PM Modi's Meditation Sparks Election Controversy

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Kanyakumari for a three day meditation on the Vivekananda Rock Memorial has sparked controversy. 

Scheduled just before the final phase of polling on June 1 the visit has drawn criticism from political parties and social media users. 

TNCC president K Selvaperunthogai called it a 'political fraud' and CPM State secretary K Balakrishnan accused Modi of circumventing election rules to indirectly campaign through media coverage of the meditation.

Balakrishnan urged the Election Commission to ban the meditation and its telecast arguing it would influence voters in the 57 constituencies going to polls. 

Selvaperunthogai criticized the closure of the Memorial to tourists during Modi's visit seeing it as a denial of basic rights and contrasting Modi’s actions with Swami Vivekananda's values of communal harmony.

Local DMK leaders have petitioned the Kanyakumari district collector to stop Modi's meditation while social media users argue it violates the Model Code of Conduct. 

Despite these objections central security agencies have arrived to secure the area. 

Modi plans to visit a temple upon arriving by helicopter from Thiruvananthapuram before beginning his meditation with BJP cadres instructed to avoid crowding the meditation site but to welcome him grandly on arrival.