Glad to see the new ruthless BJP. Hope it lasts.

I, for one, am glad to see the new BJP. They have to win 2024 at any cost, and to hell with social niceties. I hope this isn’t an aberration.

You can be politically correct, ethical and moral when the people on the other side display similar qualities. By now, it’s pretty clear those ranged against the BJP have no such sterling qualities.

I’m glad the BJP has finally overcome that psychological hurdle that it is not sacrificing its core political ideology, even as it bends its own rules of being a party with a difference to beat the Opposition at its game.

This Opposition that accuses the BJP constantly of being a washing machine, in effect, collectively runs the largest political laundromat in the world. And there are innumerable examples. Take Arvind Kejriwal. Since he entered politics, his political life has been a litany of broken promises. There is not one politician left who he has not accused of corruption and threatened to lock up. But has he? Even one?

And yet, for political expediency, he has hugged and shaken hands with all of them. He might wear the same shirt, but I am sure it goes to the laundry every other day, like his political beliefs. He’s the new Mr. Clean.

Then there’s Nitish Kumar, who runs his own laundry service that whitewashes his political ideology as he swings from right-wing to secular left-liberal at his convenience. Do you want me to mention the Yadav families of Bihar and UP? I don’t think so. The one in Bihar is preparing to spend some quality time in jail, again.

Look at the Communists who claim they have no religious ideology but send their atheist thoughts to the cleaners when they want to support parties that believe in a hardcore religious doctrine.

And finally, there’s the Congress. What do you say about India’s oldest political party?

They are the last people to lecture the BJP on political morality. From strong-arming a President to sign an Emergency proclamation to having another who was ready to sweep the floor for one of their kids, to have ‘committed’ judges, to have a battery of lawyers prepared to save their first family from corruption cases…the acts of malfeasance indulged in by the Congress are too many to mention here.

Its leaders can abuse right-wing parties, the RSS and its ideologues and then quickly slip into a dhoti, spread Vibhuti on their foreheads and fall at the feet of any God or Goddess before an election. The next day wearing skull caps, they can support politicians who hate cows enough to eat them and, with a straight face, say only they can ‘save’ the Minorities from the BJP.

Rahul Gandhi goes abroad and cavorts with all those actively engaged in anti-India activities. Then, even before he returns, his faithful advisors run his views and the dubious company he keeps through the party laundromat, and they all vanish from sight! And the 53-year-old Boy Wonder is back to showing his dimples.

And the latest circus to hit town is the Patriotic Democratic Alliance (PDA), who all run their private laundry services. Although, one of them suffered a setback just a day before when the workers at its dry cleaning service revolted. They’re having some managerial issues. Let’s see when they reopen under new management!

Kaam chalu aahey.

This Congress Party and Opposition can’t defeat Modi!

Am I the only one who thinks so, but do the rising decibels of foul language against Modi and other BJP leaders have anything to do with the dwindling fortunes of the Congress party and the Opposition as they get ready to take on the NDA in 2024? Since mid-2000, Congress has seen power slipping away. Modi has chipped away, state by state, dismantling the ecosystem that protects the family.

Fanning the fires of Gujarat 2002 has run its course. Corruption and cronyism accusations have fallen by the wayside. Every attempt, even the latest, to throw dirt on Modi has failed. Yesterday in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, the specific allegations against Modi by Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge were expunged in both Houses because they were without any basis. Attempts to link Modi and Adani fell flat. And that is frustrating the Opposition to no end. And the only way they know how to retaliate is by being abusive. They are running out of answers. The problem is all Q&As come from one source. And that’s the elephant in the room – the dynasty.

The nose and the constant reminders of ‘martyrdom’ by the family notwithstanding, NONE of the family have the charisma, the guts or the guile of Indira Gandhi to take on Modi. Congress had hoped the Bharat Jodo Yatra would do it for them. They can thump their chests all they want, but what has it achieved? It’s like SRK’s PR machinery rigging the box office returns of Pathaan even when theatres across the country run empty. So getting two-bit celebs, sidelined politicians, bureaucrats, retired generals, and a smattering of rabid Modi-haters, all with their own agendas, to walk with you is not going to change the fortunes of the party.

Even throughout the walk, the only thing consistent about Rahul Gandhi was the nonsense he spoke. And like a running tap, it flowed constantly. As his beard grew longer, so did his inanities. He’s been made to believe that the walk was a resounding success. Now that it’s ended, someone seems to have whispered to him that he needs to travel from East to West now. All the best to him!

