Arrangements for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Kanyakumari for his three-day meditation on the Vivekananda Rock memorial from Thursday are on with the security agencies swinging into action even as political parties and social media users in the State launched a scathing attack on the Prime Minister with TNCC president K Selvaperunthogai calling the move as a ‘political fraud.’ CPM State secretary K Balakrishnan, in a statement, said that though canvassing for votes directly or indirectly after the completion of campaign was not allowed, Modi was coming to Kanyakumari just before the last and seventh phase of polling with a view to circumvent the election rules. Modi’s plan was to campaign indirectly for his party through the meditation that would garner wide media coverage and generate a discussion on social media, he said and urged the Election Commission of India to not allow the meditation, besides imposing a ban on the telecast of the event.
Selvaperunthogai said that 57 Lok Sabha constituencies would be going for polls in the last phase on June 1 when Modi would be enacting his ‘meditation drama,’ which he described as a shame on not just Tamil Nadu but on the entire nation. The prohibition on tourists visiting the Vivekananda Rock Memorial on the three days when Modi would be sitting on meditation was a denial of basic rights of the people, he said, adding that it was an irony that it was on the same rock that Swami Vivekananda meditated on 131 ye.