4 Editorial THE ECHO OF INDIA�PORT BLAIR

Wednesday�July 18, 2018

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REFLEX ACTIONAlthough Jayant Sinha has been upbraided by hisfather, Yashwant Sinha, for garlanding a lynchbrigade, the Union minister deserves a mild round ofapplause for revealing the BJP’s real face.

But for his candour, the country would havecontinued to suffer from the delusion that the BJP’sfocus was only on development for all – sabka saath,sabka vikas. The gau rakshaks, too, would have beendisheartened about the party’s apparent reluctance tostand by them, especially after the Supreme Court’sdirectives about bringing them to book. Now, they arelikely to feel emboldened as they did when a sadhvi inRajasthan equated them with Bhagat Singh after thekilling of a Muslim meat trader. What gestures suchas these indicate is the BJP’s commitment to a Hindurashtra where the second-class status of theminorities will ensure that their tormentors will behonoured instead of being put behind bars. Theconsideration which Jayant Sinha and the sadhvihave shown to the gau rakshaks is a sign of thereliance which the BJP, and its mentor, the RSS, placeon the Hindu militants, who include the venomoustrolls, to help the party to cross the Rubicon of theforthcoming state assembly elections this winter andthe general election next year.

The maverick, Subramanian Swamy, has let the catout of the bag in this regard by admitting that onlyHindutva can bring electoral success to the BJP in theabsence of economic growth. Jayant Sinha’s praise forthe cow vigilantes has been followed by a visit to a jailby another Union minister, Giriraj Singh, to expresssolidarity with the plight of the Vishwa HinduParishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal activists whohave been accused of participating in riots during theNavaratri festival last year in Bihar. These previously

The Impact ofModi’s Bengal Visit

The Prime Minister came and addressed aparty rally at Medinipur town on Tuesday. Hesaid all that he was expected to say. The crowdcheered him and the rally ended. The onlydisconcerting thing that happened was thecollapse of a platform and injury to many whohad climbed on to it. Fortunately, there was nofatality. The PM harped on the measures hisgovernment had taken to ameliorate thesuffering of peasants, like the hike in theprocurement prices of crops. Expectedly, heattacked the Congress though it is not in powerin Bengal. He lampooned the “Syndicate Raj”of the TMC. But what was the impact of hisspeech on the people of West Bengal, not justthat of Medinipur district? The size of thecrowd for a prime minister’s meeting wasrespectable, though the TMC claimed thatmany had been brought to the venue fromneighbouring States like Odisha, Jharkhandand Bihar.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has beenaccusing the Centre of curtailing allocationsfor a number of village-oriented developmentschemes which the cash-strapped StateGovernment has been forced to carry on inspite of its budget constraints. The PM did notaddress this question. The State Governmenthas launched a number of welfare schemes tobenefit students, women and the commonpeople. Some of these schemes have beenpraised by the Centre as well. Quite naturally,the PM did not have a kind word or two aboutthese schemes in a meeting which wasessentially a pre-election meeting of the BJP.But his professed concern about the farmershad a hollow ring as far mers’ suicidescontinue to take place even in his own State ofGujarat and the neighbouring Maharashtra,also ruled by his own party.

Bringing in people from other States mayincrease the size of the crowd but does it havea lasting effect on the electorate of the Stateand influence their preference for one party orthe other? Rather doubtful. The crowd sizewas respectable. The cheerleaders did their jobwell. The electronic media telecast livecoverage of the rally from beginning to end.But as an exercise at broadening the appealand acceptability of the party to the voters ofWest Bengal, did it succeed? The party’ssuccessive attempts at wooing the intellectualcommunity of Bengal did not meet withsuccess. The Bengal leadership of the partydoes not seem to be popular with the educatedBengali middle class. And it is primarily theywho will have to conduct the elections in theState, neither the PM nor the party president.

Amulya Ganguli

DISCLAIMERThe views in the articles published here are absolutelythe views of the author and The Echo of India does notstand liable for them.

FOCUSL.S. Herdenia

Children use a makeshift raft as they play along a partially flooded street caused by monsoon rains and TropicalStorm Son-Tinh in Quezon city, Metro Manila, in Philippines---REUTERS

joyful celebrations have now been tur ned intooccasions of fear and violence as the saffron storm-troopers parade the streets with swords and otherarms to cow down the minorities and also the BJP’spolitical opponents as in West Bengal. In the past,communal riots were a surefire way of the saffronbrotherhood to mobilize the Hindu voters. Theirinvolvement in such outbreaks have been noted byseveral judicial commissions of inquiry. After theGujarat riots of 2002, the BJP has generally refrainedfrom provoking large-scale riots apparently becauseof the worldwide bad name which they bring to theparty.

Instead, there are now instances of interfaithclashes on a smaller scale, as in Muzaffarnagar in 2013along with sporadic intimidatory tactics as during theNavaratri period. In addition, the saffron lobbyunleashes the gau rakshaks on hapless Muslims ortargets them on the charges of carrying out what hasbeen called love jehad by courting or marrying Hinduwomen. It is possible that as the elections draw nearand there is increasing fear in the Hindutva campabout the BJP’s uncertain prospects, there will bemore incidents of Muslims being targeted online bythe party’s uneducated and uncultured trolls and inreal life by the goons.

