By Lalit Sethi
Even as Narendra Modi promises the moon and tells voters that he will clean up the system of corrupt and criminals among politicians, especially elected ones within a year, his detractors within the Sangh Parivar have polished their knives to run him down.
Even as Modi speaks of giving love to all Indians regardless of faith and castes, his principal foe, a fellow Gujarati to boot, Praveen Togadia, boss of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, who was jailed by Modi several years ago and the VHP banned in Gujarat, he continues to be treated with complete disdain. Mr. Togadia speaks of being a self appointed protector of a billion Hindus and working for their interests. If he is asked whether he supports the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate, he dismisses the implication by saying that he stands for no individual and does not wish to mention the name of Narendra Modi.
Mr. Togadia is now being investigated by the police in Bhavnagar and a first information report has been registered for his statement there that Muslims should not be allowed to buy houses in Hindu locality could face music. Mr. Togadia would like to know how his movements were known to demonstrators against him at 11 p.m. when he enjoys high level of security and how a journalist was around to ask him questions. At the same time, Mr. Giriraj Kishore Singh, not a Modi baiter but a negative protagonist, has kicked up rumpus by saying that those opposed to Modi have no place in India and should go to Pakistan.
These remarks are sought to be denied and contradicted by the Saffron people by the device of quotation out of context. Yet Mr. Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, BJP’s vice-president, has stated in Bokaro: “We want a Ram Mandir to be built and will find ways to solve the issue within the constitutional framework after forming the government”. The BJP president has repeatedly tried to play down the question and Modi has tried never to rake up the temple issue. Yet Modi claims: “Main desh nahin jhukne doonga, Main desh nahin mitne doonga (I will not let the nation bend, nor will I let it be rubbed out)” have been dropped because they are too strident and viewed as unnecessary.
But as India prepares for elections in Bihar and U.P. in the next few days, BJP silently tries to consolidate the Hindu vote in most of the 120 constituencies in the two States. But Mr. Modi is consciously trying to overcome the caste factor as in both States caste-ridden parties in the two States try to woo votes, but they seem to be facing diminishing returns in the General Election of 2014.
Mr. Modi insists on projecting himself as a reasonable man even though tough by talking about minimum government and yet good governance of the nation. Is there a contradiction in terms? How will the govern well and how will he cut out red tape, especially in the States where a Prime Minister’s writ does not run? How will stop officials and clerks to fall in line? How will he provide one window clearance as he claims to have done in Gujarat? Does that mean that land acquisition will be easy and available to buyers for industrial projects at the drop of the hat?
Gujarat is not one of the richest States of the country even though it is fairly large. Saurashtra and Kutch are very dry, though the rest of coastal Gujarat is green. The Gujarat model may be good but it has a long way to go and catch with several advanced States, but poverty is rampant even in the so-called advanced States. There is no magic bullet to make 1.25 billion Indians prosperous in the 60 months of the upcoming Modi rule and wipe out the tears of what he calls 60 years of Congress misrule.
Mr. Modi has been ridiculing what he calls the Mother-son ruling the country and the Prime Minister does not call the shots.
But the Congress claims that the prime minister ruled well for 60 months from 2004 to 2009, but recession in the west hit India’s growth prospects after 2008. But it claims that India was not as badly hit as the west from 2008 to 2014. But still there was a lot of good work done by it, only it is not acknowledged. What is acknowledged is scams covering about half a trillion dollars of the past five or six years. The corruption is blamed on coalition partners of the United Progressive Alliance, though Congress satraps at the Centre and in the States were not far behind.
Dr. Manmohan Singh may have been called the accidental prime minister by his former media adviser, Sanjaya Baru, who claims that half of his book spoke about the good work in the first term of the prime minister. But the fact that Dr. Manmohan Singh repeatedly accepted that he had no choice but to observe coalition dharma or coalition adharma to keep his government afloat. The Prime Minister also repeatedly stated that Mrs. Sonia Gandhi was the Congress President and he was a Congressman, possibly a very obedient Congressman at that.
He as well as all his senior Ministers also repeatedly went on record to say that Mr. Rahul Gandhi was fit to be Prime Minister and they were all ready to work “under him” ~ almost without exception. It is true that most of the young brigade was chosen by Mr. Rahul Gandhi for appointment to the Council of Ministers and nearly all of them would happily thump the desks whenever the name of Rahul Gandhi was mentioned or if and when he spoke in the Lok Sabha. Even the grey haired senior Ministers gladly did so.
The party’s supremacy over the government was acknowledged and it arose when the Prime Minister was not president of the party. There was no problem with it when Mrs. Indira Gandhi held both offices and so did Rajiv Gandhi and even Mr. Narsimha Rao later. The system of party president calling the shots was apparently on the Soviet model from Stalin’s time and Mao’s time in China. Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party and Mao its Chairman in China. Russia did not have a President or even Prime Minister, nor China for that matter. [IFS]
