Can Someone Pull Congress Out Of The Gandhi Gas Chamber?

More than 10 years too late, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi have finally been forced to look at the writing on the proverbial wall. The Congress president has formally taken responsibility for his failure to lift the grand old party, even marginally, above the shocking and humiliating bottom it hit in 2014, and resigned.

Unfortunately, not even a whiff of contrition or respect for the will and wisdom of the people emanates from Rahul Gandhi's resignation letter. Instead, it reeks of an undiminished sense of entitlement, hatred for the majority, fake love for Muslims and Dalits, and an almost missionary assertion that he will keep pushing the Congress party to strangle itself with his ‘Idea of India’.

It matters not to him that this so-called idea, alien to even his own father, has been so vehemently rejected by the people of India, that they have not only reduced his party to a once unthinkable 23 seats in all of India outside Tamil Nadu and Kerala, but also handed him a humiliating personal defeat in the family bastion of Amethi.

Sonia Gandhi too continues, overtly unfazed, as the chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), and together the duo have evidently no intention of gracefully stepping aside and giving the Congress, gasping for fresh air, a chance to rise and reclaim its place as the premier national political party of India.

Although the duo ruled India for 10 long years, a closer examination of all the elections that they have been actively involved in, especially the two verdicts that gave and kept them in power, reveals that, despite their power surname, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi have not won a single election for the Congress party, and should have quit in or before 2009.

In 2004, only eight seats separated the Congress (145) and Bharatiya Janata Party (137). That was a verdict against the government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and not, by any stretch of imagination, a vote for Sonia Gandhi. Between 2004 and 2009, even though no scam had yet come to light, neither she nor Rahul Gandhi was able to enthuse Indians to come out and vote them in again. On the contrary, they lost a string of states during this period — Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh and Jammu and Kashmir. Their victory in Delhi was due to Sheila Dikshit, and in Rajasthan, they won only 96 seats to BJP’s 78, despite the fact that the latter had 60 rebel candidates out of whom as many as 27 won.

Their 2009 ‘victory’, thus, not only came as a surprise to many, but it also led even BJP leaders to hastily conclude that their party was past its peak, and Sonia and Rahul Gandhi would rule India, unchallenged, for decades. In hindsight, it is evident that nothing could have been farther from the truth.

What should have been an easy victory for the BJP in 2009 turned into a big shock defeat for two main reasons.

One, Sonia Gandhi, sensing that there was no enthusiasm for her and Rahul Gandhi among the people, played a masterstroke by making Prime Minister Manmohan Singh — "Singh is King” — the face of the Congress party. Singh, who had a clean image, had caught the imagination of the people with the manner in which he pushed the nuclear deal; in that act of his, they saw in him a patriot who had stood up to Sonia Gandhi, to protect India’s national interest. That solitary display of spine and intent by the prime minister led the people to believe that India was safe in his trustworthy hands.

Two, just a year after the 2004 debacle, causes for which he evidently misread, Lal Krishna Advani went to Karachi and called Jinnah secular. With that one blunder, he lost forever the trust of many of BJP’s core voters and destroyed his political career. To make things worse, in 2008 he blundered by not only opposing Singh’s nuclear deal, but in also trying to bring down his government and installing Mulayam Singh Yadav as prime minister, in a clumsy and shady manner. That killed whatever little enthusiasm there still was among core and potential BJP voters, and they showed their anger by staying at home on voting day.

So when a crafty Sonia Gandhi surprised everyone by projecting Manmohan Singh, and not her own unpopular son, as the prime ministerial candidate, Advani, imagining that the mild Singh was no match to him, played right into her hands. He made the contest presidential, which effectively put Sonia and Rahul Gandhi out of the contest. The rest is history. In that direct battle of trust, people made Singh the king and knocked Advani out.

Unfortunately, everyone, docile Singh included, soon forgot that people had voted for the prime minister, and that the Gandhis were undeserving beneficiaries of the faith that people had reposed in Singh who, as it appeared then, had also got the economy roaring. Instead, even though the Congress won just 206 seats, the family ecosystem built an aura of invincibility around Sonia Gandhi and put her on a pedestal above all, and beyond any criticism by anyone, BJP leaders included.

It took five more years and Narendra Modi — not to forget social media that ‘routed’ embedded mainstream media in a parallel battle — to shatter that myth of invincibility. And it has taken another five years, and an even more humiliating defeat, to ram home the truth that Rahul Gandhi and his mother never could, and never will, win the trust of the people of India.

Perhaps, Rahul Gandhi too had sensed the mood of the people in the run up to 2019; that is why he allegedly struck a Faustian bargain with Indian Union Muslim League to enter India’s Parliament. Who would have imagined in 1947 that 72 years after a bloody, communal Partition, the president of the Congress party would be reduced to such communal beggary, in India?

Unfortunately, going by the cringe-worthy sycophancy displayed by senior Congress leaders, many much older, and all certainly wiser, than Rahul Gandhi, there is little hope that the Congress party will break free from the shackles of the Gandhis, despite the fact that they have not been able to win a single national election for the Congress since the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.

After 18 years of failure and a disconnect with the people that is almost surreal, it is unbelievable that, in an arrogant display of sheer contempt for voters whose trust they never could win and have now irretrievably lost, they are still marketing themselves as the last and only hope for the Congress.

The grand old party is in the agonising throes of death. It is gasping for fresh air and not more of the family gas that is choking it.

The BJP faced a somewhat similar situation after its tally dropped to 116 in 2009. That party too had an entrenched cabal that did not want to give up its power and perch, party’s fate notwithstanding. Had its key leaders not made the inspired choice they did in 2013, it would probably have found itself staring at 44 seats in 2014 and irrelevance in 2019.

Captain Amarinder Singh, Jyotiradiya Scindia and Sachin Pilot, to name just three, are all capable of reviving the Congress. They can all do what Manmohan Singh did for the Congress in 2009, and more, sans the Gandhis. The family ecosystem never tires of praising them and the huge talent pool that they say the Congress has. But at this most critical moment in its history, it continues to peddle the lie that the Gandhis are the irreplaceable glue that is holding the 183-year-old party together.

Does the Congress have a Rajnath Singh who can pull the party out of the Gandhi gas chamber before it is too late, and oversee a smooth and complete transition of power?

First published in Swarajya https://swarajyamag.com/politics/will-the-congress-step-out-of-the-gandhi-gas-chamber

ADVANI: NOT DONE YET

No general tells his troops—that too in the hearing of the enemy—before going into battle that they are fighting to lose. That is exactly what Lal Krishna Advani, widely credited with having taken BJP from 2 seats in 1984 to 182 in 1999, did in 2012, 20 long months before the general elections, further demoralising despondent supporters of the party. It gave them—and the country—no comfort that even after another defeat against an exhausted and ill-equipped adversary, their timorous, twice-defeated, unwilling-to-retire general was finding joy in getting a side-seat at the high table of power.

In his blog post of 05 August 2012, this is what Advani thought would happen after the Lok Sabha elections of 2014: “a Third Front government can be ruled out...a non-Congress, non-BJP Prime Minister heading a government supported by one of these two principal parties is, however, feasible.”

This is not all. Advani manifestly had no plan or desire to tap—much less magnify--the growing disillusionment with the Congress, and turn into a positive vote for the BJP. Worse, despite concrete evidence to the contrary, as we shall presently see, a passive, ill-advised Advani was content with the findings of opinion surveys which, in his imagination,“clearly reveal that the principal beneficiary of the Congress Party’s fast eroding reputation continues to be the BJP !”

Incidentally, surveys were showing even then that Advani’s “Do nothing, get apple” mantra for electoral success was not working for the BJP. A key finding of the ABP-Neilson survey held in May 2012 was that while the vote share for the Congress had dipped by 8%, the BJP was gaining only 1%, while regional parties were taking away 7%. Surveys of India Today and NDTV a couple of months later threw up a similarly dismal picture for the BJP, despite the Congress slide. In the top six states of UP, Bihar, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, the BJP was seen faring as badly as ever, with a gain of just five seats over 2009. Thanks to the Anna movement, by November 2012 things had got even worse for a comatose BJP. As per a Hansa poll, a majority, 32%, saw culprit Congress, not BJP, as the party best suited to pull the country out of the economic slump.

