Sir — This refers to the report, “Hardik’s sex video goes viral; supporters call it morphed” (November 14). The 24-year-old Patidar leader, Hardik Patel, who’s one year too young to contest elections, but has a sway on the 14 per cent Patel vote-bank in the poll-bound Gujarat with a hold on 45-50 seats, is the subject/victim of the latest ‘sex scandal’. The release of ‘sex clips’, allegedly featuring him at the height of Gujarat election fever, exemplifies politics at its most scurrilous. That this is only about the political all-out war over Gujarat elections is only a surface assessment of the situation for the malignancy runs much, much deeper.
However, the question is: How is it that a video of a private moment of consensual sexual intimacy between two adults has been filmed and circulated on social media to create pseudo-moral outrageIJ Hardik may emerge unscathed from the attempt to narrow down the Gujarat election to a vote on his character because in India, a scandal becomes politically fatal only when a politician’s conduct clashes with his core argument about morality.