You would think the long walk might have changed him, but no. He shot off his mouth again! The latest blooper was to call an elected chief minister a thug who doesn’t understand religion. Yogi Adityanath is also a mahant of a math, and probably understands more about religion than Rahul’s entire dynasty starting from Motilal. But hey, how does it matter when your people don’t dare to tell you that you’re damaging the party and whatever chances you have at the hustings and the political careers of all those who have tied their fortunes to it?

Yogi said a few days back that BJP will keep winning as long as Rahul is around. And it is true. That’s also why all the smart ones have unhitched themselves from the Congress gravy train. Only those who nobody else will hire and those Rajiv Gandhi once called limpets are hanging around the party. They will continue to be around long after.

Meanwhile, Rahul keeps saying that he has been questioning Modi for the past decade, but he is not giving him answers. What he doesn’t say is that the courts have answered all his questions. What unfolded on Thursday in the Rajya Sabha was an embarrassment, and the behaviour of those we call our ‘elders’ an abomination. Hooliganism was the only thing visible as the PM spoke. That he completed his speech with all the shouting in his face is a credit to the man. And the entire nation heard it. Is this how Congress and the Opposition want to defeat Modi in 2024? Is this how Rahul wants to defeat Modi? If this is their strategy, Modi has nothing to worry about.

Time to leave, Rahul

I say this as a former long-time Congress supporter/voter. Feel free to correct me, but I don’t believe that in 18 years as MP, Rahul Gandhi has given even one sensible, well-meaning, and crucial suggestion to the govt in power on any issue. All he has done is whine, complain and exaggerate. And the issues he has raised in parliament have usually been overshadowed by the blunders he makes while speaking. And when he’s not doing all of that, he’s holidaying.

Many of us then felt that if Rahul had to take over the reins of the country someday, he needed to understand how to run a state machinery. Becoming chief minister of a Congress-ruled state would be the perfect place to start. But the reason given against that was that Rajiv Gandhi also had no administrative experience when he took over.

The truth is Rajiv took over at a difficult time for India. Most Indians born after 1950 had never experienced the trauma of an assassination. Indira’s death affected the country deeply. For whatever reason, the Congress party decided to impose the son on us. The country was too shocked to comprehend then. It was just relieved to see the young man step up and accept the responsibility.

But as events proved, the Rajiv Gandhi charisma unravelled pretty fast. Rahul had no such encumbrances. On the contrary, he has had the collective experience of senior Congressmen and women around him from a 100-plus-year-old party, whom he could observe closely and learn. He could have studied the political nuances and the nitty-gritty of running a party and country. But he didn’t. He didn’t think he needed to understand governance for that.

He believed, and his fawning courtiers around him have made him think to date in the illusion that he is anointed to lead, first the party and then the country, because he is a member of the dynasty that ruled India the longest. And that probably would have happened if one Narendra Damodardas Modi hadn’t decided to storm the citadel, which was the preserve of the Congress and its well-cultivated ecosystem.

It has been eight years, and the Modi wave shows no signs of abating. The BJP has stated that it is no longer willing to play second fiddle. BJP has stamped its presence, and Modi has become this larger-than-life persona domestically and globally, who isn’t an aberration like the Gujrals, Deve Gowdas, Charan Singhs and Chandra Shekhars of the world. Or even a full-term PM Vajpayee. He’s here to stay. And neither the 137-year-old Congress party nor the dynasty that straddled it for decades can do anything to stop him.

But even as Rahul’s ardent admirers (yes, he still has many) have been drumming it into us since 2004 that he’s a better choice than Modi, he has been found wanting in every box where you want to tick ✔️ you can only tick X — Political acumen, commitment, long-term stability… you name it. He’s failed everywhere. Listen to his speeches and stage-managed interviews. They are bereft of facts, figures and substance.

Even in parliament, he has come across as a politician who is more interested in having fun than engaging in serious debate with facts and figures. More often than not, he ends up looking like a joke. In politics, it is not enough to be a nice guy, which I am sure he is. But, as pictures have proved, he comes across as a personable, affectionate man. But is that enough to beat a ruthless Modi or anyone else who comes after him? BJP has shown that it is here to stay, and the majority (no pun) would rather have them and Modi in power than Congress.

Can this Rahul Gandhi change that?

Does the Indian mainstream media have a leg to stand on?

Watching some of the big names of the Indian media making a fool of themselves today reminds me of that old fable of the emperor’s new clothes. I didn’t think they would be hoist on their own petard so easily, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not just cornered the opposition, specifically the Gandhis and the Congress Party when he announced the nomination of Ram Nath Kovind, but the mainstream media (MSM) as well.