Did Advani not know then as to why the BJP was unable to become the “principle beneficiary” of the decline in support for the Congress? The answer was there for all to see: top leaders of Congress, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Dr Manmohan Singh, were still more popular—or less unpopular--than BJP’s controlling trinity of LK Advani, Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj. Did Advani not notice that one man, Narendra Modi, then not even on the national stage, had already beaten them all to emerge as the the most favoured choice for Prime Minister, and was growing more popular by the day? Could Advani not deduce from the survey findings he selectively quoted, that had Modi not been on the scene, and had there not been a popular expectation that he would eventually lead the party, the BJP would not only not have got the little benefit it had from the drop in Congress’ popularity, but would most likely have suffered a similar decline?

Advani  missed nothing then, and is missing nothing now. But when a man is possessed by the devil of an incurable personal ambition, he will, if he can, burn the very rope he is climbing on.

A few days back, the ageing, still-not-retired general suddenly told his troops—now raring to go under the command of an outstanding general who has breathed life back into them--that the 2014 victory is going to be their finest ever: the BJP will win the highest-ever number of seats in the Lok Sabha. If anyone thought that this was an unstated endorsement of Narendra Modi’s brilliant leadership, or an acknowledgment of his searing popularity that, as per every opinion poll, far exceeds that of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Advani cleared it by adding, slyly, that people “now want to bring back the Vajpayee government-like regime.”

What did you know? Contrary to what every survey is screaming, people are actually rooting for Loh Purush Advani, not for Narendra Modi. It is memories of the Vajpayee-Advani government,—and expectations of Advani’s return--not Modi’s model of governance and his visionary, honest, decisive, no-nonsense leadership, that has turned BJP’s fortunes around dramatically across large parts of the country—particularly in the key, 120-seat states of UP and Bihar--in the last few months!

If you still had any doubts left about Advani’s intentions, head for his latest blog—written after yet another drama over his Lok Sabha seat—where he makes yet another pitch for himself as the next PM, by recounting achievements of the Vajpayee-led government. He omits to mention, quite naturally, that that government lasted only one term, was roundly rejected by voters who sent it packing with 30% fewer seats, and that the 2004 defeat was topped by a rout in 2009 under his able leadership.

How can you project yourself as the best choice as PM, at 86 years, without trashing the one who you believe is taking away your undeserved prize, again? Advani does it in two ways in his blog: he hits out Narendra Modi the person, by talking about the absence of a trace of ego or arrogance in Vajpayee, and he trashes Modi’s massive, virtually single-handed contribution to BJP’s impending victory, by attributing it solely to, yes, Sonia and Manmohan: “we should be grateful to the U.P.A. duo for working systematically and steadfastly to ensure that in 2014, once again a BJP led government comes into power!” Narendra Modi, the BJP owes you nothing. The spark of hope that you have ignited in the hearts of crores of despairing Indians is illusory; the lakhs of enthusiastic Indians who come to listen to you and respond to you rally after rally are not going to vote for you; the doubling of BJP’s 2009 vote share, after you became BJP's PM candidate, is proof that people want me back, not you.

That Advani is continuing to fire barrage after barrage at the BJP’s new commander from the comfort of his retirement home even after the poll bugle has been sounded and a fierce battle has begun, is proof that he cares neither for the party that has given him so much, nor for the country. Unfortunately, he is not alone. The coterie that guided him and the BJP to a rout in 2009—no it wasn’t the EVMs—is still at it along with him. See this.

In a recent interview, BJP President Rajnath Singh—he was President in 2009 too—was asked by Arnab Goswami, in the context of the Modi wave, whether the party comes first or the individual. If only Rajnath Singh had asked Arnab Goswami whether Times Now comes first or Arnab. That he did not suggests that there could be a twist in the tale still. The battle has yet to be won. And the real enemy is within.

ADVANI'S VYARTH YATRA

It is not Sonia Gandhi alone who has returned to a changed India after spending five weeks at an undisclosed location for an unknown surgery. Lal Krishna Advani too is in the same boat, despite having been in Delhi all the time.

Whether Sonia Gandhi will be allowed to see the clear writing on the wall by the wall of advisors who have kept her insulated from the people for all these years, will only be known in the days and months, not years, to come. But there is clear evidence that Advani’s advisors are hell bent on guiding him into cuckoo land.

The grand old man of the Bharatiya Janata Party, manifestly enthused by the unexpected popular upsurge against UPA's corruption, -- and sensing an early collapse of Sonia’s government-- wants to drive his Rath into it, in the hope that he will be able to capture the imagination of the people once again, and ride on the tidal wave that Anna has generated, to 7 Race Course Road, at long last.

Perhaps he needs a badly needed reality check, to finally realise that he is Mr. Rip Wan Winkle waking up in a new, restless India, impatient with and unaccepting of the ways and intentions of politicians, and the slow pace at which most of them are delivering less than satisfactory results. No longer can Indians be fooled with worn out clichés and excuses; dramatically better results of good, clean governance are there for all to see in some states, and there is no place for the rest to hide. Series of scams have only heightened the culpability of the corrupt and the inefficient focused on making quick mega bucks.

Advani is a pillar of the old guard, of continuation of the old ways, of status quo -- anti-change. Ironically, that is precisely what a man half his age also symbolises, despite perfunctory and half-baked noises to the contrary. That is mainly why Rahul Gandhi has failed to enthuse India despite seven years of perhaps the most sustained and carefully calibrated media campaign to project him as a modern youth icon, as the great new hope for India. Neither Advani nor Rahul have anything new to offer to India; neither of them carry the credibility that is needed to carry the masses with conviction. For different reasons, both are trapped in and bound to the past, both have skeletons on their backs.

Surprisingly, it has taken a 73 year old man to awaken We The People -- the youth, the poor and even the privileged -- to the realisation that politicians across the spectrum are retarding India’s growth. Army man and Gandhian Anna Hazare has most unexpectedly emerged from a small village in Maharashtra to shake Delhi’s politicians like no has since 1947, like no politician thought was possible before August 16, 2011. In 13 days flat, he has forever changed India, and there is no going back. Unless, of course, Anna’s advisors too fall prey to inducements of different kinds and corrupt the purity of the energy that he has generated and spread across India.

The stench of corruption emanates from all parties. The Congress smells the foulest because it is in power and also because its government, micro-managed by a paranoid Sonia Gandhi, has broken all records of plunder with an air of arrogance and shamelessness that has sent shudders down India’s spine. The BJP too now looks no better than a clone of the Congress. Its dramatics in Jharkhand, Karnataka and Uttarakhand have been as bad as those of the Congress anywhere. The manner in which its central leadership has scored self-goals repeatedly and made the party look even worse than an exposed Congress, has not escaped attention of the people.

In this light, for Advani to undertake a a rath yatra against corruption is akin to a corrupt man protesting against his own corruption! That he has manifestly been motivated to do so by the caucus that has his ear exposes another yawning hole in BJP’s armour: it has no other leader who believes he/she can connect to the people and carry them along his/her rath, much less to the voting booth – the real reason for the nautanki no one is going to buy any longer.

Does anyone believe Sonia Gandhi when she says she will fight corruption? Similarly, it seems they don't believe Sushma Swaraj or Arun Jaitley, BJP's self-appointed prime contenders for the Prime Minister’s chair. The duo tested their ability to convince and lead people in two popular causes they thought they would be able to: protest against price-rise and the Tiranga Yatra to Lal Chowk. They know they cannot connect and that people will most likely boo them should they lead a copy-cat anti-corruption campaign. Hence they have put Advani’s head on the block; if he succeeds, they get the spoils; if he fails, the brickbats will be his alone. Win-win.

Yes, some surveys show that there is a huge swing away from the Congress. But Advani should not mistake it as a swing for the BJP. The swing is for real change, not for BJP, not for continuation of the old ways, no matter which political party is in power. If people are punishing Congress today, they will doubly and even more swiftly punish BJP tomorrow if it continues to remain no more than ‘B’ team of the Congress.

