yatra, VHP leaflets ask voters to ensure the defeat of ''secular'' parties.
"Through our intensive programme we are only telling people not to install an anti- Hindu government in Gandhinagar," says Kaushik Mehta, VHP''s state unit spokesperson.