Sign # 1
The Indian National Congress. Lost.
Even before the match started. In the final analysis it turned out to be a party full of darpoks, shirkers, escapists, liars. I say liar since all these years they said they were at the beck and call of their “owners”, the Gandhis, and are now refusing to take calls from 10 Janpath, per chance they are told to contest. P Chidambaram, the man most people hold responsible for the economic debacle (and according to many others, the person who controlled the stock market) has fled — both from his responsibility and his commitment. I am sure he wants a “safe seat” via Rajya Sabha. His son says, “Daddy said to smile!” Atta boy, Karthi!! Manish Tewari, the monotone speaker par excellence who crafted the Bharat Nirman campaign has had health issues and does not want to contest from Ludhiana. What he is doing is what school children do before the exam day. Fall sick. His case may be genuine, but we people see nothing good about the UPA. Poor Mani Shankar Aiyyar. He has had to prove his loyalty to the Gandhi family by opting out of the Rajya Sabha and return to Mayuram. Poor Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ambica Soni (oye hoye, I thought she was a discarded colleague), Amrinder Singh have all been coaxed and cajoled by 10 Janpath to be brave in the face of adversity. Even Anand Sharma is looking elsewhere when his name is being called out. MMS is busy packing up his boriya bistar, he will soon be occupying the bungalow vacated by Sheila Dikshit.
I had mentioned in one my earlier blogs that people close to Sonia Gandhi do not want Rahul Gandhi to come to power as it will mean transfer of the power base from Team Sonia to Team Rahul. Fact is, poor Rahul, and I say this with some genuine truth, has been left to fight for himself. He is doing his best, mouthing good intentions; but he does not seem to have any takers even within his party. His Unca Diggy is still smiling, waiting to be named the sacrificial lamb as the Congress candidate from Varanasi. As of now, a Kalmadi is sulking (what cheek, he had suggested that if he is dropped, the party may nominate his wife, if not his daughter! Constituencies are becoming personal fiefdom of some politicians, referred to in Hindi as ‘baap ka raaj’), Ashok Chavan is still hanging, but another scam-under-investigation minister, Pawan Bansal has been gifted Chandigarh. Sheila Dikshit has been moved up to a Constitutional Post so that she is insulated from the CWG dust. Very honest party, indeed. Also, as of today, Shinde continues to have tea with 2G accused, Mr Balwa, and accuses the former Home Secretary, R K Sinha of speaking bakwas now that Mr Sinha is a BJP candidate.
The status of INC, who are not even finding candidates to field is indeed a sad commentary. Where is the party discipline? Where are the grand ideas of Rahul Gandhi? Where is the party? Have they left everything to the mercy of Sanjay Jha? Why do we see so little of their spokesperson brigade led by Jayanti Natarajan? Party work? And I guess like Jayanti Natarajan, loud mouth Renuka Chaudhuri would also like to return to party work. Yes, they should all return to party work — except that to me, the Indian National Congress will soon be relegated to a foot note in India’s history.
Sign #2
One thing is certain, no matter how much we speak of our great democratic traditions, the way politicians are changing their jerseys, I think the people need to stand up and seek total reforms. Every day, nay hour, a news break tells us Mr X of so and so party (read Congress) has joined so and so party (read BJP). And BJP is happily accepting these Congressmen. Satpal Maharaj, Jagadmba Pal, Col Sonaram…it looks like a parade. Even N K Singh, the man who was the principal advisor to Nitish Kumar all these years and was credited with the Bihar Developmental Blueprint is also looking for a way out. Suddenly these deserters find that the party they ‘served’ was giving them a cold shoulder, that it was turning dictatorial, the High Command was “not listening to them” (read, ‘they did not give me/my followers the seats I wanted’). Digvijay Singh may be on record in saying that BJP is engineering these defections, but did these deserters go through a spell of realization just after EC declared the election dates? I suppose till yesterday they were all in awe and admiration of their High Command (read, 10 Janpath). With no respect to the political class, you don’t serve your High Command (irrespective of the party). You serve the people. That is just the single reason why you are in the business.