How else do you explain the way the MSM was made to look like utter idiots when the Bharatiya Janata Party announced Kovind as its nominee? First, they tried to bluster their way through with the “Kovind who?” and “Everyone’s googling Kovind” stunt. That fell flat because it turned out that not only was Kovind the Governor of Bihar, a two-term Rajya Sabha MP, a government counsel for many years, but he had also represented India at the United Nations. Then they mentioned the D word, about how Modi was using Kovind’s Dalit background to woo the community, but that didn’t cut ice either.

Nothing could be more apt than this tweet from a Biju Janata Dal MP who had worked with Kovind in pointing to the ignorance and condescension displayed by the MSM.

When that failed, they made disparaging comparisons between Kovind and Pratibha Patil who Sonia Gandhi had anointed president. Their point was that Kovind was a worse choice than Patil. Obviously, that did not matter when they were accepting hospitality and awards from President Patil.

Anyway, thanks to social media, the MSM found that its feigned ignorance of Kovind had been exposed. But that didn’t stop them. They went a step ahead and pulled out a 12-year-old piece where Kovind made his views known on the caste system and his views on Dalits and Christians.

“Comparing the caste system to the trade guilds in feudal Europe (in that certain groups performed specific jobs), he added that under the caste system, persons acquire their trade at birth, while the guilds allowed job mobility.  Caste factors are now used to protect jobs and livelihoods more than anything else.”

Let’s be honest, he did not say anything out of the ordinary or very wrong. Not just in jobs but in many government-run educational institutions most general category students are denied admissions and are forced to opt for private colleges. It has affected so many middle-class families who don’t depend on their caste to get admissions for their wards in colleges and jobs thereafter.

When these barbs failed to hit home, the MSM subtly changed track. In more than two decades or so, Lal Krishna Advani was the man who had been vilified by the MSM as the face of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. It was his Rath Yatra that fuelled a sense of insecurity in Muslims all over the country and drove a wedge between the two communities, they said. He was also one of the conspirators who watched as kar sevaks climbed atop the mosque in Ayodhya and brought it down on December 6, 1992. The MSM never failed to remind us that this was the man who was singularly responsible for destroying India’s secular fabric.

However, in the past few years, just because Narendra Modi and Amit Shah had sidelined Advani, they forgot all that and had been writing pieces about what a nice guy he was and how sorry they were to see him being sidelined – all done purely to rile Modi. And now, just to oppose Modi’s choice of Kovind they also rediscovered his hidden charms, democratic values and ethics. Suddenly “A man who has the wisdom and courage to say sorry is someone I would trust to safeguard our democracy and our values as president.” Amen.

By the way, has Advani ever said ‘SORRY’ for the demolition of the mosque?

Conveniently forgotten also was the fact that just last month the MSM went after Kalyan Singh when the court named him as a co-conspirator in the Babri case, and rightly so because they believed he escaped trial as he was governor. But, now they had no problem letting Advani off the hook.

The MSM also suffered selective amnesia with the minor matter of Advani’s age. He is 90 years old. In their rush to pull down 71-year-old Kovind’s nomination, they forgot they had roundly criticised Modi when he forwarded the name of 76-year-old Najma Heptullah for governor. So, they were okay with a 90-year-old Commander-in-Chief of the Indian armed forces?

And finally, on June 22, when Congress President Sonia Gandhi decided on Meira Kumar as her choice for president, the MSM began promoting the former speaker, known only for her closeness to the Gandhi family and for being one of the most ineffectual Speakers of the Lok Sabha with her patented “baith jaiyee, baith jaiyee” which never really worked. Her other claim to fame is the fact that she is Babu Jagjivan Ram’s daughter. Oh wait, there’s another – she is a Dalit, which of course some well-known journalists, who were accusing Modi of using the Dalit card while nominating Kovind, now have no problem with. All these flip flops, twists and turns by the MSM are only because their hatred for Modi surpasses all else along with the fear of seeing him come back to power in 2019. SO HE HAS TO BE STOPPED AT ANY COST.

Really guys, your slip is showing. You can have your personal viewpoint about anyone or anything but your flip-flops on a daily basis in the public domain do no good to your reputation as journalists we once admired. I say this because as someone who interacts with students of journalism in media colleges I get asked this question very often. Can you make it any more obvious that the lessons on ethics and morality you speak to budding journalists about is something you have conveniently buried under the mountain of half-truths you’ve been peddling ever since Narendra Modi came to power? And, I am not even getting into the years before that.

The mother of all elections!

In the political history of India, this has easily been the mother of all elections! I think what we witnessed today was an earthquake in the political arena. One party winning a clear majority hasn’t happened since 1985. I don’t think I’ve seen anything like this since 1977 when the Janata Party threw out Indira’s Congress Party after the Emergency was called off. After that, this has been the most exciting election I’ve seen. And remember, unlike Indira in 1971 or the Janata Party, Modi had no war or a tactical win to use in his favour.

