What do you prefer: communal or corrupt?

In the coming days, this question is going to haunt you. We have seen the oldest party in the country take a backseat over the issue of corruption followed by a blitzkrieg by Anna Hazare, and the empire has struck back with a vengeance. The party is most likely to bring out its trump card — secularism (though few believe in their netas' credentials).

We have already seen glimpses of this when Hazare uttered the unutterable M word - as soon as he praised Narendra Modi for his administration, there was a huge unease within the team that was backing Hazare. The Congress seized the opportunity and started its smear campaign against the civil society members in the Jan Lokpal Bill committee members.

As if on cue, we had an affidavit filed by a Gujarat police officer, Sanjiv Bhatt, who claimed he was present at the meeting on February 27 2002, where Modi exhorted the police officers to let Hindus vent their anger in the aftermath of Godhra carnage.

This is not to say that the officer's claims are false. For those who want to ask why he went to the supreme court so late (almost nine years after the Gujarat pogrom), Bhatt has offered an explanation: he was working with the intelligence bureau and could not have shared the information unless it was legally binding.

Just as the Congress party leaders started the whisper campaign against the Lokpal Committee members, one can be sure that the BJP propaganda machinery will start questioning Bhatt's credentials.

What we are going miss in the din is the real issue: corruption or communalism. It is only in Gujarat that the BJP can claim to have provided clean administration.

There is no denying that Modi rose to the hero's status after the state-sponsored violence in 2002. If the riots had not taken place in Gujarat then, few would have voted for the party. Keshubhai Patel had been removed by the party leadership after the complete mess of earthquake rehabilitation and facing corruption charges. The BJP had slim chance in the elections that were due a year later. All that changed once the riots took place, allowing the BJP under Modi to win in late 2002 and 2007.

Modi is today able to cash in on the protector and avenger image that he has acquired. He does not need to spend any money to win, and hence his government does not need to engage in any corrupt practices (they could be there, but no one wants to talk about it now that their work is getting done).

Let us also examine the Congress's claim of being the most secular of them all. News reports tell us that Maharashtra, where Congress-NCP are ruling for the last 10 years, has seen most number of communal riots during the same time.

The choice for us citizens is between the devil and the deep blue sea.