Advani needs to realise that the wind of the anti-corruption movement is in Anna’s sails, not his. He is only becoming a fall guy for BJP’s self-goal scoring, self-centered caucus. People of Anna’s India are not going to vote for Advani as PM now. They are yearning for change; he represents stasis. He will, therefore, do well to put his personal ambitions aside, call off his Vyarth Yatra and deploy his energies to get his party rid of dead wood and worse.
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ADVANI GIVES CLEAN CHITS, BJP PAYS HEAVY PRICE

During the Lok Sabha elections of 2009, to the surprise of many, he took Sonia Gandhi's slave-appointee, Dr. Manmohan Singh, on in a direct Presidential-type fight. In doing so, he took her, his and BJP’s principal adversary, out of the fight and put her on a pedestal with a de facto clean chit. With Sonia so anointed saint and the scrupulously clean Singh declared Enemy No.1, a BJP victory that seemed near certain before the Nuclear Deal fiasco in Parliament in 2008 became a humiliating defeat.

Despite that crushing rout, LK Advani refused to quit -- theatrics apart – and make way for new blood to reinvigorate a demoralised party. It is possible that the coterie that had grown around him, that had little or no mass following and that drew strength primarily from proximity to him, persuaded him to stay on so that it could complete what it had begun.

This group, as I understand as a complete outsider, is largely responsible for what Arun Shourie calls ‘homogenisation’ of the BJP -- the metamorphosing of it into a networked value clone of the Congress party -- and contributed significantly to its defeat. Under Advani, it continues to call the shots and is driving the BJP into a canyon, getting out from which will need a leader of exceptional skills and ability.

In 2011, Sonia Gandhi’s UPA 2 government stands exposed as one executing possibly the greatest plunder in India’s history in so short a span of time. It’s raining scams like never before, involving amounts that only a year back were not even conceivable. Manmohan Singh remains the nominal Prime Minister whom no member of the cabinet listens to or gives a damn about. The real power, as the whole wide world knows, remains in the hands of Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul who is not PM yet only because he is convinced that he is not good enough for the job, and afraid that once he gets into the hot seat, the cool, dark shade that Singh provides for him to revel in will no longer be available, and the scorching heat will burn him before his time.

The failures of the Sonia government are so colossal and unpardonable that had there been a credible opposition in place, Congress leaders would not have been strutting around as brazenly as they are. Nor would have Sonia and Rahul been allowed to remain un-singed on pedestals beyond accountability and responsibility for what minions serving at their pleasure are doing. Tragically for India, that is the sorry state that this nation finds itself in today primarily because the Advani-led coterie that runs the BJP has failed to do what it should have as a responsible and responsive opposition.

In the middle of the din created by Raja’s arrest for the 2G scam, new scams, CBI inquiries and what now is evidently going to a ‘fixed’ JPC into the 2G scam, LK Advani has again shot the BJP in the foot and, on a silver platter, given a clean chit to Sonia Gandhi that even her most ardent supporters would not have dreamt of. In the process he also has, in one stroke, trashed the assiduous efforts of a section of his own party, manifestly not a part of the coterie, that had come up with a detailed report on black money stashed by Indians abroad.

Note the chronology. The report of the black money task force was released on February 01. On February 15, Sonia Gandhi wrote to Advani expressing her “personal distress” at the allegations – which she denied -- that she and Rajiv had bank accounts abroad. Within three days, Advani shot out a reply saying “I am happy you have categorically denied” them and adding, “I deeply regret the distress caused to you.”

Had these allegations been entirely unfounded or had never been made earlier, Advani’s express clean chit and apology would have been understandable. But, not only have they been made regularly for a long time, beginning with an article in a Swiss journal way back in 1991, they have been made publicly even on national television by many Indians from time to time. But for almost two decades, Sonia kept mum; neither did she deny these allegations nor did she say they caused her distress.

What prompted her to respond to the report of the task force with such alacrity? What drove Advani to do what he did almost the moment he got her letter? Would Advani not have known that the Congress party would milk such an unqualified clean chit to death, absolving, as it does, its Supreme leader of not just past wrongdoings but also making her appear spotlessly clean in the middle of all the muck that she has allowed to flow for the last six years? Would it not have struck him that her denial was in the present tense, that she, in effect, was also claiming that she was not receiving any pelf, and that he was certifying to the Indian public that she was indeed speaking the truth?

If Advani did not understand the ramifications of what he was writing, then he should gracefully drive himself into oblivion, and those responsible for drafting it publicly driven out of the BJP. If he did read and comprehend what he was signing, then the matter is even more serious.

Then the needle of suspicion points to the possibility that he and his coterie stand seriously compromised personally and that Sonia holds the key. This also helps explain their consistent reluctance to blame Sonia for anything and their limiting their attacks to her dummy PM who has displayed despicable lack of spine in standing up to her, and who has let her thugs plunder this country fearlessly. Since he will not be Congress' PM candidate in the next elections, hitting him makes no sense because it does only one thing: it enhances the images of Sonia and Rahul and conceals their monumental failures that should have seen them on the street by now.

The BJP has already paid a heavy price for these follies that can best be attributed to compulsion/complicity, and its credibility is at a new low. The longer this lot holds the reins of power in the BJP, the more grievous damage it will inflict on the party, indeed the whole country.

I have no idea who the leaders of the coterie that needs to be dismantled pronto are. But, if one pay attention to the names that NDTV, virtually the Congress party’s own channel, speaks favourably of as BJP’s PM candidates, then only two names emerge: Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj, with the former being its first choice by many a mile. As per The Pioneer, owned and edited by BJP MP Chandan Mitra, even Ambika Soni spoke of them in response to questions on Advani's apology. Coincidentally, they are also among the most homogenised of the next lot of leaders.

The BJP may have some hard choices to make.
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ELECTION RESULTS: TERRIBLE NEWS FOR BJP?

Almost everyone seems to think that the results that have been declared today for the assembly elections in Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana and Maharashtra are, as Barkha Dutt said in a tweet, "terrible news for the BJP". Some analysts like Prannoy Roy also believe that the Congress is on a roll.

The one thing that most analysts agree on is that Maharashtra has not be won by the Congress; it has been lost by the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance. As far as Haryana is concerned, the Congress has suffered a clear set back, despite an opposition in utter disarray. Its seat tally is down sharply from 67 to 40, six short of majority. In the morning, when trends were showing that the Congress was heading for a clear win in Haryana, Jayanthti Natarajan was claiming that each candidate had been personally chosen by Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. Now that the picture is different, the entire blame, in true Congress tradition, is being passed on to Chief Minister Hooda.

I will not attempt to analyse the reasons for the defeat of the BJP in Maharashtra - it was never strong in Haryana - but will briefly examine whether it is really bad news for that party, as everyone seems to think?.

In the immediate aftermath of victory or defeat, everything appears exaggerated and we often jump to conclusions. But we must remember that, in the wake of the Lok Sabha elections, a BJP victory was not expected by anyone anywhere. Therefore, had there been a surprising result in its favour, while it would have been something for the party to celebrate, I am not sure it would have done it any real good in the long run. There is a big difference between holding on to power and wresting it. So, a BJP victory in Maharashtra would have given it a massive adrenaline rush, no doubt, but may actually have worked against it.

Defeat leads to introspection which often leads to dumping of the dead-wood that otherwise cannot be shed. Victory papers over everything and all looks well. What the BJP needs now for its own good, therefore, are not victories but defeats in states where it is not in power.

Have we not seen what happened after the party's comprehensive defeat in the Lok Sabha elections? Many voices were raised against the many ills that have weakened the party and made a mockery of its claim of being 'different' from its main challenger, the Congress. But what has been the net result? The coterie and the leaders almost wholly responsible for turning a near certain victory into defeat have closed ranks and dug in their heels. They are just not stepping aside and giving way to others who can substantially steer back the party to the values that made many Indians overlook the rough edges in its ideology and vote it to power in 1998.

A victory now, therefore, would have only swept under the carpet the issues that the BJP must grapple with honestly, if it wants to have any chance of coming back to power at the Centre in 2014. It would also have put life back in those who are responsible for weakening the party. The defeat should ensure that failed leaders both in the state and the Centre are not able to strengthen their positions and continue to weaken the party for much longer.

