The readers of my posts would have gathered by now that I have a distinct right wing tilt. Some of my family members have been associated with the RSS for decades. My studies till class 10 were in a school run by an organization which is part of the overall RSS umbrella.
However, till date, I have never been a member of the RSS or the BJP. I attended a few shakhas, but always because someone took me there, and not out of my own volition. However, today I took the decision to become a formal member of the BJP. I in fact paid money to become a formal member. Not that I will become politically active or participate in dharnas etc. It was a knee-jerk reaction, my personal way of protest when I saw Rahul Gandhi's press conference today.
I do not want to go into the morality or legality of whatever has transpired after the latest assembly elections in Karnataka. I do confess that I wanted a BJP government to come to power, though in retrospect, it looks as if the BJP would have been better off sitting on the sidelines, and let the drama play out.
What pushed me towards my symbolic protest was the sheer entitlement that was oozing from Rahul Gandhi. According to him, the Congress would have "let" the BJP come to power had they won the majority on their own. Let? Does this guy think he owns the country, its Constitution, its institutions (which he claims are being decimated and/or hijacked by Modi and team) and its citizens? Does he think all of them exist to serve at his pleasure? Let us look at what all he did during these elections. He campaigned, in multiple constituencies. I understand that the Congress lost most if not all the seats where he campaigned. He in fact queered the pitch for an INC-JD(S) tie-up by calling the JD(S) a B-team of the BJP (he apparently apologised later to Deve Gowda). Imagine, the party president apologised due to his goof-up. The team which ran to the Supreme Court, and also handled the situation on the ground in Karnataka was not his team. It was managed by Sonia Gandhi, who seems to have been forced to enter the arena.
As soon as it became apparent the Congress was losing, there were obvious attempts to shield him. He was in hiding all the time, from counting till recently. Suddenly, one saw him with a smug smile, delivering a sanctimonious lecture after the events of today. And my God, the sense of entitlement! The way he seemed to insist that the RSS and BJP were destroying "institutions" without any regard. If one were to point out the falsehoods that were peddled by the Congress about the "murder of democracy", the text would possibly run into pages. On top of that were congratulations pouring in from various quarters. The AP CM, who till recently, was part of the NDA, and suddenly started claiming that nothing was being done for the state was one. Another was Mamata. In the recently concluded Panchayat elections in Bengal there have been multiple reports of booth capturing, rigging, rapes, murders etc. which were not even covered in the mainstream media. I understand that in many seats, the election was unanimous as there was no competition to the TMC candidate. After all this, the lady has the gall to lecture about how she believes in democracy.
As many people pointed out, the coming elections in 2019 seem to be clearly demarcated as competition between Modi and the rest of the media and political parties, who seem to be unanimously against him. The BJP has various points in its favour due to whatever it has done till date. Possibly, for the first time, a bankruptcy case has been successfully settled via the new Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). There are scores of Modi supporters on social media who provide points against the competition. In parallel with whatever populist/welfare schemes are being taken up by the central government, the success of the BJP will also depend upon how Modi and team explain to the population, what they see as injustice being meted out to the country because of the current opposition. Modi and team, do not have a strong ecosystem to convey their view. The Congress does. Hence, if Modi wants to retain power, it all depends on how effectively his work is conveyed to the people, and also on how effectively the opposition's version is countered. This is one reason I titled the post the way I did.
Also, interestingly, there were howls of protests when Yeddyurappa was given two weeks to prove his strength. Now Kumaraswamy has been given the same time. Everything is silent, no protests any more.
As for Bengaluru and Karnataka, assuming the INC-JD(S) government lasts for some time, one must hope that lakes continue to be rejuvenated, something is done to reduce the traffic congestion, and the white-topping of roads, which I believe was halted before the elections, restarts and finishes. It would also be interesting to see how long the government would last.
