Two years gone and the NDA government well in its third year
of rule may come in for surprise in the next elections. Post last general
elections the coalition does not appear to be on a sound turf given the
drubbing it has continued to receive in the state elections one after another
except Assam and while propaganda agents appear to make the ornamentation of
Modi louder in a bid to project him strong as ever there clearly appears to be
a rot setting underneath the meticulous icing that conceals the beneath.
B J P, post last general elections, organizationally appears,
as leader centric , as does Congress. While the hope of BJP hinges on Modi
–Shah combine, which going by the results of the state elections and the
realities on the ground with dissatisfaction of the common man simmering , is
no assurance for Modi ‘s Govt. While the strategy of the BJP think tank, it
appears is focused on a concerted image thrashing of the Nehru Gandhi family
with a view to effecting a coup in the Congress which appears preposterous
because irrespective of the attack on this family and also perhaps a sense of
dismay in the organization with the silence that marks the response of the
leadership to such, the tree will continue to keep the following sheltered and perched.
Whatever such might
appear the fact remains that organization without the tree will lose its identity
and solidarity and it is this that the BJP understands well. Congress may be
accused of having a dynasty to guide it but that is where the handicap of BJP,
lies. Congress despite having broken earlier has always followed the Nehru
Gandhi family and developed and consolidated itself around its member. The
congress has survived two splits and on both the occasions the organization
followed its leader Late Indira Gandhi and she even went beyond the national
memory of the Emergency to return victorious in the elections that followed. There
were multifaceted allegations against her, definitely though, not of the
quality that they become now , but the national mandate corrected these, each
time, as it did to Modi’s Gujarat image internationally , post riots.
Modi’s cabinet has
five outstanding ministers in Defence, Surface transport, Foreign affairs,
Railways and Home affairs but none of these seem to be in any state of grooming
should the organization ever require a change of leadership in an eventuality.
A bubbling Foreign minister Shushma Swaraj who has performed her role as this
minister, looks increasingly subdued even as she does not allow the same to have
the better of her dedication to work. The Defense Minister Parriker is another
person who appears to go about his work seriously and meaningfully but is
perhaps called upon to indulge in matters such as pursuing the Augusta Westland
and other Defense deals with a sense of political aggression against the Gandhi
family than to resort to incisiveness in investigation thus causing damage to
his established repute as the Chief minister of Goa which he was, prior to
assuming the present responsibility. Though Shushma justifies her role in the
position she holds, the same is increasingly sought to be diminished, by
presenting her as a Minister robotically
responding to the commands of her Prime minister which given her track record
in the parliament and also as an independently popular Minister of Atal’s
government, is an impression, that does not stick. Gadkari another cabinet
minister and erstwhile President of the BJP is a person who has shown grace in
winning the support of the staunchest of opponents of this government by going
about his work with a sense of purpose. A man who showed magnanimity to the
Delhi CM who approached him for a reproach following a defamation case he was
forced to file against him. Prabhu, the Railway minister has brought noticeable
cleanliness to the stations across the country. A complaint by a passenger on an
Indian train is attended within minutes and the journey has become safer and
comfortable. The home minister Raj nath whose tenure along with his minister of
state has been a period of comparative calm with no major terrorist strike and
some respite from the indigenous extremists is now being sent to Uttar Pradesh
to lead the party in the state not by measure of some assurance of his
leadership but to do damage to his image and shield Amit Shah where the parties
fortunes are a foregone conclusion. Shusma Swaraj and Rajnath Singh are the two
shadows in the PMs Cabinet that have the potential to out shadow him in the
long run and which the PM ,it appears , wants to keep caged. With the old guard
in Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Jaswant Singh outmaneuvered the outwardly
buoyant BJP may be a party whose internal intrigue is concealed by media
manipulation menacingly evident otherwise , even in the informal get-together s of
senior BJP party leaders.
Modi has all this far
been presented as the face of the Party and Amit Shah the resource organizer,
the faces that now appear to be going shy as they shirk responsibility in Uttar
Pradesh. If by any shred of imagination the party makes any impression in Uttar
Pradesh under Rajnath Singh , the credit goes to Modi and Shah, should it fail,
Rajnath becomes the goat. Here perhaps lies the common in the Congress and the BJP.
The shoulders of the vitriolic spokespersons keep sinking and the countenance of
the ministers, bureaucrats and party men reflects a sense of despondency
desperately shrouding fear with sycophancy, another common between the BJP and
Congress.
Congress sees virtue in silence and in perhaps what one of
the leaders of the BJP and now a cabinet Minister had told the agencies
investigating him that it would not be long when he would be in power and would
then take good care. And indeed the parrots changed the cages with the change
in Government. All that was right in the UPA tenure became wrong and all that
was earlier wrong in the conduct of the BJP and its associates , became right. The
silence of the Congress speaks so much as perhaps it waits, for the BJP led NDA
government to crumble under its own weight. The nation should rest assured;
nobody gets punished for anything in politics which draws its sustenance from
slander. The boxing is for the gallery.
No comments:
Post a Comment