There is a real opportunity here for the BJP to re-invigorate and strengthen itself systematically with fresh blood to take on the challenge of the Congress in 2014. Dr Manmohan Singh is not going to be available to the Congress then to rout LK Advani's replacement in a Presidential-type face-off. Nor is the Congress going to project another non-Gandhi as its Prime Ministerial candidate.

I don't think any one is in any doubt that Rahul Gandhi will lead the Congress in the next general elections. He is already being systematically projected by the media, both visual and print, to the nation almost daily, as the Great All-knowing Leader who is the blessing that India really needs. He must be a good human being sure, but leader? Having watched him as closely as I could for a couple of years, I am convinced that he might just be the best thing that can happen. Not to the Congress. To the BJP. Surprised? More on that some other time.

So, over the next four years, the BJP has to do just a few things right. One, it has to be very careful and deliver good governance in the states governed by it, and hold on to power there in the next assembly elections that will be due before 2014. Two, it has to re-kindle the once strong but now forgotten anti-Congress sentiment - read resentment against dynastic rule - by publicly refusing tickets to sons/daughters etc, to win back the lost trust of the people. This is really important even though it may not appear to be so now. Three, it has to find a leader who will make Rahul Gandhi look like Rahul baba compared to him, and put him in charge neither too early nor too late. The timing is important. The face-off in the next election too will be Presidential; Rahul's challenger must be someone who can credibly rub home the message, through all the thick smoke that will be generated to 'hide' Rahul, that Rahul is in the race because of his family, not his ability.

Just as the defeat in Maharashtra can be a blessing for the BJP, for the Congress, its third successive victory in the face of the apathy of an increasing number of voters who have lost hope, and the Bhindranwale-like rise of Raj Thackeray that it has facilitated, might prove to be a curse not only for the party but even the state of Maharashtra. This victory could well set in motion dynamics similar to what India saw in the eighties. If that happens, the Congress could be in serious trouble. Indians may not overlook all and vote emotionally every time, particularly if there is a ready alternative available. There is more to worry about for the Congress in this victory than rejoice.

Let us see which party learns the lessons that it must. For India.

Picture: ibnlive
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Related reading:
1. Will the BJP's drooping lotus bloom again?
2. Will Modi accomplish his 'Mission Impossible'?

IS JASWANT LOOKING ANY BETTER THAN THE COTERIE NOW?

Let us imagine that an Archbishop has written a scholarly book, after a detailed study of Christian and Islamic religious texts, and come to the conclusion that Prophet Mohammad was possibly right: Jesus too was just a prophet like him, no more. How do you think the Catholic Church will react? What do you think the Pope will do? Jaswant Singh's reinterpretation of Jinnah in a similar vein is something that cannot be accepted by both the Congress and the BJP. It is only coincidental that he was in the BJP. Had he been in the Congress, he would have been hounded out from that party. Let there be no doubt that.

But where the BJP has displayed the almost total bankruptcy of its top leadership and the post-poll panic that has gripped it, is in the manner in which it summarily expelled him telephonically, within hours of the 600 plus page book being published, without giving him a show cause notice or any other opportunity to explain. Look at the irony: Jaswant Singh has criticised Nehru - whose descendants rule India - and Sardar Patel, also a Congressman. The rebuttals and criticisms should have been coming from the Congress - any criticism of Nehru being simply unacceptable - but it is the BJP that lost its balance.

The attacks began too, with Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi laying blame for the book on the BJP by calling it the Bharatiya "Jinnah" Party. A lot more, and worse, would have been heard from the Congress camp. TV studio debates would have centred around a stout defence of Nehru's actions and a trenchant criticism of Jinnah by the Congress. Jaswant Singh would have been in the firing line of the Congress, and the BJP would have been merrily watching Nehru being dissected and exposed like never before, from the sidelines. But for that, the BJP had to take time to act against Jaswant Singh. And let the Congress make the allegation that it was not doing anything only because he had criticised Nehru!

But, in one disastrous stroke, BJP's leadership committed brainless hara kiri. It took the heat off the Congress, turned it, magnified, upon itself, and pushed a humiliated Jaswant Singh into the enemy camp, armed with sordid secrets that had the potential of devastating its top leader and badly singeing his coterie.

Perhaps the great hurry to get rid of him was necessitated by the fact the the BJP's "Pope" had himself done something similar in 2005, and did not have the courage to personally confront him. In any case, it was indicative of the low level to which some other party leaders, who have been working hard to hijack the party for some time, had sunk in their efforts to marginalise all potential threats. The book was a heaven-sent opportunity which they grabbed with the disturbing greed and speed, to make sure that there was no slip between the stolen cup and their lips.

After his expulsion, Jaswant Singh has gone ballistic in his criticism, particularly of Advani. Kandahar and the cash-for-vote scam have been near mortal blows from which Advani will not recover. The party that was Jaswant Singh's home for over three decades has also begun to look to him like the Ku Klux Klan. It is not Advani alone who has been hit hard by these outbursts. Jaswant Singh himself is beginning to look uglier with each passing day, with his carefully constructed sophistication failing to conceal his own petty vindictiveness. He can no longer claim that he is being "conservative with truth". Perhaps even that was a lie.

During the course of writing the book, when he came to the conclusion that Jinnah was a great man, Jaswant Singh should have remembered that he was a senior leader in the political landscape of India, and not a free lancer or an outsider writing just another book criticising the fundamental beliefs of the BJP as well as the Congress. At that point of time itself, he should have either gone into political retirement or should have waited till he had retired before publishing the book. But he did not display the required rectitude even then.

Jaswant Singh's pretence of injured innocence and his utterances based on it are, therefore, nearly as inexcusable as his summary expulsion by leaders who are taking the BJP down. They will all do well to join him in political retirement. The sooner that happens, the better it will be for the BJP. If they still want to bat on, they will get an invitation from Amar Singh, like Jaswant Singh has got. That is the right the place for them all.

Picture Source: Reuters
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SPOT THE BJP IN THE PICTURE!

What do you see in this picture? There is tree, a bike and a few plants in the background. Which one of these do you think represents the BJP of today?

If you ask the troika of Advani, Rajnath and Jaitley, they will, no prizes for guessing, tell you that the tree is the BJP. And the bike? Oh! that is the once mighty Congress that the BJP has got hold of, notwithstanding the recent defeat which is nothing more than an aberration. And the plants? They are the Laloos, Mulayams and Karats of the world watching the two big boys as they grapple it out.

What will Jaswant and Shourie say? Of course the bike is the BJP! And the troika is the tree that has strangulated the party and left it helpless and without any hope, even though it is in great shape. No matter how hard dedicated workers and other leaders work to keep it gleaming, tanked up and raring to go, all that it can do is make a lot of noise standing where it is, and wear its tyres out without moving forward an inch. The troika's grip is unrelenting and will eventually prove to be fatal.

No wonder Arun Shourie is recalling what Mao said decades ago: bombard the headquarters. That is the only way to get rid of the top leadership. The bike can't move till the tree is cut. From the roots. When he says that the BJP is a Kati Patang, I believe it indeed is. But without a Rajesh Khanna and with plenty of Prem Chopras. Look at the picture again.

Can you see how they have pinned her? Or do you see a different picture?

Watch Arun Shourie's "Walk the Talk" NDTV video with Shekhar Gupta where he says all this and more.

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Readers may also read:
1. Jinnah claims Jaswant; Hanuman becomes Ravan
2. Will BJP's drooping Lotus bloom again?
3. Sacking of Khanduri: caucus destroying BJP
4. BJP: this time it is different
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WILL BJP'S DROOPING LOTUS BLOOM AGAIN?

Is the BJP being driven by a strong sense of history to repeat its past performance in the next general elections? That it is, is not in doubt. What is in serious doubt is which previous result it wants to beat. Does it want to better the 183 seats that it won in 1999 or is it desperate to get less than the two that it did in 1984? All indications are that the members of caucus that has taken control of the party have decided that they would rather take the party down than accept responsibility and take themselves out.

