Taming Gujarat’s lion
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=421d878c-ddfe-4e79-9951-c436fc31edb5&MatchID1=4603&TeamID1=6&TeamID2=7&MatchType1=1&SeriesID1=1157&MatchID2=4574&TeamID3=8&TeamID4=2&MatchType2=1&SeriesID2=1147&PrimaryID=4603&Headline=Taming+Gujarat%e2%80%99s+lion
Having lost key support, Modi’s position has become tenuous.
With the Gujarat assembly polls drawing close, the question on everyone’s lips is whether Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who’s being projected as an iconic figure by a section of the BJP, will be able to repeat the feat of 2002 elections. Besides facing a spirited challenge from the Congress, Modi also has to overcome resentment from a large segment of the Sangh parivar.
In doing so, he has to bring on board the elements opposed to him and ensure that the BJP and the rest of the Sangh put up a united face in the polls. As things stand, this looks difficult. Veterans like Keshubhai Patel appear indifferent to the elections in view of the central leadership’s support to Modi. And the RSS, despite wanting to help the BJP retain power in Gujarat, is reluctant to wholeheartedly back someone who has tried to project himself as a larger-than-life character at the cost of the organisation.
Surprisingly, the perception within large sections of the BJP in the state is quite different from that in Delhi. According to many Sangh activists, Modi is facing the biggest battle of his life, with all odds tilted heavily against him. He does not have the support of either his entire party in the state, or that of the Patels, the most influential Gujarati community, or even of the Kolis, also an important factor for the BJP to win. The adivasis who had opted for the saffron brigade the last time, thanks to some very good groundwork done by the RSS, too are having second thoughts on supporting him.
Strangely, the Gujarat election is turning out to be a Modi versus Modi contest, where one is either with him or against him. Those supporting him include a powerful section of the media. And the inability of the Congress to project someone as a chief ministerial candidate is also helping him. It may just result in Modi surging ahead in this keenly-watched election, which could have ramifications for national politics.
The Congress, in its keenness to dislodge Modi, seems to have thrown caution to the winds and has even agreed to give tickets to BJP dissidents, thereby diluting its commitment to fight communalism. While the number of BJP activists getting tickets is not known as of now, the Congress’s nervousness is evident from the fact that it is ready to compromise on its basic principles. This may be used against the Congress by other secular parties like the Samajwadi Party.
But Modi’s troubles are far from over and several BJP veterans believe that those seeing him as the victor forget that no individual can be greater than the organisation. Modi has created a myth of invincibility around himself and after the code of conduct coming into operation, even his meetings have started shrinking since government agencies that used to manage his crowds cannot do it anymore.
Modi’s position is also being threatened by the activities of the Sardar Patel Utkas Samiti. This group, led by Gordhanbhai Zadaphia, his erstwhile Home Minister, and two businessmen, Jeevraj Dhrukawala and Vasantbhai Gajera, comprises BJP sympathisers opposed to him. The Samiti had organised a massive rally of more than two lakh people in Surat, which was also meant to be attended by Keshubhai Patel, who eventually pulled out. Another rally in Rajkot was subsequently organised. Now, the Samiti has decided to cover 142 towns in the state to mobilise opinion against Modi, who is being projected as a power-hungry autocrat.
Then, there is a section of the Swaminarayan sect opposing him. And if reports emanating from Gujarat are accurate, even the followers of Asa Ram Bapu may come out openly against him. Keshubhai Patel, who is now silent about his opposition to Modi, is, however, understood to have conveyed the ground-level reality to L.K. Advani and RSS leaders. His son, Bharat, who was offered a ticket, has also decided not to contest the polls.
Modi’s detractors have likened him to Mulayam Singh Yadav, the former UP CM who was considered strong, but was defeated during the last polls. Arrogance and corruption are never tolerated by the people, his detractors say, and give the example of Om Prakash Chautala in Haryana, who, despite having done much in terms of development, was trounced by the Congress in 2005.
The Congress perhaps does not realise that Modi can be humbled and should stop playing a card that identifies it with only one community. No party can win if it is unable to carry the masses with it. It has to come up with a strategy that will help resuscitate it in the state. Failing this, its fortuneswill suffer a setback not just in Gujarat, but also in the rest of the country.
