God’s ‘chosen’ Modi and his soldiers

Just a day before he filed his nomination papers on 24 April to contest Varanasi parliamentary seat, BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi declared via his hi-cost , hi-tech 3D television broadcast that he had been chosen by God for the difficult job that lies ahead. “God chooses certain people to do the difficult work . I believe God has chosen me for this work. Now I only need your (voters’) blessings.” Only a day earlier he had shared the dais with a fellow godman Shiv Sena leader Ramdas Kadam who called Muslims traitors (“deshdrohis) who will be “taught a lesson” by Modi once he comes to power. Modi will also find a “permanent solution” to problems caused by Indian Muslim mischief makers, besides setting Pakistan right within six months, Kadam thundered. Modi listened to his fellow speaker without any murmur, and only a day later issued a tweet distancing himself from Kadam’s outpouring after belated realisation of the potential embarrassment and public censure of Kadam’s rant against Muslim citizens and voters. In his own god-speak , Modi reeled off his success in advance of election results as he appealed for a big turnout: “ The polls on 232 ( 272?) seats have already decided who is forming the next government . That UPA is losing miserably is a foregone conclusion. So why not vote for a stable government? I urge all of you, especially the fence-sitters, to vote in record numbers.” Aiming even higher, the Gujarat chief minister told his followers that only a stable government could ensure development and so people should ensure BJP gets 300 seats. “A jod-tod (coalition) government, as that of the UPA , has brazenly used the CBI sword to keep itself in majority and save its chair. How can such a government work for the country? Give (us) such a mandate that we can lay the foundation for the next century of development.” The Gujarat strongman also mocked Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for indulging in poverty tourism. “ Rahul bhaiya goes for poverty tourism. He goes to villages and meets the poor to see if they have two legs, two hands, two eyes and a stomach. That’s because he has himself never experienced poverty.” For once Modi called Rahul bhaiya ( brother) and not by other names like yuvraj, prince or “shehzada.” A case of amnesia ? Whatever the explanation, amen. Over in Jharkhand, a pair of other BJP stalwarts, ex-national party president Nitin Gadkari and Bihar senior party leader Giriraj Singh had shared a dais in Deogarh area , last week when Modi’s critics were lambasted in unforgettable language. Giriraj went full steam ahead by declaring from the rostrum that those who opposed Modi ji “ have no place in India and should go to Pakistan.” “Woh log Narendra Modi ko rokna chahte hain, woh Pakistan dekh rahe hain. Aane wale dinon mein aise logon ke liye jagah Hindustan mein nahi, Jharkhand mein nahi, parantu Pakistan mein hogi.” (Those who want to stop Narendra Modi are looking to Pakistan for support. In the coming days there won’t be any place for such people in India or in Jharkhand because their place will be in Pakistan.” Conveniently and routinely, but belated, the BJP issued a disclaimer dissociating itself from Giriraj’s remarks. But the damage was done; mischief made; and trouble created. Equally routinely, an FIR was lodged against Giriraj but he remains defiant, despite district deputy commissioner Ameet Kumar’s report saying: I have examined the video-footage of his speech and found that its content was communal anti-national in nature.” All this , however, is par for the course in the current election season which has raised huge question marks about Chief Election Commissioner Mr Sampath’s capacity to control things or take prompt action . Not to be left behind in the race for grabbing news headlines, the inimitable Pravin Togadia of Vishwa Hindu Parishad launched himself into a flaming controversy by supporting Hindu residents of a colony in Bhavnagar opposed to a Muslim buyer of a house in the colony moving into his property and occupying it. In his inflammatory style, the veteran BJP ally is alleged to have asked Hindu residents to take control of the house by force if the owner did not abandon the property within 48 hours. “Take possession of the house and put up a Bajrang Dal board outside... you will not be hanged if you take possession of the house illegally,” he is alleged to have advised his followers, besides making other comments. Ram darbars and chanting of bhajans have been actually performed outside the house as a deterrent to the buyer, Mr Ali Asghar Zaveri. Routinely, yet again, the VHP firebrand has denied making any hate speech and even threatened to sue those spreading rumours. While the election commissioner has asked the district administration to investigate and file an FIR , the ground reality is that the buyer of the house has been effectively prevented from occupying his property even after months of payment and purchase. A shape of promised good governance, if ‘God’s chosen’ man wins? ..........................................................................................................................................................