The reason for a rising tempo of such verbal andactual violence is that the BJP dreads the possibilityof failing to secure a majority in parliament under

Narendra Modi’s leadership. The latter’s appearanceon the scene was a godsend at a time when the BJPwas called a “kati patang” (floating kite) by one of theparty’s former admirers, Arun Shourie. It can be saidthat Modi revived the party in the post-Atal BehariVajpayee period when it did not have a major leader.The apprehension in the Modi camp is that if the BJPfails to repeat its performance of 2014 next year, theparty may well become a “kati patang” again for tworeasons. One is that Modi’s temperament of being aloner will rule out the chances of him running acoalition. The other is that there is no one else in theparty who can match his popularity even though it isdwindling at the moment.

However, because of the possibility of a vacuum atthe top, the grapevine is abuzz with rumours aboutRajnath Singh and Sushma Swaraj playing a role inthe leadership stakes as they are considered to bebetter suited to hold a multi-party alliance together. Infact, the promptness with which the Union homeminister ensured that the person who had threatenedto rape a Congress spokesperson’s daughter would bearrested by the Mumbai police has been seen as anattempt to burnish his administrative credentials. Asimilar interpretation has marked Sushma Swaraj’sintervention in a case where a love jehad couple hadfaced harassment in a passport office. The argumentis that by their non-partisan acts, the two ministershave thrown their hats into the ring as persons whowill be more acceptable than Modi in case the BJPneeds coalition partners after the 2019 elections. Modi,incidentally, has maintained his celebrated strategicsilence on the two incidents, notwithstanding theabuses which were heaped on “Begum” SushmaSwaraj by the vicious saffron trolls. (IPA)

MP Congress president KamalNath has a certain masteryover the art of fightingelections. Barring once, henever tasted defeat in theChhindwara Lok Sabhaconstituency, which he holdssince 1980. Nath is now usinghis expertise to gear up thestate Congress in a systematicmanner to face the electoralbattle. He has constitutedseveral committees andassigned them jobs. On July 11he formally inaugurated thenewly constituted workingcommittee and held a meetingof the committee.

He told the members thatthe coming election will be abreathtaking one. The meetingcondemned the state of affairsin the state and passed fourresolutions relating to farmerdeaths, the financial conditionof the state, unemployment ofyouths and women. Talking tomedia, Nath claimed that thestate government’sassessment showed that it wasbound to lose the local bodyelections and to save its

reputation decided to call offthe elections.

He said that the stategovernment is facing financialcrisis but the Government ofIndia is not releasing funds forthe state. He wondered why CMShivraj Singh Chouhan wasnot sitting on dharna againstthe government of India’sinaction in this matter, whileduring the UPA regime he usedto sit on dharna on even minorissues. There is reason tobelieve that the ground levelpolitical climate is against theBJP. Overwhelming sections ofpeople are giving expression totheir feelings in unique newways.

For example, some womenof Khandwa, a stronghold ofBJP, formed a football team,pasted Shivraj SinghChouhan’s picture on thefootball and then kicked itaround on the playgrounddeclaring that they will kickthe BJP government in thesame way in the coming VidhanSabha elections. As per reportsreaching Bhopal from various

parts of the state, BJP leadersare facing hostile crowds. BJPleaders including ministers,MPs, MLAs and others wereasked to interact with people totell them about theachievements of the state andCentral governments. Inseveral cases people refused tolisten and in some casesshouted, asking them to goback.

There have also been uglyscenes of angry exchangesbetween BJP leaders. A BJPward member and hersupporters in Bhopal did notallow MP Alok Sanjar andMLA Rameshwar Sharma toperform “Bhumi Poojan” priorto the construction of a smallpiece of road. They evenexchanged blows. The wardmember has put up a notice

board in which MLA Sharmahas been warned not to enterthe area. Bhopal’s BJP Mayorstaged a unique dharna sittingon a chair in knee deep water.He was protesting against thegovernment’s Public WorksDepartment for its failure tocarry out pre-monsoon work,which resulted in thesubmergence of several roadsand houses after heavy rains.

Perhaps perturbed over theangry mood of the people, ChiefMinister Chouhan islaunching what he described as“Ashrivad Yatra” (to seekpeople’s blessings). A daybefore the Yatra, which is beinglaunched by BJP presidentAmit Shah ion July 14,Chouhan will perform ritualsand offer puja at the BJP headoffice. The yatra will be

Modi led BJP’s aid and abetment for gau rakshaks

Kamal Nath puts MP Congress on election modelaunched from Ujjain, the cityof holy Mahakal temple.Sources in BJP said thatChouhan will visit all 230constituencies. In order tocheckmate the ChiefMinister’s yatra the Congressis also launching “Pol KholYatra” (yatra to expose theclaims made by the ChiefMinister).

The Congress yatra willtake off from Tarana town inUjjain district on July 18. Theyatra will be flagged off byKamalnath and joined byvarious leaders of the party intheir respective regions.Besides the Pol Khol yatra, theCongress has also startedconsulting various sections ofthe society to seek their viewsabout the issues that theywould like to see included in theCongress manifesto.

Two such consultationshave already taken place inBhopal. The consultationswere organised by former MPMeenkashi Natrajan, who isregarded as a member of RahulGandhi’s inner circle. (IPA)