But Modi is unlikely to give in easily. He is a born fighter and it matters little to him how he attains victory. Under the garb of projecting himself as the saviour of Gujarati pride is a cunning, machiavellian and decisive man. He also wields a charisma that inspires his followers, even if their numbers are dwindling.
He had snatched the chief ministership from Keshubhai Patel by outfoxing his colleagues in the BJP and the RSS. He is certainly not going to surrender meekly. He knows victory will take him on to the national stage. But to achieve this, Modi has to first earn the love of the people of Gujarat. In the end, they will decide what is good or bad for them. Between us.
Showing posts with label Elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elections. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
India's Voters Torn on Modi
India's Voters Torn Over Politician
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1693370,00.html
By SIMON ROBINSON/SURAT
In many ways, Gujarat is the best and worst of India. For years the state, which juts westward into the Arabian Sea, has been one of the most economically forward-looking regions in the country; its diamond-cutting and textile industries earn India hundreds of millions of dollars in exports. But Gujurat was also the scene of some of the worst sectarian violence since independence, when communal riots killed as many as 2,000 people — most of them Muslim — in 2002.
The figure at the center of the election, and perhaps the most controversial politician in India, is Narendra Modi, Gujarat's chief minister. Modi, a member of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is hailed by his supporters as a modernizer who has built new roads, brought electricity and streetlights to villages and attracted new business to Gujarat. To his detractors, Modi will always be the man who stoked the sectarian tensions that made the 2002 riots possible. The riots followed a train car fire that killed dozens of Hindu pilgrims. Within hours of the blaze, later blamed on a cooking fire accident, Modi called it a "pre-planned act" against Hindus that the "culprits will have to pay for" — a position he sticks to today. Whatever the truth, the carnage that followed was terrible. In 2004, following an investigation into the incident, India's Supreme Court ruled that the chief minister was "a modern Nero who watched while Gujarat burned." A recent report by investigative magazine Tehelka went further, blaming the violence directly on senior BJP politicians and sympathetic police officers. One BJP politician, unaware that he was being recorded by a Tehelka reporter, allegedly said that Modi had told him that he and his colleagues had three days "to do whatever we wanted." Modi has dismissed the conclusions of the Tehelka story, though many of its specific charges remain unchallenged.
The current poll is, in many ways, a referendum on Modi and whether his modernization policies outweigh his reputation for ethnic demagoguery. Sonia Gandhi, leader of the ruling Indian National Congress party, has spent days campaigning around the state and has accused Modi and his party of playing on communal tensions to win votes. The Gujarat government, she said, were "merchants of death" — a charge that Modi and his party say is outrageous. Gandhi's comment and one by Modi that seemed to endorse the controversial police killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, a young Muslim man who was allegedly wrongly branded a terrorist, earned the ire of the Election Commission, who asked both leaders to explain how their comments did not contravene a code of conduct that politicians must adhere to during polling. Modi says his comments were a political response to Gandhi's criticism, though a petition against him was filed with the Supreme Court and will be heard on Wednesday.
State elections in India are usually decided on very different issues than national elections; the country is vast and in many ways fragmented. But with the ruling Congress Party suffering from a deadlock with its own Communist allies over a controversial nuclear deal with the U.S., the Gujarat vote will give Congress leaders a good idea of what popular support they still enjoy. If Congress does well — polls suggest that the election is too close to call — it would embolden the party to call a national poll early in 2008 to break the impasse with its coalition partners. If Congress does badly, it may try to hold on for another year.
Its main role, though, will be to assess the level of support for Modi. The chief minister has recently been hit by the defection to the Congress Party of several senior BJP members, who describe their former leader as autocratic and megalomaniacal. "He wants power and for that he will do anything," says Dhirubhai Gajera, one of the BJP rebels, who spent a recent Saturday afternoon campaigning for his seat in Surat, a city of some 4 million people. "He overstates what he has done for this state in terms of progress, and even where there has been progress it has gone to the rich, not the poor."
