Smoky, Spicy Chai for a change
Today's news reads that the Congress party has dissolved 14 District committees and 140 block committees ( I could've got the numbers mixed up, if so, sorry about that). The party wants to revamp the organization. But madam you are treating typhoid with malaria tablets.
The reason that the Congress failed miserably in the election is not organisational failure nor it is the inefficiencies of the campaign managers. The mandate of the people clearly points to one direction. A wave against the sheer arrogance either congenital or inculcated by the INC and its allies.
Every time a Kapil Sibal came and said there is zero-loss to the exchequer in the 2G-3G scam, every time a Sheila Dixit held a press conference to say all is well with the Commonwealth Games in the face of obvious an -apology-of-a-construction conditions, dirty toilets, stray dogs hanging around in the Games' Housing Complex, every time an eminent economist-Prime minister came and said the files pertaining to the Coal Scam are missing, every time a Robert Vadhra got land registered in his name on the basis of an un-cashed cheque, the blood of the electorate was boiling. Older people may have resigned to the fact that this is the way it will be, the Congress discounted the 18% strong young and the first-time voters charged with the anti-corruption ideology that generally comes with youth who couldn't digest the fact of corruption.
What they couldn't digest either was the unabashed brazenness with which the party and its allies were justifying the wrongdoings. Unfortunately there was nothing the electorate could do to topple these leaders-turned- feudal lords. They were simmering in anger and helplessness.
Then there was Modi. A humble chief minister from a election wise not-so-important state whose name shone through the dark shadows of the post-Godhra riots only after Tata Motors set up their Nano factory in Gujarat. People noticed the Gujarat model of Development only then.
The BJP didn't do so much to Modi's image as much as Congress did to elevate him in the eyes of the public. Forget BJP, forget Shiv Sena, Forget TDP, suddenly Modi was the only enemy to fight. Each time the Congressmen spoke ill of him, it was actually sounding like Modi-chant to the public. An enemy's(The Congress) enemy is a friend was the subliminal message sent out each time a Priyanka Vadhra(who suddenly became a Priyanaka Gandhi), or a Rahul Gandhi or a Kapil Sibal or a P Chidamabaram foul-mouthed him.Therefore this became a Ab-ki-baar, Modi Sarkar and not BJP Sarkar. The Congress should take the credit for the phenomenal success that Narendra Modi, The BJP and The NDA have enjoyed in 2014.
In the past when a member of a minority community voted for the Congress he was actually voting for Indira Gandhi or Rajiv Gandhi who somehow had created an image for themselves of being secular, pro-downtrodden, pro-minority. So anybody who was not from the majority, his/her vote was assured to go to the Congress. The graph first reached a plateau and then slowly but surely started going forward and downward after Rajiv Gandhis death.
This time especially the disenchantment and disappointment of the minorities with the Congress was quite evident. Also the vote-for-caste/community mould also was broken especially in the Caste-controlled North.
If anti-Incumbency played a major role both Amma and Didi should have lost. They didn't.
Was development the only weapon the BJP used to get votes? I don't think so. I think they used hope. Hope of a better tomorrow, hope of social justice being made available to the people, hope of not having to pay the peon in a municipal office for a birth certificate or to release the body a dead relative from the clutches of the police after a post-mortem and a hope of a son or a daughter getting a decent job.
The rampant corruption in MNREGA, JNNURM where the likes of Sachin Tendulkar are mentioned as manual laborers, The multiple DIN held by Priyanka Vadhra, Sachin Pilot, Salman Khurshid and the great Karthi Chidambaram (do you remember his arrogance when he got a businessman arrested in the wee hours of the morning for tweeting something bad about him?). Which of these stalwarts did not know that it is illegal to posses more than one DIN? Absolute shamelessness!
The multiple DIN holding is just a small reflection of the Congress' audacity which considered itself a Leviathan in this country. Well, a David Modi has demolished a Goliath.
But more than anything, I hope, the BJP and its allies are listening and learning from this debacle of Congress. If they learn and I truly hope they will, there will not be another Purti Scam.