I can understand people opting out of the party they served for their personal agendas — but how come the BJP has had an open door policy? Isn’t this the party with a difference? Isn’t this the party which is promising to deliver us from evils? Development? Governance? Ram Rajya? Free us of corruption? Communalism (hic!)?
With the likes of Yeddurappa? Sriramulu? Reddy Brothers? Under the garb of ‘Winnability’? Not sure, are you? These guys will make the difference? As will Amit Shah, who is not even allowed to enter Gujarat?
BJP is not sure of a sweep. Else they would not have run the winnability program. And if they were looking for a sweep, their slips have shown up so badly that may do some rethinking.
Let us do a reality check. Here we have had a Congress led-UPA Government, which by all accounts have sunk the nation. Particularly, corruption. There we have a BJP, the other large party, almost like a port in storm, who come forward and say let us take over, we will clean up and give the economy buoyancy. Fair deal. In fact, the UPA has laid it out for them on a platter. What they should have done is to have come forward as a party, talked about the success of their state leaders like Shivraj Patil, Narendra Modi, Dr Raman Singh, showcased a team full of identifiable and respected politicians like Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, backed by stalwarts like Advani, Jaswant Singh and told the nation, we are ready, bring us to power. In the process they should also have collectively decided to make Advanis of the world as Peetamahas, what they call in corporate circles ‘Chairman Emeritus’, and put them on a pedestal, sought their blessings.
What they did was just the reverse. A group of four, led by Rajnath Singh actually hijacked the party and upfronted a Narendra Modi, who till the other day was the face of communal violence. We would like to accept it or not, he has not been cleared of the Godhra riots and what with charges against his own ministers (one of them has been sentenced to a 28 year term), it is difficult to accept that he is squeaky clean. Throughout his campaign, he has not, at least to me, spelt out his vision of the ‘new’ India. Look hard, he has taken on the Congress, Rahul Gandhi, the Left (and parties who they know will never ever join them), economic downtrend; but in between his Bhaiyon aur Bahenos, he has not talked about a blueprint. All he wants is a Modi-Sarkar.
Voting for individuals has always resulted in a disaster. Man who comes to my mind is Debkanta Barooah, a former Congress President for his now infamous, ‘India is Indira’. You vote for a manifesto and if you look hard, the BJP had it all ready — courtesy the UPA, of course. The BJP as a party would have been more acceptable as an alternate solution — but the Group of Four, in their wisdom, have moved to an individual, dumping the collective decision process of a party. In demolishing the party, they have created more problems within. And you can’t help it, no matter how much erudite right wing thinkers like Swapan Dasguptas try to defend — the BJP is a party split wide open.
Godhra or no Godhra, Modi is responsible for the development of Gujarat. This was another mistake committed by the Group of Four. It is not exactly true. His efforts have been as good or as bad as those of Nitish in Bihar, or Shivraj Chauhan in MP, or even Dr Raman Singh in Chattisgarh. On the hind sight, by showcasing Gujarat they have opened up the Pandora’s Box. The “development” is now being defended more by Modi than opening it all up and letting people decide. Somewhere there is a lack of confidence.
To my mind they should have presented all BJP run states. It would have given more confidence to the people. The people would have felt far more comfortable in bringing them in — as a body.
Political analysts say that in the last ten years Modi has cut to size any leader and has hogged the show all to himself. Is this what he is likely to do when he becomes PM? He does have a dictatorial attitude, and right now he has the support of Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah and Nitin Gadkari. These four constitute the BJP, or whatever is left of it. And one day he will get them out, barring Shah. What and the way they did to Jaswant Singh, Haren Pathak, M M Joshi, I am sure did not leave a good taste in their own mouths. There is an open revolt which is breaking loose.