Despite the electoral disaster, the three men who should have gracefully stepped aside straightaway have actually dug their heels in hard, to prevent anyone from uprooting them from their positions of power and authority. LK Advani continues as the supreme leader of the party, after a perfunctory offer to step down. Rajnath Singh continues to be party President after completing the formality of saying that he accepts responsibility for the defeat. Above all, Arun Jaitley, the master strategist who had never failed to claim credit whenever the party had done well in any previous election that he was responsible for, has simply refused to shoulder the blame this time. Conveniently citing the principal of "collective responsibility", he has actually got himself a promotion instead!

Although these leaders are telling everyone that there are no full stops in politics, and Advani wants to go on another rath yatra to tell party workers that in this defeat is an opportunity , and that he is just the guy who can see and exploit it, they are making other heads roll.

The first fall guy that the caucus found a couple of months back was Uttarakhand Chief Minister BC Khanduri, an honest man of outstanding credentials, who was forced to resign from his job, despite having done well as CM, ostensibly because the BJP did badly in that state. To make matters worse, he was replaced by Ramesh Pokhriyal who does not carry as good an image among the people, to say the least.

The axe has now fallen again. And this time the victim is Vasundhara Raje, former Chief Minister of Rajasthan. Rajnath Singh wants her out, her supporters want her to stay and LK Advani does not know what to do. 57 MLAs who owe allegiance to her have returned to Jaipur without being able to meet the BJP supremo. But the battle is not over yet. The BJP lost the Assembly elections not due to the performance of her government but because powerful leaders of the BJP itself worked over time to ensure her and thereby the party's defeat. That momentum, quite naturally, showed in the results of the Lok Sabha elections too. Now, the caucus is demanding her head.

Vasundhara Raje is one of the few modern faces of the BJP. Plus she is a woman who has shown that she has it in her to deliver as CM. How many BJP leaders can make such a claim? Sushma Swaraj, the other woman leader who has been promoted after the electoral debacle, has serious limitations, some of which will not endear her to the vast and growing Indian middle class. Besides, she is neither a Mayawati nor a Sonia Gandhi who can deliver votes for the BJP across India, or become PM at some stage. On the other hand, Vasundhara Raje, whichever way you look at it, is the one face that the BJP must project as a tall leader, if it is serious about having any chance in the next general elections. She is perhaps the only woman leader in the BJP who can blunt the edge of the two ladies mentioned above, if she is utilised properly over the next few years.

Is that why she is under attack? Are the few leaders who have hijacked the BJP out to make sure that there is no threat to their continuance as the only faces, the only leaders of the party? Is that not why BC Khanduri has been sidelined? Is not Narendra Modi also in their sights, to be taken out at the right time, just as it seems Jaswant Singh was before the elections? Remember how Advani conveniently washed his hands off the decision of Jaswant Singh to go to Kandahar to bring the hostages back, and let the Congress and the media tear into him without any justification whatsoever? Have not Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie been brushed aside for similar reasons?

You would have hardly ever seen Lal Krishna Advani smile freely in front of the cameras, no matter what the good news. But, a couple of days back, he just could not stop himself from baring his sparkling and perfect teeth. And what was the great news that was responsible for it? It was Sushma Swaraj telling India that Advani would remain Leader of the Opposition for five years! That picture of the 81 year old "mazboot neta" of the "nirnayak sarkar" that the people of India had rejected in May this year, told the sad story of what has fundamentally gone wrong with the BJP.

Are Advani and the party out of their minds to even think of going in for the next elections under an 85 year old man?

Whatever may be the inner story to which, like most Indians, I am not privy, the harsh fact is that the BJP is now appearing to the ordinary Indian to be a party without an idea, what to talk of ideology and idealism. In essence, the party looks no more more than a badly smudged copy of the very Congress that it used to proudly claim it was "different" from. As a direct result of this debilitating metamorphosis, the greatest weakness of the Congress - dynastic succession - has become the USP that is making it look better than the BJP. The voter at least knows where the power lies now and will in future, for better or worse. He knows whom he is to vote for or against. There are no pretenders to confuse him or put him off.

In sharp contrast, the BJP, which could once boast of being a truly democratic party with many tall leaders of impeccable integrity, vision and competence, is now hostage to a few small leaders who have become bigger than the party. Since they have been found out for what they really are, a war for control of the party has begun. Copying the strategy that was adopted by Indira Gandhi to become the unquestioned leader of the Congress, the few who have seized control of the party have begun to systematically sideline real leaders who can pose a threat to them in future.

Unfortunately, the BJP does not have a centripetal force towards which other leaders as well the nation can be successfully drawn. That is the fatal flaw that will lead to uglier and uglier scenes being played out over the next few years, if the caucus is not uprooted completely. The longer it remains in control, the more the damage there will be to the party. As a result, the Congress, without doing anything at all, will gain and the supremacy of the Nehru-Gandhi family will start looking more and more like a blessing rather than the black spot that it is on India's democracy.

How many self-goals can one of the two leading national parties keep scoring without getting mauled? As things stand now, paradoxically the only way things can get any better for the BJP is if the party performs poorly in the Assembly elections that are due to be held in the next three years or so. How many fall guys can the caucus keep finding while remaining Teflon-coated itself? It is not the equivalent of the Nehru-Gandhi family without which the BJP will lose its identity.

Removal of the coterie that controls the BJP is vital if the party wants to have any realistic hope of seeing its Lotus bloom in New Delhi in 2014 and/or later. The sooner the party and the RSS face up to this harsh truth, and make way for leaders like Raje, Khanduri, Modi, Yediurappa etc to take centre stage, the better it is for the party and perhaps even for India. Will that happen anytime soon?

I don't know why, but images of a very reluctant Bhutto being forcibly dragged to the gallows are appearing in my mind. No one is going to give up power easily. He will have to be evicted by force. Unless that is done, the once magnificient warship called BJP may well find itself in Alang.

BJP: THIS TIME IT IS DIFFERENT

Till date, it is not clear who plagiarised whose slogan. Was it Nestle that stole BJP's line that it was a "party with a difference" or was it the BJP's leaders who so liked the Maggi sauce advertisement that said "It's different!", that they made it their own?

For the first few decades after Independence, the grand old tomato ketchup and Congress party dominated their respective markets, with chilly sauce and and all-other-political-parties attracting the remaining few takers. In the eighties, Nestle developed Maggi Hot and Sweet sauce that was positioned somewhere between the two and claimed that it was "different". The Jan Sangh too did something similar in the political landscape by re-naming itself as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and made the same claim. Both offerings were liked by bored and taken-for-granted consumers and, as they say almost every other day theses days, history was made.

Both continue to claim to be "different", but if you ask Pankaj Kapoor, who featured in the original Maggi Hot and Sweet Sauce ad in 1989-80, to identify what exactly makes it "different", he will only gape at you with that "what-a-silly-question-to-which-I-have-no-answer-look", if you can imagine such a "different" look. The same silent reply, with an added "hurt" look, will greet you if you ask Advani, who was the star of the original campaign of the BJP that helped it erupt on the national scene dramatically in the nineties.

Maggi sauces continue to remain popular with that "It's different" line, thanks to some great ads starring Javed Jaffery, backed by great sauces that retain their edge in quality and taste over the many copycat products that have hit the market since. The BJP, on the other hand, has lost the plot completely, and has begun to look and taste like the original tomato sauce (Congress) would, long after the expiry date, with a dash of other local sauces thrown in to confuse the taste completely. No wonder it has got so badly bashed in the recent elections.

These days, the BJP is being called "a party with differences", "a party no different", "a different kind of BJP", "the party with no difference", "still a party with a difference" etc. After India caught the party trying to pass off old bottles of sauce as new and "different", and rejected them in favour of the tried and tested, though bland, taste of the Congress sauce that they were sick of and had earlier rejected repeatedly, the BJP has gone into a peculiar "atma manthan", introspection. Its leaders are now showing other leaders where they have gone wrong and what introspection they need to do. Every one thinks every one else has blown it while he has done a terrific job!

