By Sushil Kutty
If after 9 years of BJP domination, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is looking his most vulnerable and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis is being called out for “railing against citizens he calls Aurangzeb ki Aulad”, then Fadnavis must have a reason and the people gunning for Fadnavis either aren’t on the ball or have their own biases to not look at political developments dispassionately.
How is it that folks missed completely the note of desperation in Fadnavis’s clearly discernible dog-whistle? Is Fadnavis not entitled to an odd compulsion? Post the Karnataka election loss — and what it implies to Prime Minister Narendra Modi — BJP leaders are under pressure. They have been set targets of Lok Sabha seats in their respective states, which they have to deliver and which entails a deliberate course correction.
Nobody in the BJP has the guts to read out the riot act to those responsible for the Karnataka debacle — Prime Minister Narendra Modi and/or the other two party heavyweights, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP President JP Nadda. The latter’s arrogant “Bhagwa is not BJP” had come back to bite the party in the rear! Not even Modi’s “Jai Bajrang Bali” helped the BJP in Karnataka.
The biggest problem: Nobody will dare bell the cat if the feline happens to be Prime Minister? Who in the BJP has the mojo to gently nudge and tell Modi his “Pasmanda outreach” was the biggest flop show put up by a BJP politician in decades? What and where does that leave party leaders like Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis when given the task to ensure Modi gets a third shot at the Prime Minister’s post?
Devendra Fadnavis’s dog-whistle was his compulsion. For him, not reacting to the social media posts at the root of the Kolhapur trouble was not an option. Especially, when the Hindutva vote-bank believed the Modi government is bending over backwards to “satisfy the necessities of the undeserving Pasmanda”. The course correction was on Fadnavis’s head.
Therefore, the “blatantly prejudiced” ‘Aurangzeb ki Auladen’ comment. In the current churn in Maharashtra politics, the BJP — even with the government its own — feels under the weather. In a state like Maharashtra, with a metropolis like Mumbai to flaunt, economic and development parameters matter, but the BJP cannot take on the Maha Vikas Aghadi without its Hindutva calling card, which was its winning card in 2014 — and in 2019, along with Balakote.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah misread the mood of their own vote-bank. And with RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat playing along with “sabka DNA ekhai” to match Modi’s “sabka saath, sabka vikas”, the disappointment of the average Hindutva voter couldn’t have been more stark; especially when “sabkavishwas” and “sabkaprayas” were added.
Hardcore BJP voters are asking “whose prayas” was Modi alluding to, and “whose vishwas” was he banking on? Narendra Modi’s “vishwaguru” ambitions no longer cut ice with the average Hindutva voter. There are the hardcore “Modi bhakts”, who are blind followers, but even these people are peeling away. If TINA is a factor, there’s also the NOTA!
The long and short of it is, BJP leaders such as Devendra Fadnavis and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan have to “dog-whistle — and do more”. Earlier, after Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Dr. Narottam Mishra threatened to ban the Shahrukh Khan film ‘Pathan’, the BJP top brass said “leave Bollywood and Muslims alone”.
Today, the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government has suddenly discovered a government-aided school “imposing the hijab” on Hindu students and “converting Hindu teachers with love jihad”. The school has been shut down for good, but the general Hindutva reaction is, “things will be back to square one” if the BJP returns to power in the assembly elections later this year.
Nobody, not even the BJP cadre, trusts Modi & Co to keep their word. Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has a target to deliver and he is “practical”. Forget the niceties and the “promise of old” seen in him, nothing is outrageous when it comes to ensuring a third term for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
It is impossible that some of the ruthlessness of Modi and Shah could not have rubbed off on Fadnavis. Calling Fadnavis blatantly prejudiced and lacking in “sagacity and restraint” is water off a duck’s back. Devendra Fadnavis— if he was ever sidelined, which he was not — is doing that what he has been told to — lay the ground and prepare the state party apparatus for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in pursuit of the noblest errand of his career — return Prime Minister Narendra Modi to a record third term in office, the same errand which has been given to all BJP leaders in positions of power across India, whether it is K Annamalai in Tamil Nadu, or his Kerala counterpart K Surendran, BJP leaders north and south — east and west — are all focused on the 2024 general elections. To the Sangh Parivar, ‘TINA’ to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and, therefore, Fadnavis is going after ‘Aurangzeb ki Auladen’. (IPA Service)