Close X
Wednesday, November 6, 2024
ADVT 
India

AAP's Self-annihilation: Is Fate On Modi's Side

Darpan News Desk IANS, 04 Apr, 2015 01:39 PM
    The Aam Admi Party's (AAP's) suicidal tendencies are bound to help the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) more than any other party because the saffron outfit is politically better placed to exploit them.
     
    If the AAP hadn't been driven by competitive egos, it might have been able to build on its success in the Delhi elections to spread its wings to, say, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Haryana for a start.
     
    Such inroads by a feisty competitor could not but have unnerved the BJP, under pressure as it is from challenges from traditional rivals like the Congress and the regional parties of the Hindu heartland on the land acquisition law and other issues.
     
    Now, however, the BJP can breathe easy. Since the AAP has ceased to be a major danger, at least for the present, the Narendra Modi government can pursue its agenda at its own pace.
     
    Indeed, the prime minister may well feel that providence is on his side. First, the Congress virtually collapsed to hand him a majority in the Lok Sabha last year. Now, the only party which gave signs of being a formidable rival is imploding.
     
    The BJP's other advantage is that most of the other parties are suffering from leadership problems.
     
    While the Congress will have to contend with the exigencies of dual control at the top posed by Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, it is yet to be seen whether the revamped Janata-2 comprising several parties of the "cow belt" plus Janata-Secular of Karnataka will be able to take off.
     
    It is possible that Janata-2 will present a serious challenge to the BJP in the Bihar elections towards the end of the year with its caste-dominated vote banks. But whether regional heavyweights with inflated egos like Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Sharad Yadav, Nitish Kumar, H.D. Deve Gowda and others will be able to stick together for any length of time is open to question.
     
    It is obvious that compared to these parties, the BJP has in Modi a leader whose political longevity is seemingly assured.
     
    Moreover, there is not much doubt about his durability unlike others who once had an apparently bright future like, say, Indira Gandhi, whose massive 1971 success was blighted, first, by the Navnirman movement against corruption in Gujarat in 1973, the railway strike of 1974 and, finally, the Emergency of 1975-77, which rung the curtains down on her reign.
     
    Similarly, Rajiv Gandhi's 415-seat tally in the 543-member Lok Sabha fell apart like a house of cards in 1989 following his suspected involvement in the Bofors howitzer scandal.
     
    Modi, in contrast, appears to be reasonably secure at the moment with no one in sight who offers a genuine challenge. He even seems to have succeeded in partially curbing those in the saffron brotherhood who had been targeting Muslims and Christians on being emboldened by the BJP's majority in the Lok Sabha.
     
    As a result, the "Godhra moment" - the deaths of Hindu pilgrims in a train fire which sparked off the Gujarat riots of 2002 - for which Mani Shankar Aiyar of the Congress has been waiting hasn't materialized. Aiyar had likened the anticipated "moment" with the Reichstag fire which led to the Nazi crackdown on the Jews in Hitler's Germany.
     
    Modi's only problem at present is the slowness of the reforms process which is negating the pre-election promise of achhey din (good days) via a fast-paced development programme.
     
    The other is the less serious one of the RSS-types imposing their fetishes on the nation by, among other things, banning beef and films like Un-freedom, which depicts "unnatural passion" or homosexuality, and "Fifty Shades of Grey" for depicting excessive passion.
     
    If the censor board chief, Pahlaj Nihalani, is behind the ban on the films, it was Home Minister Rajnath Singh who favoured the ban on the BBC documentary, India's Daughter, on the December 2012 rape victim.
     
    Since then, Singh has been toying with the idea of a countrywide ban on beef even if the beef-eating "festivals" organised in Kerala and West Bengal have shown that not all Indians, including Hindus, share the inhibitions of the RSS.
     
    These issues may be of interest mainly to the chatterati, but social network-savvy BJP cannot be unaware that no segment of society can be ignored in these days of the twitter and YouTube, not to mention the 24/7 news channels with their insatiable thirst for sensationalism.
     
    Not surprisingly, the RSS wants the government to circumvent the judiciary's deletion of Section 66-A of the IT Act, freeing the Internet from official control.
     
    Considering how much emphasis Modi places on his foreign interactions, he must be conscious of the need to retain his "modern" image, which is likely to suffer if he allows too much latitude to the primitives in the Hindutva camp.
     
    One way to counter their localism is extensive globalization - the General Motors want to make India its regional export hub - so that the winds of new technology, new attitudes and new vision sweep away the cobwebs of age-old fads and prejudices.

    MORE India ARTICLES

    BBC Airs Controversial 'Nirbhaya Case' Documentary, Government Considering Action

    BBC Airs Controversial 'Nirbhaya Case' Documentary, Government Considering Action

    New Delhi, March 5 (IANS) The government on Thursday said it was considering action against ...

    BBC Airs Controversial 'Nirbhaya Case' Documentary, Government Considering Action

    Hola Mohalla: Punjab's rich and colourful tradition

    Hola Mohalla: Punjab's rich and colourful tradition
     A day assigned for mock battles for his troops by the 10th guru of Sikhs, Guru Gobind Singh, has come to be the symbol of Punjab's own rich religious and cultural tradition. The festival of 'Hola Mohalla', as it is known, takes place this weekend in this Sikh religious town.

    Hola Mohalla: Punjab's rich and colourful tradition

    India to launch fourth navigation satellite March 9

    India to launch fourth navigation satellite March 9
    Chennai,  India will move closer to its own satellite navigation system with the launch of its fourth satellite tentatively slated for March 9, a senior official of the Indian space agency said on Monday.

    India to launch fourth navigation satellite March 9

    Modi seeks ideas for PMO mobile app

    Modi seeks ideas for PMO mobile app
     Urging young engineers to help move India to the status of an innovation hub, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said he will invite ideas from the public for developing a mobile application for the Prime Minister's Office towards making it mobile-friendly."The faster you all make mobile apps, the faster you will capture the market. We need a revolution in mobile governance. We will launch a competition through mygov.In to seek ideas for a PMO mobile app," he said at an event here to mark 25 years of the IT industry body Nasscom

    Modi seeks ideas for PMO mobile app

    Bhushan expresses differences with Kejriwal

    Bhushan expresses differences with Kejriwal
    New Delhi,  Reflecting his discontent about the functioning of the Aam Aadmi Party, senior leader Prashant Bhushan has written a letter raising questions about some decisions of party convenor Arvind Kejriwal who is now chief minister of Delhi. In the letter, apparently written to members of party's national executive, Bhushan has raised questions about the party running a "person-centric" campaign in Delhi polls and not following some of its professed principles.

    Bhushan expresses differences with Kejriwal

    Feel sad: Yogendra Yadav

    Feel sad: Yogendra Yadav
    New Delhi, AAP leader Yogendra Yadav on Monday said that he felt sad over false reports about him and Prashant Bhushan being unhappy with the happenings in the party, added this was a time to work with a large heart following their big win in Delhi. "I feel sad and at the same time (feel like) laughing too after reading whatever is being said in the media about me and Prashant ji for the last two days... Delhi has given such huge mandate to AAP. I would appeal that we should not let the faith of people dwindle in the AAP," Yadav said in a tweet Monday morning.

    Feel sad: Yogendra Yadav