Its master strategist, who had thrown a national fit during the campaign and remained at home for two weeks to put in place the COO and his confidante, and then taken all but complete control of the party, has suddenly discovered that Indian tastes have changed and that people are not willing to accept the same sauce that they had loved in the nineties. The excellent distribution and marketing network that had set up, he says, cannot be blamed because it is the product that stinks; people no longer like the "chatpata" and "teekha" stuff that the likes of Muthalik, Sahu and Varun put into the recipe.

The ad man, who looks like RK Laxman's common man, had saturated the media and the net with the "mazboot neta" campaign and written all those winner speeches that exposed Dr Manmohan Singh as India's weakest PM ever, as well as a "nikamma" one, and turned the fight into a one-to-one contest between him and the PM-who-is-no-longer-even-in-the-waiting-list. He too is now blaming the use of wrong ingredients in an out of date product for the dismal performance. He has conveniently forgotten that he had focused mostly on how bad the other sauce was, and not how good and "different" his was. People already knew how bad the other one was; they wanted to hear how much better BJP's "different" offering was in real terms; what they got instead was the smug mug of the mazboot CEO everywhere, doing little more than running his competent and compelling competitor down.

The CEO, who had briefly offered to step down after the debacle, is now sticking on to ensure smooth ascendancy of his close confidants, since he can no longer ensure the same for his son and daughter who were with him 24/7 during the long campaign, ready to claim their share of the victory pie. The master strategist, despite his failure and despite the fact that he himself has never personally succeeded in selling even one bottle of sauce ever, has been given a promotion. Other senior Vice-Presidents who successfully managed to meet sales targets in their territories are out in the cold, some fuming, some still quiet and some happy at getting the load off their chests by complaining to a COO who himself has never had a clue about what it takes to run such a large company, and is more worried about his future than anything else.

Ideas are coming in thick and fast. Some are suggesting that the party should revert to the original tomato sauce formula that the Congress is sticking to, while others are warning that it should not even think of dumping the "different" base that is its USP. As always, there are those who advise a broad cautious middle path by suggesting that while the base should not be thrown away, its proportion should be so reduced that only those with the most sensitive of tongues can detect its taste, and those who are allergic to it do not get any reaction and be put off for ever.

Forget the product. Look at the process. Who says the BJP is not a party with a difference? So much churning, so much of near rebellion, and so much criticism of the CEO cannot even be dreamt of in the Congress. In that family owned party, be it victory or disaster, the family is never questioned; like Lord Tennyson's brook, it goes on forever. Is that why the Congress has survived for so long with so bland and adulterated a product? Is that why taking a cue from the Congress, the CEO of the BJP, instead of looking at the rejected sauce, is now concentrating on protecting his own coterie? Why instead can't he and others see that powerful scientists working on product development in their R&D Headquarters in Nagpur and centres elsewhere still dress like the British and some of their subjects used to over a century ago? With that dress code, how can the mindset change, and a contemporary product conceived, much less produced? Can't they see that the Congress - smart guys - did away with a separate R&D Wing altogether in 1948, the moment Gandhi died?

The troubles in the BJP are only growing with every passing day. Yes, everyone knows that the party at one time had only two MPs in the Lok Sabha and now has 116. But those days, it was struggling to grow. This time it is different. The party is sliding after having peaked. No wonder some of us are beginning to believe that the party is going the General Motors way. It seems now as if small, loss making units of the party will be bought across the country by competitors while the main party itself will file for bankruptcy. In the US, Obama has given GM the dole and promised to keep his administration out of management despite owning 60% of the company, and let it recover.

Will that happen in India too? Not at all. Here, if the party does not wake up and TV studio leaders, who know they will get rehabilitated in the Congress whenever they leave, don't give way to real ones who have successfully managed to sell the bad "different" sauce and make people like it despite all its shortcomings, dilutions and additions, the shell of the BJP will simply be taken over by the Congress and merged with it, and the party will go totally under. With nothing "different" left, life will become boring once again. Till someone inevitably puts together a political "Nirma" to take on the might of "Surf"; the cycle will then begin again.
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2. Nuclear Deal: Do you have it in you Mr Advani?
2. Is BJP's warship headed for Alang?

IS BJP'S WARSHIP HEADED FOR ALANG?

A warship stranded in the high seas, sails torn, engines seized, oars broken, rudder gone, GPS knocked out, the old Captain rendered hors de combat and a dejected crew quite clueless about what to do next. This is the picture that comes to mind when one thinks of the state that the BJP finds itself in after the recent Lok Sabha elections.

When IPS (Indian Political Ship) BJP, was under construction, its designers thought they were building a futuristic platform equipped with state-of-the-art weapon and propulsion systems needed to take on and defeat enemy warships by unmatched maneuvering ability and firepower. A well-trained crew, led by an astute Captain, was also placed on board to maximise the impact of this game-changing vessel. Initially, the impact was dramatic, and there were many spectacular victories that put fear and despondency into the hearts of the BJP's opponents.

As others quickly geared up to spruce up their old weapons and tactics and ganged up to stall the journey of this great ship, its designers panicked. The design was too rigid and exclusive, many said, adding that it was a mistake to have ignored the old and time-tested systems that had served ships of the enemies well for a long time. So, acting on suggestions that it was not wise to depend on a unique propulsion system alone, no matter how powerful, sails were added, as were oars, along with additional crew to operate them. Similar additions were then made to the weapons systems too. When the job was done, they all sat back satisfied that they had created a terrific all-in-one vessel that could barely be distinguished from those deployed by others. With so many systems on board and so much of redundancy built in, they were all sure that the Titanic that they had created was unsinkable, no matter what it had to face.

Till now, no one knows what exactly hit the ship and from which direction on May 16, 2009. Although the ship is still afloat despite crippling damage, it can only drift helplessly, not knowing where land is, and how far. With most systems having been badly damaged and no qualified repairmen at work to take on such a colossal task, it seems that it is only a question of time before most of those who can will get onto life boats and hope to hit land or another ship. Smaller ships that were once part of the flotilla are already on their own and looking for another big ship to attach themselves to at the right time.

The situation seems hopeless for IPS BJP. The hapless Captain, who is now clinically almost dead, has been put on life support systems and strapped to his chair so that everyone thinks he is still in charge and will pull the ship out of trouble. Knowing better, however, a fiesty lady familiar only with obsolete weapons that are no better than pea-shooters, has been tasked to look after the navigation and weapon systems from behind the Captains chair, while a combative solicitor trained to propel things through his voice alone on land, has been asked to put the ship's propulsion system in order and get it moving in the sea.

There is little doubt that both these appointees are not suited at all for the jobs they have been given and will be able to do nothing to get the ship going, much less restore it to its past glory. Why, then, one may ask, have they been chosen? That is where the extreme difficulty lies. There seems to be no one on the ship, save the Captain on life support, who has the ability to not only lift the morale of the crew but also harmonise and deploy them to restore the ship to its original lean and mean glory by ruthlessly dumping the many redundant systems that had made the ship very heavy and difficult to maneuver. There are many claimants to the chair but not one with the ability and experience that is needed at this make or break juncture. These two are arguably the most acceptable of the genuinely bad picks available.

So, is there no hope for this once magnificent ship that once ruled the waves for six years at a stretch? Is it ready to be sent to Alang, to be broken into many pieces and consigned to a few lines in history books?

Some believe that all is not lost and that there is one Captain who knows exactly what is needed to be done, and more, to not only restore the ship to its earlier glory but also lead it to a stunning victory. According to them, the hard truth is that though there are many pretenders who are busy running him down, he is the only one who has the ability to do what is needed to be done.

To make matters worse for the BJP, for a lot of outsiders he is not the captain of a warship. He is Captain Jack Sparrow who, no matter what a great job he may have as captain done or what exceptional skills he may have shown, cannot be forgiven for behaving like a pirate and temporarily hijacking his own ship sometime in 2002. They are not going to treat him or let him get away like the Jack Sparrow of 1984, whose descendants are now leading the flotilla that has all but destroyed this great ship.