Today's news reads that the Congress party has dissolved 14 District committees and 140 block committees ( I could've got the numbers mixed up, if so, sorry about that). The party wants to revamp the organization. But madam you are treating typhoid with malaria tablets.
The reason that the Congress failed miserably in the election is not organisational failure nor it is the inefficiencies of the campaign managers. The mandate of the people clearly points to one direction. A wave against the sheer arrogance either congenital or inculcated by the INC and its allies.
Every time a Kapil Sibal came and said there is zero-loss to the exchequer in the 2G-3G scam, every time a Sheila Dixit held a press conference to say all is well with the Commonwealth Games in the face of obvious an -apology-of-a-construction conditions, dirty toilets, stray dogs hanging around in the Games' Housing Complex, every time an eminent economist-Prime minister came and said the files pertaining to the Coal Scam are missing, every time a Robert Vadhra got land registered in his name on the basis of an un-cashed cheque, the blood of the electorate was boiling. Older people may have resigned to the fact that this is the way it will be, the Congress discounted the 18% strong young and the first-time voters charged with the anti-corruption ideology that generally comes with youth who couldn't digest the fact of corruption.
What they couldn't digest either was the unabashed brazenness with which the party and its allies were justifying the wrongdoings. Unfortunately there was nothing the electorate could do to topple these leaders-turned- feudal lords. They were simmering in anger and helplessness.
Then there was Modi. A humble chief minister from a election wise not-so-important state whose name shone through the dark shadows of the post-Godhra riots only after Tata Motors set up their Nano factory in Gujarat. People noticed the Gujarat model of Development only then.
The BJP didn't do so much to Modi's image as much as Congress did to elevate him in the eyes of the public. Forget BJP, forget Shiv Sena, Forget TDP, suddenly Modi was the only enemy to fight. Each time the Congressmen spoke ill of him, it was actually sounding like Modi-chant to the public. An enemy's(The Congress) enemy is a friend was the subliminal message sent out each time a Priyanka Vadhra(who suddenly became a Priyanaka Gandhi), or a Rahul Gandhi or a Kapil Sibal or a P Chidamabaram foul-mouthed him.Therefore this became a Ab-ki-baar, Modi Sarkar and not BJP Sarkar. The Congress should take the credit for the phenomenal success that Narendra Modi, The BJP and The NDA have enjoyed in 2014.
In the past when a member of a minority community voted for the Congress he was actually voting for Indira Gandhi or Rajiv Gandhi who somehow had created an image for themselves of being secular, pro-downtrodden, pro-minority. So anybody who was not from the majority, his/her vote was assured to go to the Congress. The graph first reached a plateau and then slowly but surely started going forward and downward after Rajiv Gandhis death.
This time especially the disenchantment and disappointment of the minorities with the Congress was quite evident. Also the vote-for-caste/community mould also was broken especially in the Caste-controlled North.
If anti-Incumbency played a major role both Amma and Didi should have lost. They didn't.
Was development the only weapon the BJP used to get votes? I don't think so. I think they used hope. Hope of a better tomorrow, hope of social justice being made available to the people, hope of not having to pay the peon in a municipal office for a birth certificate or to release the body a dead relative from the clutches of the police after a post-mortem and a hope of a son or a daughter getting a decent job.
The rampant corruption in MNREGA, JNNURM where the likes of Sachin Tendulkar are mentioned as manual laborers, The multiple DIN held by Priyanka Vadhra, Sachin Pilot, Salman Khurshid and the great Karthi Chidambaram (do you remember his arrogance when he got a businessman arrested in the wee hours of the morning for tweeting something bad about him?). Which of these stalwarts did not know that it is illegal to posses more than one DIN? Absolute shamelessness!
The multiple DIN holding is just a small reflection of the Congress' audacity which considered itself a Leviathan in this country. Well, a David Modi has demolished a Goliath.
But more than anything, I hope, the BJP and its allies are listening and learning from this debacle of Congress. If they learn and I truly hope they will, there will not be another Purti Scam.
