Pinstripe Politics And The Deadly Design
R K Misra
Celebrities can raise stakes to
sell suits but a feather-light fabric often betrays a deadly design. Prime
Minister Modi’s pacesetter pinstripe suit may have fetched palpitation-inducing
Rs 4.31crore – and it might help cleanse the sinfully polluted River Ganges, as
is projected. But, those who watched the exercise undertaken to the drumbeats
and cymbal sounds over three days in Surat- the commercial capital of
Gujarat-know for sure it was a fixed match. The suit that cost the BJP the
Delhi gaddi, and Modi his sheen was put under the hammer in a desperate bid to
reclaim the remnants of a tattered ego.
Put up along with 400 other gifts
received by Modi after taking over as PM, the suit remained the focal point of
attraction for the rich and the famous as well as the poor and the bunched. In
the fray were textile magnates and diamond merchants and even a school teacher.
Was it a mere coincidence that many of these who went around with cheque in
hand had figured in income-tax raids and records? “I have been absolved,” said
one under media questioning, while the other claimed no misdemeanor was proven.
Nursery school teacher Rajesh
Maheshwari who offered Rs 1.25 crore claimed to have stitched the bid through a
collection of Rs 50,000 from 250 people! The coming events were casting their
shadows ahead on media persons’ ‘whatsapp’ groups in Gujarat much in advance.
That a Rs 5 crore target had been fixed
in deference to instructions
‘from above’ was known on Day-2.Gujarati daily Divya Bhaskar carried a
pictorial report by its Surat correspondent showing undated but signed cheques
with amounts filled in , collected in advance by district administration
officials.
Correspondents covering the event spoke of CR Patil; the
Surat based BJP MP from Navsari, lurking in the background. A once penalised
policeman, Patil had worked his way first to former Union textiles minister
Kashiram Rana and then into the good books of Modi. His are the unseen hands
that move mountains in Surat, the
diamond capital of India where limited year postings in the constabulary go for
over Rs 25 lakh and ‘white ‘ is a distant laggard against ‘black money’ racers.
Interestingly, the last straw
that broke the camel’s back in the tussle between Narendra Modi and the then
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar also has its genesis in Surat and the
venerable worthy playing a role in it. In June 2010, during the BJP national
executive meet in Patna, big advertisements had appeared in Bihar newspapers in
praise of then Gujarat chief minister and his efforts to aid Bihar during the
Kosi floods. This led to Kumar cancelling the official dinner being given in
honour of the delegates and returning the Rs 5 crore flood aid cheque back to
Gujarat. Subsequently, the BJP and the JD-U parted company in view of the
irreconcilable differences between Modi and Kumar. Ahmedabad-based
advertisement representatives of Bihar newspapers had to lengthen their chase
to Surat to bag a bit of the revenue largesse.
If the suit auction in Surat formed the core of an image
salvage operation, the spanner in the works came from an officer of the Coast
Guard picked up by the press in the same city. The officer claimed to have
ordered that a Pakistani fishing vessel be blown up in the sea, debunking a
government claim that it was a terror mission gone awry, whose target was the
Gujarat coast on the eve of the Pravasiya Bhartiya Diwas and Vibrant Gujarat
Global Investor Summit held in Gandhinagar.
Perception management is a key component of any brand
building exercise. The truth of the fishing vessel explosion notwithstanding,
old ghosts continue to haunt politics and politicos. The bulk of the alleged
fake encounters in Gujarat took place to neutralize fidayeen terror outfits
attempting to assassinate the then Gujarat chief minister. Almost all of them
took place around the time Modi was facing a political challenge or crisis of
sorts. The pattern persists even in the vessel affair. As a crisis erupted in
Bihar and the BJP moved to fish in troubled waters, another distracting
development unfolded in Delhi. It was the Modi government’s action against high
profile corporate espionage. Another perception management operation at work?
Likely.
The correctives have become necessary after the Delhi
debacle. This one is seen by some as an attempt at neutralizing the overly
corporate-friendly image the Modi government has vis-a-vis the Ambanis, the
Adanis and the like. The two action-packed events had media attention riveted,
taking the spotlight away from Bihar. In any case, Chief Minister Manjhi threw
in the towel before the trial of strength, leaving little space for the BJP to
get involved. Those who have watched the vintage Modi-Shah duo at work can
easily predict what will follow. After all, in politics, foxes are the ones who
have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.
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