IPS BJP is undoubtedly in deep trouble in the deep blue sea. It is at times like these, when almost all seems lost and there is no hope in sight, that a real leader can turn "Defeat into Victory", as Field Marshal William Slim did in the North East and Burma during the Second World War. So, if the BJP wants to turn things around, it has to find a real leader first and then back him to the hilt. Carrying deadwood, both human and ideological, and bloated egos is not going to save the ship at all; it will only speed it to Alang.

DESPERATELY SEEKING MODI: TOO LATE?

During the last few days, calls to project Narendra Modi as Prime Minister have grown louder in the BJP. Starting with Arun Shourie, many top leaders of the party have now begun saying openly that he will be the next Prime Minister of India, after LK Advani who has been projected as BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate in these elections. Yashwant Sinha has, in fact, gone to the extent of saying that "India would be lucky to have him as Prime Minister".

The "Modi Wave" is not limited to the BJP or Gujarat only. It is building up elsewhere too. According to a report in the Economic Times of April 29, 2008, in Rajasthan, "so besotted is the average voter by the Gujarat strongman, he would not even blink his eyes before voting BJP were Modi the PM candidate". Party workers there also believe that had the BJP chosen Modi, the score in the state would have been 21-4 in favour of the party. It needs no imagination to conclude that with Modi at the helm, the BJP's tally in Gujarat, his own state, would have been 26-0. Maharashtra too would have been heavily impacted. Indeed the BJP would have benefitted in many other states and ridden to a dramatic victory, had it sought out Modi well in time.

Polling for half the seats has already been completed. And it is only now that BJP leaders have woken up to the power and pull of Modi. No doubt, this chorus of confidence in Modi and the open acceptance of his leadership by heavy weight second rung leaders of the party will enthuse some voters. But since this expression of support has come so late, there is little doubt that the impact will be far less than it would have been had the party announced a few months back, in some form or the other, that Narendra Modi was LK Advani's "running mate", to set at rest all doubts in the minds of party workers and voters who see in Modi the only leader who can replicate the Gujarat's blistering 12% economic growth and more in the rest of India.

Perhaps the last opportune moment for the BJP to project Modi as the No. 2 man in Advani's government and as his successor was in January this year when respected captains of the industry like Ratan Tata, Anil Ambani and Sunil Mittal unequivocally gave their vote of confidence in Modi's ability to be the next CEO of the whole nation. But, that heaven-sent opportunity, backed by hard evidence in the form of spectacular developmental results in Gujarat, was frittered away by the party's leadership.

I had written in August last year itself that the BJP needed to project Modi as PM to take on the challenge of a then resurgent Manmohan Singh and an ambitious Mayawati, who had got very close to the PM's chair that she is after when the Indo-US Nuclear Deal nearly led to the fall of the government. It was clear to me then itself that LK Advani was not the man who could galvanise the party and enthuse voters enough to lead the BJP to victory; if it wanted to win these elections, the party had no choice but to project Modi as its mascot.

One can understand that LK Advani, the man who virtually single-handedly made the BJP into the national force it is today, deserved to be given his due. Particularly when he had earlier shown the most genuine spirit of personal sacrifice by unilaterally declaring that Atal Bihari Vajpayee would be the PM, when it was taken for granted that the job was rightfully all his. That would have been appreciated by voters too and they would have willingly settled for Narendra Modi being fomally anointed his deputy and successor.

We can keep talking about the Gujarat riots and keep saying that Modi is a guilty butcher. Yes, the Supreme Court has asked the SIT to investigate the role of Modi and others in the post Godhra riots. But, nothing been found against him yet. And recently in a TV interview to Headlines Today, he went to the extent of saying that if he is guilty, he should be physically hanged and not allowed to get away with a mere apology like Congress leaders have been for their role in the massacre of Sikhs in Delhi. Also, in the last couple of years he has not made any statement that can be called communal and always speaks of all "five and a half crore Gujaratis"

Whether we hate or like Modi, there is no getting away from the fact that his spotless integrity and demonstrated ability to produce results at at a pace and of a quality that have never been seen in India has caught the imagination of many people, including his once bitter critic Suhel Seth. If you add to this the fact that he is a truly home grown product from an average background and can connect to ordinary people as well as put to shame the highly qualified dream team of Manmohan, Ahluwalia and Chidambaram on their turf, you have a visionary and result-driven mass leader without a peer. No wonder more and more people are climbing on to his bandwagon with every passing day.

The magic of Modi and the electrifying impact that he is making on voters across India has not been made use of by the BJP as it should have been. This election was actually a laid out cake walk for the party: the contrast between what Modi has achieved in Gujarat and what the Congress led central government has not, was too stark to have been left unexploited. But, the strategists of the BJP thought that Advani's less than impressive record as Home Minister and Leader of Opposition was enough to guarantee victory. They had shot themselves in both their feet last year on the issue of the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. If that was not enough, they shot themselves again on the Modi issue. Now perhaps they have suddenly realised that they have bled the party needlessly. So after virtually ignoring him for almost a year, they are now desperately seeking Modi.

Is it too late? Will Modi's belated "projection" as the next PM help the BJP get those few more vital seats that will make the difference between defeat and victory? Will Gujarat turn in a 26-0 verdict in Modi's favour on a few days notice? Will voters of Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi, UP, Haryana, Bihar etc come out to cast their vote for Modi at this late stage? Or will the BJP rue what might turn out to be a blunder of himalayan proportions, should victory elude it, just? We will find out on May 16.
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4. Modi and Reddy: the choice is clear.
5. India's Obama: Mayawati or Modi?
6. E=M^2: The Modi Phenomenon
7. BJP idea: Advani for PM, Modi for Dy PM

THE KANDAHAR HIJACK: WHY IS THE BJP DEFENSIVE?

Jaswant Singh's "Mission Kandahar" has become the weakest point of the BJP's claim that the NDA government was tough on terror when it was in power earlier. It also makes hollow its promise of a similar toughness if it get back to power again. For the last few years, almost every single TV anchor, media star, analyst and politician has beaten the BJP with the Kandahar stick. And Advani has not helped his government's cause by claiming that he, as Home Minister, was not aware that the Foreign Minister was going to Kandahar with the terrorists. Vir Sanghvi has, in fact, gone to the extent of saying that it is "shameful that the BJP should use ‘tough on terror’ as a campaigning slogan".

Frankly, I find it surprising that this should have ever become an issue at all. Worse, I cannot believe that the strategists of the BJP have not been able to find the right answer to kill the issue, and keep appearing red-faced whenever it is raked up. And these days, with the election heat peaking, almost everyone is on the flight to Kandahar, and the BJP has been grounded. Rahul Gandhi has even gone to the extent of blaming LK Advani for buckling under pressure.

Why did Jaswant Singh go to Kandahar? Was it to escort terrorists, as is being dishonestly insinuated? Would he have gone there had Indian Airlines flight IC-814 with 154 hostages not been parked on the runway at Kandahar surrounded by heavily armed Taliban? India's Foreign Minister went there solely to ensure that the exchange deal was honoured by the Taliban. Considering the situation in Afghanistan then and the fact that the Taliban had no scruples whatsoever, it may well have happened that after the three terrorists were handed over to them, they might still not have released the passengers and made additional demands.

With 150 families and the now critical media and politicians then hounding the government to get the hostages back at any cost, would any government have been left with any choice but to trade terrorists? Particularly after a similar capitulation earlier to secure the release of Rubiya Sayed, daughter of India's then Home Minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayed?

The only issue in the whole drama is whether Jaswant Singh should have gone to Kandahar or sent a bureaucrat instead. That can be debated till the cows come home.

But the simple answer to that question is that India's Foreign Minister did not show cowardice by "escorting" terrorists but displayed immense courage by flying down himself to that extremely hostile and dangerous place to ensure that the Taliban could not further delay the release of the hostages under some pretext or the other. There was a real possibility of that happening had an official gone to Kandahar to see the agreed deal finally through.

Major Jaswant Singh put himself in the firing line to take on-the-spot decisions, had the Taliban shown treachery. His presence probably stumped them and their Pakistani masters; they would never have expected that India's Foreign Minister himself would get to the spot to scuttle their plans. He could have been taken hostage too; the Taliban were capable of doing anything, as we all know. It is due to the exemplary courage shown by him that all hostages were released and brought safely back to India.

