A slip of the tongue is often a Freudian slip. The truth slips out inadvertently. The BJP’s Lok Sabha candidate from Puri, Sambit Patra, recently said, “Lord Jagannath is a bhakt of Modi,” or God himself is a devotee of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. As controversy erupted, he quickly apologised. But Patra, who is a seasoned TV talking head, is not known for such “mistakes”, that too on camera.
Patra’s so-called “mistake” reveals the BJP’s current malaise—Modi is so overbearing a leader, his dominance so crushing that many in his party have been reduced to self-abnegating blind devotees, abjectly imbuing their supremo with “divine” attributes. Patra was only following his leader. Modi recently made similar statements, if only as a cue to his bhakts—devotees. In 2024, the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya has clearly failed to deliver political mileage; Modi is thus claiming a holy mantle for himself as an avatar of the Almighty.