You may, dear reader, think that I am putting him down. No, I am asking you to look at issues rationally and you will know what I am talking about. Sure, go ahead and vote for Modi, but before you do that let me make you think hard for a moment and trash me in style. Not a la FB way. You may say all you are saying is fine, but what is the option? Can’t have the UPA back for the rest of our lives… Today it is not time to say “Yes, he is bad, but Congress is worse.” But the way they are playing the winnability card (they even had that Pramod Muthalik in for a while) I am not seeing them any different from the Congress. And don’t feel very elated by Akbar having crushed Rajdeep. A piece of advise. Yell your NaMo to stay away from this man. He is more insecure than NaMo!!
Well today we don’t have an option. We are jumping into the water chanting ‘Har Har Modi’. The Modi brigade, led by the editor of Manusi had even said that we have a ‘sarkari Shankaracharya’!!
Sign # 3
You know, when channels keep showing their poll predictions that Kejriwal is a likely choice for the PM post, I feel like getting up and giving them a tight slap. Why is this question asked at all? The PM race is between Rahul Gandhi and Modi, with fringe players like Amma, Didi and perhaps even ‘dil se hain’ Mulayum. But Kejriwal? Come on! You expect a leader of a rag tag party, who is not likely to get more than 4 seats to be the PM? Why ask?
There is just a point. With a Modi (er, not BJP) in complete control, it may be to our benefit to see to it that they get about 10 seats (which even I know is a wishful thinking). At least they can act as a watch dog. They should, and would, never come to power — but they can do wonders by staying out of it. To start with, they may not have done anything worthwhile in their 49 days, but they have got the Election Commission to ask the Oil Ministry to defer notification of new gas price till general elections are completed, after taking cognizance of Arvind Kejriwal’s letter to the EC. This is just the kind of things we want them to do. The AAP really have no wish to sit in power, even though they have fielded some great candidates, including a Nobel Prize nominee. She will not win, nor will Medha Patekar, or Meera Sanyal, or Gul Panag. Sad, these are people, along with Rajmohan Gandhi (whom I have followed ever since he was into Moral Rearmament, more since West Indian opener Conard Hunte was a part of it) and Yogendra Yadav are people we want to see in the Parliament. Why have I included Gul Panag’s name? From what little I have followed, she is doing a much better job than many seasoned politicians put together. I doubt if the BJP and Congress band of stars can do the same. One TMC star (Dev) has declared that when being raped, one should enjoy it. Another, a Congress star, was kissed in public by a leader of her own party. Disgusting!
One big mistake that the AAP have done (and I am sure they had no option) was to have gone into the General Elections. With a party that has not yet been set up, structured and organized, they cannot afford to win Lok Sabha seats. So, as far as the Congress and Modi are concerned, they have no fear. An odd upset here and there may be just OK. I blame them for the Somnath Bharti episode, but not for the 49 days in power status. Again think hard — both the BJP and Congress have played games and actually come together to ease them out. No, next time I am sure they will be better organized. Once the elections are over, they will have all the time to rework on themselves. They certainly need help and that they will get.
Right now let’s keep them out of the mainframe. They have a specific task to do and let them do that. How they will fare in the future is in the realm of speculation. But they don’t seem to be a flash in the pan.
Sign # 4
The worst thing that has happened to out social and public life is the role of the media. Paid, Unpaid, Corporate-supported, TRP-supported, whatever; they have taken the democratic process to the pits. And to quote them back, “Hamam mein sab nangey hain.” My generation have been brought up by Girilal Jain, Frank Mores, Alfred Evan Charlton, S. Nihal Singh and today, to see the dumb charades and motivated writings both on the electronic and print media, it is more than a culture shock. The role of the media today is absolutely crass when it comes to politics and added with the social media, we have reduced political debates to a farce.
Why? The Nation wants to know! Will the media owners stand up and tell us, please?
sujitsmusings 