Prime Minister Modi : So Predictable In His Unpredictability !
BY R.K.MISRA
Prime
Minister Narendra Modi is predictable in
his unpredictability.
And so is the
din, drama and drop dead timing of his
decisions to draw maximum mileage for himself.
Take the change
of guard in Gujarat. On September 11,2021 Prime Minister Modi e-inaugurated the Sardardham bhavan in
Ahmedabad built by the politically powerful and numerically abundant Patidar
community. Hours later Vijay Rupani puts in his papers becoming the third BJP
chief minister to do so in as many months countrywide.
A day later he is replaced by an obscure Bhupendra Patel, a
first time legislator. It is a poll-time message for 15 per cent of the Patidar
voting population with tilting influence in 69 of the 182 Gujarat Vidhan Sabha
seats.
The timing makes it clear that it will be a
Patidar(Patel), all key BJP Patidar leaders are called in in attendance, flying
in from Delhi even Andamans. The media goes berserk bandying all manner of
Patidar names-deputy chief minister Nitin Patel to Daman administrator Praful
Patel and union ministers Mansukh Mandaviya and Purshottam Rupala to Gordhan jhadafiya
and former state party chief R.C.Fardu.
On Sunday
September 12, the state party goes through all the ‘motions’ of democratic
procedures that mark a chief minister’s
selection by elected legislators, albeit robotically. The surprise choice, quite
simply, leaves the frontrunners fuming within and the party rank and file
fumbling without, quite unable to understand the process. Nevertheless, everyone
pastes a smile, fully aware that the decision comes from Narendra Modi. He is
the party, he is the government ,the rest is all additive frills !
Nothing grows
under a banyan tree. Gujarat has two of them, Modi and Shah. Anandiben Patel
who succeeded Modi as chief minister in 2014 was a strong leader who took independent decisions but paid the
price for it.
See the irony. A
strong Patidar women chief minister was
ousted through a Patidar agitation for
enhanced rights and placements and replaced by a non-Patidar light weight,
Vijay Rupani in August 2016. Now, five years later, the same person is being
replaced to bring in another lightweight Patidar, ostensibly to placate the Patel
vote bank.
Anandiben was
the last of the mohicans. No chief minister in Gujarat can function independently. A hawk’s eye guards the Prime
Minister’s home state. Any setback here
would blight his image everywhere. There is Modi’s imprint all over
governance in Gujarat. Shah remains the quintessential ‘eye-in-the -sky’, guarding
his boss’ flock as well as his own.
On the ground
there is K.Kailashnathan ,an IAS officer of the 1979 batch who did duty in the
Chief Minister’s Office (CMO)
during Modi’s tenure and continues thereon even
after his retirement and Modi’s move to Delhi, outlasting two chief ministers
and going onto the third.
Modi’s 12 year
plus term as chief minister in Gujarat was marked by two loyal deputies in the
cabinet who owed allegiance to him.
Anandiben Patel who looked after brain and money(Revenue, education, Road and Buildings)
and Amit Shah who took care of brawn and muscle(police, jails and the like).
Both were sworn political opponents. Patel took over from Modi in Gujarat and
Shah went to Delhi as national party
chief but back home their wires continued to cross.
The all- important Hardik Patel led Patidar rally in Ahmedabad in August 2015 had
passed off peacefully- when under prompting from someone other than the then
chief minister- police went berserk late at night, attacking Patel majority
residential societies and violence flared
up consuming the Anandiben Patel government. She was replaced by Rupani,
a greenhorn Shah supporter. Bhupendra Patel who now takes charge was her choice
replacement for the Vidhan Sabha seat vacated by her and is her protégé. The
clock has now come full circle.
Rupani has been
scalped for compulsions of electoral politics. He had no say beyond providing
the infrastructure and organization for the ‘Namaste Trump’ rally in Ahmedabad
on February 23,2020 which led to the proliferation of Corona in the state. It
was out and out a Prime Minister Modi show for the white supremacist Republican
US President, Donald Trump.
Vijay Nehra, the
then Ahmedabad municipal commissioner who sought to identify corona cases in a
bid to contain the contagion was transferred out- not because Rupani wanted
it- but because Delhi was perturbed at
the rising cases which brought it infamy. Brushing under the carpet does not help but the Chief
minister was held to account for it then, and cashiered now.
In fact Rupani
would have gone earlier in June around the time when Delhi Chief Minister and
AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal visited the
state to induct popular journalist Isudan Gadhvi into the party but was stalled
as it would have sent a wrong message. Kamalam, the state BJP headquarter was a
hive of frenetic activity with the
national party leadership on call, all key
Gujarat leaders being bunched together
and the intelligence wing on alert in the districts to check out for any likely desertions.
AAP’s miniscule
achievement- bagging 27 seats in the Surat Municipal Corporation elections to
the BJP’s 93 in a 120 member house(the congress drew a blank) has been a thorn
in the BJP’s side. Moreso, because it is
the home ground of state BJP chief C.R. Patil who is Modi’s ‘machete’ man, be
it Gujarat, Bihar or Benaras.
The good work
done in AAP s Surat wards during the
second corona wave and the popular
recognition of it, has only added to the discomfort. A top notch Surat diamond merchant, also a Patidar, known
for his philanthropy, joining AAP sent
alarm bells ringing in the saffron edifice, hastening the process of Rupani’s
departure.
The cause for
consternation lies in the umbilical chord that binds a swathe of Saurashtra to
Surat as the labour and fuel that energises
this financial capital of Gujarat comes from the former region, including the
Patidars. Saurashtra is the Achilles heel of the BJP and the echoes from Surat
resound rapidly there. So the additional need to pacify the Patels.
Past lapses and
lacunae, pasted on the chief minister who is now the past, may give the
ruling BJP a new, clean slate for the
ensuing 2022 Vidhan Sabha elections, or so it believes but the new chief
minister Bhupendra Patel will have to deal with the same set of problems- remote
control and fighting an electoral bout with one hand tied behind his back and
his eyes looking Delhi-wards. It does not matter whose follower you are,
ultimately you are the fall guy in an election fought under the name of
Narendra Modi. Heads, I win, tails, you lose !
Old time
television sets had a feature called picture-in-picture. Thus there is also a
larger picture beyond Gujarat in the sequence of national events. BJP’s
brinkmanship in Bihar elections 2020 aimed at outsmarting it’s own coalition
partner, Nitish Kumar’s Janta Dal(United) saw it almost tethering on the edge
before retaining power by the skin of their teeth. West Bengal polls where the BJP went hammer and tongs saw the might of
Modi-Shah bruised by a leg bandaged
Mamta’s Trinamool Congress.
The hat-trick of
setbacks was complete when UP Chief Minister Aditya Nath successfully resisted
all attempts to foist Modi confidante, A.K. Sharma, an IAS officer of the
Gujarat cadre ,doing duty in his CMO and
later PMO as deputy chief minister of UP. Sharma who quit the civil service
,hails from UP and is now doing duty as
BJP vice-president in the state. Nath also seems to have made it known to the
party top brass that the ensuing UP elections will be fought with him as the
mascot and not Delhi leading the charge.
Those who have
covered Modi for long, know that he has a way of getting even. The chief
ministerial heads that are rolling in BJP ruled states-some which have and some
more will- is an assertion of his authority.
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