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