The "Videshi Sonia versus Swadeshi Atal" electoral discourse is decisively moving towards a typical Sangh Parivar socio-psychological campaign which stimulates hypersensitive terrains of the divided national consciousness. This is the politics of vicious symbolism which is the trade mark of the Sangh Parivar-Shiv Sena combine: The Muslim as invader/outsider including the Bangladeshi refugee; Ayodhya and Ram Mandir; the Kashi-Mathura hyperbole; the Uniform Civil Code and Abolition of Article 370; the Pakistan Phobia, digging of cricket pitches, attack on films ... the dumping of the Srikrishna Report and the organised attacks on Christians under a benevolent State Government in Gujarat with Sonia-bashing in the backdrop. And now, the anti- foreigner tirade, using Ms. Gandhi as a videshi symbol.

This is a racist, sectarian strategy, supported by Cabinet ministers and rabble-rousers in the media. This also goes well with Atal Behari Vajpayee's time-tested "moderate mukhota" politics; while he himself will not soil his hands; he will let his followers play with fire. And pretend to be an eternal Bheeshma Pitamah trapped in the wrong party. (Source: The Pioneer, 11 May, 1999)