Rahul pokes fun at Modi’s toffee model and self-image

The Gujarat development model has been in the news for an extra long run in the Indian political arena. Coined by the Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi himself, it has acquired a new sharpness over the last couple of years, especially in the run-up to the current general elections. Predictably he has been holding up his model unto other states as a cure for many of their shortcomings, though so far there have not been many takers for it. His model’s critics have come not only from Congress and other non-BJP political parties. Quite unexpectedly his own party colleagues from other states have been pretty vocal in distancing themselves from it. They have been holding up other models too, among them the Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh models. Party faithful like L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi have made no secret of admiring Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Chouhan’s and Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh’s models. Joshi even went to the extent of suggesting a hybrid model, merging the different models into a combined party model, implicitly denying the supremacy of the individual Gujarat model and suggesting a tongue-in-cheek denial of the individual supremacy of Modi himself! No surprise that the sharpest attack on the Gujarat model and its maker has come from the Congress party whose vice-president Rahul Gandhi has given it the tongue-tickling nickname of ‘toffee model.’ Speaking in Aurangabad on his party campaign trail, Rahul said the Gujarat chief minister had sold off 45,000 acres of prime coastal land in his state for a mere Rs 300 crore -- at the rate of just one rupee per square metre. One rupee, he chuckled, was also the price of a single toffee these days. A city of the size of Aurangabad, he said, had been sold at the toffee rate to one of Modi’s chosen industrialists. Similarly, Modi had doled out a loan worth Rs 10,000 crore at one per cent interest to Tatas for setting up a plant to produce its small Nano car in the state. In sharp contrast loans to poor farmers of Gujarat, Rahul pointed out, were being given at 12 percent interest. Such land deals for the favoured few were a proof of Modi’s ‘crony capitalism’ which meant not development but impoverishment of the poor farmers and common people. Rahul and his party’s counter attacks on Modi and BJP have been seen rather late in coming, yet Modi’s rebuttal of toffee model charge as Rahul’s ‘childish’ vocabulary has failed to find any buyers. In the current round of cut-and- thrust battle, Rahul has not spared any punches in calling Modi’s development talk as ‘eyewash.’ He reminded his audience of BJP’s 2004 ‘India shining’ claims after six years of party rule. The 2004 ‘ghubara’ or balloon, he said, burst in the party’s face and the balloon burst again in 2009. With a relish, Rahul asked his listeners to wait and watch for another bursting of the BJP balloon. Hopping to another rally at Kishanganj in Bihar the next day, Rahul named Modi directly for the first time when he cracked the joke : ‘ Modi ji, Hindustan ko ullu banana band karo ( Modi ji, stop fooling the people of India with your development model and the rest of it).’ Even in Bihar the BJP was trying to sell its toffee model, but the people of Bihar won’t be fooled by such tactics. They are a shrewd judge of political games and won’t fall for them, Rahul complimented his listeners to clappings and sounds of shouts of ‘ Very good (Bahut achcha).’ Attacking Modi and BJP’s campaign style, Rahul contrasted the arrogance and anger of BJP leaders with the lack of any similar traits among Congress leaders and workers and accused BJP of indulging in divisive politics and pitting Hindus and against Muslims. Instead of uniting the country the party was continuing its old divide-and-rule tactics. Referring to Sachar Committee’s recommendation for the upliftment of the poor among the Muslim minority, he said the report had been implemented in true spirit and any glitches would be removed. The process of ensuring justice for the minorities would continue as part of secular ideology to which the Congress party is committed. Rahul , however, reserved his punch for the way the BJP’s prime ministerial hopeful was conducting his election campaign. ‘For Modi ji the election is not so much about the condition of farmers or the poor but about himself. He is just interested in becoming the Chowkidar (guard) of the country and keeping the keys with himself, as if he alone can guard the country and set everything right. He is forgetting that if Gujarat or the entire country has been standing firmly for the last 60 or more years, it is because of the farmers and labourers who have been contributing to its strength. It is not any one man’s work. It is the work of all the people.’ ............................................................................................................................................................. Friday, April 04, 2014

No mercy for BJP’s admirers of Jinnah in India poll battles

As invectives and innuendos by parties and candidates are growing sharper and louder in the run-up to India’s general election, the split voices in BJP, the principal opposition party in the just dissolved parliament, too are getting louder. Jaswant Singh, a member of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s cabinet, is contesting the election as an independent from Rajasthan’s Barmer district bordering Paksitan’s Sindh province after being denied party ticket. For his sins of omission or commission, which include his admiration of Mr Jinnah as a secular leader in his book on Pakistan’s founder , he has been expelled from the party for six years. Another admirer of Mr Jinnah’s secularim, former deputy prime minister L.K. Advani was denied the party ticket from his preferred constituency of Bhopal and instead made to accept the Gandhinagar seat from Gujarat under the shadow of Gujarat chief minister and party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, once Advani’s protégé. The humiliation of Advani packed in this arrangement is writ large and is out on the national scene for all to see. Both Singh and Advani are party’s known faithful adherents and only mildly appreciative of Mr Jinnah’s secular image, but that is enough fire material for their detractors. Reacting to the treatment meted out to him, Jaswant Singh said there was “total confusion” in the party over the norms and values it stood for. “A party that cannot afford its most loyal adherents even the very basic courtesies and puts petty whims of individuals ( like current president Rajnath Singh and his clique) before the greater good of the people has certainly lost its vision and frittered away its virtues for temporary political gains. To what end, only time will tell.” An embittered leader, Singh said the BJP which he joined at its foundation in 1980 was no longer what its founders Vajpayee , Advani and others including himself had envisioned. Singh’s wife, Sheetal Kanwar, said that her husband had helped Rajnath Singh become party president for the first time and this is how he has paid back. “Rajnath Singh is an opportunist,” she bitterly added. Singh’s defiance of the party has put the spotlight on Rajasthan politics. It has become a prestige issue not just in Rajasthan but is seen as a test case for the party’s fortunes nationally. The Barmer- Jaisalmer constituency has a substantial chunk of voters who belong to the Pir Pagaro sect across the border in Sindh. Singh’s popularity among this bloc of voters could swing the election here in his favour. Singh’s family is well rooted in the Barmer-Jaisalmer area where the BJP has given the ticket to an outsider, Sonaram Chaudhry, a Congress party defector. The force behind Singh’ ouster from the party is none other than the newly elected Rajasthan chief minister Ms Vasundhra Raje of the old princely family. But given the caste equations and his own standing, Singh is confident of teaching the BJP’s ruling clique a be-fitting lesson. ..................................................................................................