For all of Modi’s claim of development, the 2002 Gujarat riots would invariably pop up. In a bizarre sort of way, the UPA’s plan to bring the riots to the forefront and make it their main poll plank, only helped Modi consolidate his support. As the campaign reached its crescendo, it had become Narendra Modi versus the Rest of India’s political fraternity. And in that context, to win more than 300 seats is truly astonishing.

The UPA and every other party raised the 2002 bogey. And every time they did that, Modi talked development, jobs and a better life for the poor. He did not talk about the Ram Mandir, Hindutva or the riots. Sure, he regularly poked fun at the Ma-beta-beti-damaad’.  The opposition had just one theme – ‘Modi is a murderer, fascist, Hitler etc etc’.  I am afraid that began to grate after a while. Secondly, that would have worked if the other side was as clean as a whistle. They were not. They had enough skeletons in their cupboard that they were desperate to keep stashed away. Also, if you keep hammering away on just one point even the electorate gets tired. Finally, even they wondered, like I did, whether this was an election about how bad Modi was, or how good the UPA is. And I’ve said here, time and again, 2002 was 12 years ago. People were ready to move on. The UPA didn’t want them to.

The fact is the UPA proved to be a disaster in its last four years. They had won a second term on the basis of a clean, honest and decisive prime minister, who somehow, could not keep up the tempo after that and gave up on his government. Then the mother-son duo and their sycophants started throwing their weight around and the prime minister retreated further and further into his shell, until one really didn’t know who was running the government. Then there is the issue of taking responsibility.

Also, what political parties must have realised, especially those like the Congress and others which divide voters on caste and religious lines, is that in the end they will lose. The fact that the BSP, JD-U, RJD, Left, NCP, SP were all but wiped out, should be a lesson to them that wooing one community at the cost of another isn’t going to work anymore. It was almost as if for these parties the vast majority did not matter. I guess that the vast majority showed these parties who have survived on their blinkered vision for this long, exactly how much they mattered. As for AAP, Arvind Kejriwal should have realised by now that drama won’t him get him votes. but his party still managed 4 seats, which is not a bad start for a new party. To be honest BJP never denied that they were a Hindu party, but they smartly never tomtommed the fact. There were those irritants like Giriraj and others but somehow nothing stuck.

The second and more important fact was the people (except those who think the Gandhis can do no wrong) realised that the First Family was running a parallel government. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was insulted and rebuked at various times. It had to backfire, and it did. Then there were the scams involving ministers, and ‘private citizens’ that kept popping up. The manner in which the government put a protective ring around the Gandhi family only showed them in very poor light. Secondly, everything was left to Sonia, Rahul and later Priyanka Gandhi, none of whom could take on the BJP’s well oiled machine.

If you think I have a problem with the family, I hope you watched the impromptu press conference on Friday, and the completely arrogant and condescending behaviour of the mother and son. There was no word of congratulations for Modi, but instead only for the party. Wake up and smell the coffee Mrs G. Your party got the worst thrashing in its 100 plus year history.  Bringing that nose down a little won’t hurt.  Even the impromptu press conference was a disaster, with mummy indicating to sonny to move his ass! If Sonia and Rahul took the responsibility for the defeat, shouldn’t they have resigned? Let’s face it, Rahul is a disaster as a politician, and the only one who can pull the Congress out of the mess it is in, is Priyanka – but only if she says goodbye to her husband! There are good people like Jyotiraditya Scindia and Shashi Tharoor in the party, but the sycophants of the party who owe their careers and their very existence to the Gandhi family, will never allow the good people to come up.

However, now that the results are out and the National Democratic Alliance is all set to form the government, can we put all the rancour behind us? Sixty-four per cent of Indians voted this time, of which more than half voted for Modi. So, for the sake of all those who voted and want a government to run the country, can we let them? Those who didn’t vote (and I am not talking about the lot who were legally denied their right by the Election Commission) really don’t have the moral authority or the right to criticise. Of course, that won’t stop them from vitiating the atmosphere, because that is all they are good at.

This is the time for Narendra Modi to walk the talk. To show the rest of the country that the Gujarat development model is what he claims it is and can work everywhere. And if it can’t, then find another model that will give jobs to people, and help the desperate farmers and those living below the poverty line. They need security of a job and income and not government largesse. Let’s see what he can do.

Oh, and by the way, all my friends who stopped talking to me because they thought I am either a BJP supporter, or worse, a Hindu fundamentalist in the making, I am not. I didn’t even vote for Modi or his party!