Is this incident something that the NDA should be ashamed of? Would any other government have done any better? Would any other Foreign Minister or SPG/NSG protected politician exposed himself to such personal risk for the sake of 154 Indians? Let us get real.

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IT'S A TWO-HORSE RACE TO RACE COURSE ROAD

Forget about all pre-poll surveys that have recently been carried out and the projections made by them about the outcome of the forthcoming general elections. They are already out of date. The whole electoral scenario has changed dramatically, but no one has either seen it yet or everyone wants to pretend that he hasn't. The change not ordinary, nor is it temporary. It has quietly been in the making for some years now and would have taken some more time to be visible to all. But, one event has radically altered that time-frame.

Tomorrow is already here today.

CPM general secretary Prakash Karat has been unusually enthused by Patnaik's most unexpected decision which has breathed life into the till now non-existent Third Front. Suddenly this motley group of marginal and small parties that are presently not aligned to either the BJP-led NDA or the Congress-led UPA finds that it may well be in a position to form the government with the help of elements of the NDA or the UPA, rather than vanishing into the group that emerges stronger. There is new energy in the parties that have cobbled together this alternative to the BJP and the Congress.

Prakash Karat did not know how prophetic his words were going to be when he said that Patnaik's decision to part company with the BJP was going to be the "game-changer" in these elections. It is going to change the game certainly, but not in the manner in which Karat thinks it is going to.

Perhaps even the BJP has not realised that Naveen Patnaik's sudden turn is the blessing it was looking for and is the one miracle that will get the NDA within striking distance of the magic figure of 272 MPs needed to form the government. Naveen Patnaik himself would not have dreamt that by parting company with its ally of 11 years he would become the catalyst that is going to so dramatically pre-pone the manifestation of the fundamental change already under way in the Indian political landscape.

This general election has now become a contest between Mayawati and Advani. No, I have not gone out of my mind, as you will presently discover much to your surprise. This election was not meant be seeing this contest; the fight between the BJP and the BSP was scheduled for 2014 at the earliest. But, Naveen Patnaik has changed all that.

In the 2007 assembly elections in UP, no one, except perhaps Sagarika Ghose, had given Mayawati any chance of winning and that too on her own steam alone. But when the election results came in, her BSP had an absolute majority and the Congress, despite the high-profile induction of Rahul Gandhi as its star campaigner, emerged even weaker, with just around 8% of the vote share. Mayawati had done the impossible. This is what I had written then itself:

The UP election signals a tectonic, historical shift in the societal power matrix of Hindu society. And who has Mayawati to thank, among others for seeing and grabbing the opportunity? Mr Mandal, of course, milked to death by completely opportunistic and dishonest politicians thinking they can fool the masses, simply to grab power in the next election....And, it has taken a Hindi speaking "uncultured" Dalit lady to understand the hidden, but obvious now, ramifications of Mandal...So when Mayawati, a Dalit, untouchables still in parts of India, asks Brahmins to vote for her and tells them with conviction that they do not have to go begging to anyone to get their due, it touches their raw nerve, and they willingly turn thousands of years of rigid social hierarchy upside down to seek empowerment and justice from a dalit. Mayawati has envisioned and achieved something which no politician thought she could.

After the stunning success in UP, Mayawati started earnestly to expand her base in other parts of India and put up candidates in the assembly elections that followed. Although the BSP had virtually no organisational base in most other states and no real local leaders too, Mayawati succeeded in pulling in a sufficient number of dalit voters from the Congress due to which the Congress lost in a number of constituencies across the country. The BSP did not win too because of its small base then but its presence damaged the Congress almost exclusively. That led to the Congress dubbing her a "spoiler", not realising that she was not in the political arena to make or mar the fortunes of other parties but to get to power at the Centre on her own.

Mayawati has not been putting up candidates in states other than UP to ‘spoil’ the chances of the Congress. That has been happening as a by-product of her strategy to build an all India base, like she did in UP, to eventually get enough MPs to become the Prime Minister almost entirely on her own steam. There is little doubt that Mayawati will get to South Block as the head of a truly national party that she is in the process of transforming the BSP into, in due course of time, perhaps by the next elections or the one after that. But she is in a hurry and is not willing to give up just because she does not have the numbers now.

Those who have any doubts about her openly stated ambition may recall that during the Trust Vote on the Indo-US Nuclear Deal in July 2008, there was a moment when it appeared that the government would be defeated. From nowhere, Mayawati, with just 17 MPs emerged as the almost undisputed leader of the entire non-BJP opposition, ready to take over from Dr Manmohan Singh had he lost the vote. With the entire opposition behind her, she was sure that she would be able to prevail upon the BJP to support the government of the "daughter of a dalit".

Naveen Patnaik has, unwittingly, provided Mayawati with an even better a more visible opportunity on which she has time to work on. She has apparently caught on to it in a flash while others are still stuck in the linear equation that sees the BJP's chances of winning almost completely jeopardised. That is why everyone has missed the significance of Mayawati's statement on March 15, 2009, that the BSP will fight the elections all alone and will not enter into any pre-poll alliance with anybody. This statement made just before she hosted a dinner for the leaders of the National Front is going to fundamentally impact the outcome of the election.

There should be little doubt in anyone's mind that unless Mayawati suffers serious reverses, there is no one else who she will allow to head a National Front government. Others can make all the noise they want to but that is the only way she will play the game and without her 35 to 50 MPs no National Front Government is possible. Mayawati is not one to let an opportunity go. On the contrary, she creates one where no one else can spot it. Therefore, with that issue summarily out of the way, she is now going to play a devastating "spoiler" for the Congress all over India.

By now, she has spread her wings even into the South where she held a number of successful rallies recently. Her candidates are not going to win many seats outside of UP even in these elections. But by choosing to fight alone, she has made her long term intention of emerging as a true national party absolutely clear. And there is little that anyone can do to stop her.

But what is of immediate significance is that dalits will be now more charged than ever before because they can see that there is a real chance of seeing a dalit Prime Minister emerge after this election itself. So, there are going to be many more desertions of dalit voters from the Congress to the BSP than anyone would even like to imagine now. That will hit the Congress very hard and cost it many seats, the exact number depending on local factors and the smartness of its opponents.

The scenario fits in perfectly with Mayawati's immediate as well as long term strategy. If the Congress and its allies fall well short of striking distance of the half-way mark which they cannot cover without the support of Mayawati, then the Congress will have no choice but to support a Mayawati-led government. So a poor performance by the Congress is what Mayawati wants and that is what she is going to try and ensure in all constituencies where the dalit vote can make that crucial difference between victory and defeat for the Congress.

Ironically, in many such constituencies the Congress will wind up losing to the BJP. So, the BJP will end up emerging stronger and will most likely put up a performance better than it did last time. BJP strategists need to get their data sheets out in a hurry so that they can identify and focus on such constituencies to ensure that the Congress does lose. That is where there is a dilemma for Mayawati. If the BJP-led NDA gets too close to the magic figure then she will miss the bus. Therefore, the best case scenario for her is a weakened Congress that is left with no choice but to support her as PM and a BJP that does not become strong enough to beat her to that mark.

Naveen Patnaik has turned the election on its head and all but ensured the defeat of the Congress. This scenario was going to unfold in the coming years in any case but is already upon us. Increasingly, the Congress and the BSP are targetting the same voters. In fact it would not be incorrect to say that the BSP is the Congress party with a dalit face. The growth of the BSP, therefore, has been and will be in proportion to the decline of the Congress. And, the way things are going, more and more dalits will desert the Congress for the BSP and will hasten the former's marginalisation.

Posturing apart, this election has now become a two-horse race between Mayawati and Advani, between the BSP and the BJP. The rest are going to be little more than the supporting cast. At this point it is difficult to say which of the two will emerge the winner. So, when you go out there to cast your vote, remember that your vote is going to directly or indirectly help in deciding whether it will be Mayawati or LK Advani who will be the next occupant of 7 Race Course Road.

This post has also been published by Chicago Sun Times
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5. Mayawati and dalit power