Amit Kushari (IAS Retd.)
Whenever somebody succeeds in life in a big way and surpasses his opponents, he creates an atmosphere of animosity all around. Jealousy is a very natural feeling in a person, specially if he is overtaken by someone else. Modi’s dazzling success in 2014 has naturally created a large number of enemies all around him. When you think of Modi’s enemies, the first thing which comes to your mind is the Congress and the Gandhi family and the second thing that comes to your mind is the caste divisions in the Hindu society. Modi had primarily two missions in 2014 — he wanted to end the strong tradition of corruption unleashed on India by the Congress, and secondly he wanted to end the caste divisions in the Hindu society so that all Hindus could be politically united. In 2014 he achieved both the primary goals — he exposed the Congress thoroughly putting curtains down on Rahul Gandhi’s aspirations for becoming PM, reducing them to a shameful tally of only 44 in the Lok Sabha (almost behind Jayalalitha’s 37 and Mamata’s 34 who fought only in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal!) He also ensured that across the length and breadth of Hindia (all Hindi speaking states plus Punjab, Jammu, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa) most of the Hindus, irrespective of all castes, voted only for Modi’s party. Both these tasks were incredibly difficult to achieve and no one could even imagine that BJP alone could get 282 seats and with allies could get 336 seats out of a total of 543. Modi’s chariot, however, could not enter non Hindi speaking territories ( the coastal India and the North east) because his oratorial skills in Hindi could not move the hearts of non Hindi speaking people.
In the beginning, the Congress party almost became unconscious after such a big body blow but slowly they regained consciousness and again started abusing Modi. I could see on the T V that Congress leaders like Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal and Manish Tiwari have again resumed Modi-bashing, although they did not have the courage to even fight elections against Modi. Rahul Gandhi is also moving from village to village, in this hot summer sun, telling every farmer that he meets that Modi is anti farmer and that he wants to take away their land for building factories. To find out whether Rahul is succeeding or not in his mission to poison their minds against Modi, we will have to wait till May 2019. Modi’s enemy number 2, Arvind Kejriwal, was more courageous and he faced Modi head on in Varanasi itself. He got decimated in Varanasi as they say, ” Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” He should have fought from any seat in Punjab and he might have won a Lok Sabha seat. The situation in Punjab is ideal for the AAP to flourish. AAP may win the Punjab assembly elections whenever they are held. Akali-BJP has become very unpopular in Punjab due to nepotism and misrule, and Congress will not be forgiven by the Sikhs so easily after the 1984 riots. AAP is a likely alternative for the voters to choose —– provided they prove themselves in Delhi by giving good governance. But they are only wasting time there by playing ‘cat and mouse’ with the Lt Governor instead of concentrating on governance. Kejriwal must remember that being a Union Territory, Delhi does not have a separate IAS, IPS cadre of its own. The officers of Delhi are drawn from AGMUT cadre and in Delhi their cadre controlling authority is the Lt Governor, and not the Chief Minister, as in other full fledged states. So Kejriwal should stop playing with the All India service officers as well as the Revenue and Police departments, as these are not under the CM. By meddling in these areas he is only picking up quarrels with the Lt Governor unnecessarily. He should concentrate on his own work like electricity, water, hospitals, roads and bridges etc., etc. Kejriwal won 67 out of 70 seats in Delhi primarily due to the complete decimation of Congress and JDU in Delhi. In 2013 Assembly elections, following was roughly the vote percentage of political parties……BJP 39, AAP 37,Congress 22, JDU 2. In the parliament elections of April 2014 it became evident that Congress was reduced to zero every where in India. In Delhi, when Assembly elections were held in 2015, the 22% Congress and 2% JDU voters were in a great disarray and did not know whom to vote for. They are traditionally anti BJP voters and did not want to shift to BJP (many of them are Muslim voters). 16 out of these 24 voters shifted their loyalties to AAP. The voting percentage of AAP swelled from 37 to 37+16 =53%. Now with 53% votes they could crush the BJP (39%) in almost all the 70 seats and ended up with a tally of 67 seats! Kejriwal’s victory in Delhi was entirely due to the collapse of the Congress party. BJP must ensure in future that Congress does not collapse completely on areas like Punjab, Himachal, Uttarakhand etc. If Congress collapses these votes will surely go to AAP and not BJP. It is indeed a tricky situation! While fighting the Congress , BJP has to ensure that the Congress does not die. In all Hindia areas votes will go towards the regional parties like SP, BSP, RJD, JDU and AAP where ever Congress collapses. We have a large number of BJP haters in India. Let Congress collect their votes because the other regional parties are more harmful for the nation because they may fan fissiparous tendencies.
The Bihar elections is the next rallying point for Modi’s enemies number 3 &4 (Nitish and Lalu). JDU and RJD thrive on caste divisions of Hindus and if they get together, numerically they may pose a serious threat to Modi’s BJP. The only saving grace for Modi in Bihar is that the Hindus of Bihar may understand and appreciate the oratory of Modi because they speak dialects of Hindi like Bhojpuri, Maghi and Maithili. The results of the Bihar elections will be eagerly awaited. The fate of Modi’s enemy numbers 5& 6( Mulayam and Maya) would be tested only in 2017 when UP elections are held.
(The author is former Financial Commissioner, J&K
Feedback to the author at 09748635185 or amitkus@ hotmail.com
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