That's rubbish, says Atul Shah, a BJP member from the neighboring state of Maharashtra, who was in Surat to support his Gujarat colleagues in the days before the first round of voting on Tuesday Dec. 11. "Gujarat is a model state and Modi has proved himself 10 out of 10." Pravin Naik, head of the BJP's Surat branch, says the idea that Modi was part of communal tensions or violence is a "whole myth." "There has not been a single incident of communal violence since [the 2002 riots]," he says. "Narendra Modi is the only competent chief minister in India." The results of this month's poll will tell how many agree with him.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1693370,00.html
By SIMON ROBINSON/SURAT
In many ways, Gujarat is the best and worst of India. For years the state, which juts westward into the Arabian Sea, has been one of the most economically forward-looking regions in the country; its diamond-cutting and textile industries earn India hundreds of millions of dollars in exports. But Gujurat was also the scene of some of the worst sectarian violence since independence, when communal riots killed as many as 2,000 people — most of them Muslim — in 2002.
The figure at the center of the election, and perhaps the most controversial politician in India, is Narendra Modi, Gujarat's chief minister. Modi, a member of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is hailed by his supporters as a modernizer who has built new roads, brought electricity and streetlights to villages and attracted new business to Gujarat. To his detractors, Modi will always be the man who stoked the sectarian tensions that made the 2002 riots possible. The riots followed a train car fire that killed dozens of Hindu pilgrims. Within hours of the blaze, later blamed on a cooking fire accident, Modi called it a "pre-planned act" against Hindus that the "culprits will have to pay for" — a position he sticks to today. Whatever the truth, the carnage that followed was terrible. In 2004, following an investigation into the incident, India's Supreme Court ruled that the chief minister was "a modern Nero who watched while Gujarat burned." A recent report by investigative magazine Tehelka went further, blaming the violence directly on senior BJP politicians and sympathetic police officers. One BJP politician, unaware that he was being recorded by a Tehelka reporter, allegedly said that Modi had told him that he and his colleagues had three days "to do whatever we wanted." Modi has dismissed the conclusions of the Tehelka story, though many of its specific charges remain unchallenged.
The current poll is, in many ways, a referendum on Modi and whether his modernization policies outweigh his reputation for ethnic demagoguery. Sonia Gandhi, leader of the ruling Indian National Congress party, has spent days campaigning around the state and has accused Modi and his party of playing on communal tensions to win votes. The Gujarat government, she said, were "merchants of death" — a charge that Modi and his party say is outrageous. Gandhi's comment and one by Modi that seemed to endorse the controversial police killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, a young Muslim man who was allegedly wrongly branded a terrorist, earned the ire of the Election Commission, who asked both leaders to explain how their comments did not contravene a code of conduct that politicians must adhere to during polling. Modi says his comments were a political response to Gandhi's criticism, though a petition against him was filed with the Supreme Court and will be heard on Wednesday.
State elections in India are usually decided on very different issues than national elections; the country is vast and in many ways fragmented. But with the ruling Congress Party suffering from a deadlock with its own Communist allies over a controversial nuclear deal with the U.S., the Gujarat vote will give Congress leaders a good idea of what popular support they still enjoy. If Congress does well — polls suggest that the election is too close to call — it would embolden the party to call a national poll early in 2008 to break the impasse with its coalition partners. If Congress does badly, it may try to hold on for another year.
Its main role, though, will be to assess the level of support for Modi. The chief minister has recently been hit by the defection to the Congress Party of several senior BJP members, who describe their former leader as autocratic and megalomaniacal. "He wants power and for that he will do anything," says Dhirubhai Gajera, one of the BJP rebels, who spent a recent Saturday afternoon campaigning for his seat in Surat, a city of some 4 million people. "He overstates what he has done for this state in terms of progress, and even where there has been progress it has gone to the rich, not the poor."
That's rubbish, says Atul Shah, a BJP member from the neighboring state of Maharashtra, who was in Surat to support his Gujarat colleagues in the days before the first round of voting on Tuesday Dec. 11. "Gujarat is a model state and Modi has proved himself 10 out of 10." Pravin Naik, head of the BJP's Surat branch, says the idea that Modi was part of communal tensions or violence is a "whole myth." "There has not been a single incident of communal violence since [the 2002 riots]," he says. "Narendra Modi is the only competent chief minister in India." The results of this month's poll will tell how many agree with him.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)