Wordsmiths & Newsplumbers

BY R.K.MISRA Why is the BJP investing so much in defeating Ahmed Patel, political advisor to Congress president Mrs Sonia Gandhi in the Rajya Sabha elections in Gujarat? The BJP-both the party and it’s government-working in tandem have invested innumerable  brain and brawn manhours trying to sculpt the defeat of Patel. In this pursuit, it has been brazenly unmindful of the dent to it’s image in the use of central agencies in the raid on a Bangaluru resort where the Gujarat Congress legislators were put up and on a business group in Vadodara considered close to Patel. The heave-ho is only because, this single move, if it succeeds, will prove a psychological blow to a Congress already laid low by it’ s defeat in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Goa but heading for Gujarat elections with an advantage. Mrs Gandhi still remains a bugbear for the BJP, for it was she who had virtually single handedly, burst the ‘India Shining” bubble of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee governmen...

  BY.R.K.MISRA On July 21,Shankersinh Vaghela, leader of the Congress opposition in the Vidhan Sabha quit the party to park himself in ‘no-man’s land’ creating heartaches and headaches in the political landscape of Gujarat. Heartache for the Congress, headache for the BJP and neither one knows for sure, which way he will turn. Not even to this day. “Vinash kale viprit buddhi(wisdom deserts when bad times are in the offing) he remarked at a convention’ organized to mark his 77 th  birthday, the venue where he announced his ‘quit Congress’ decision. The man was on the mark. The departure of Vaghela marks a major setback for the Congress which was last elected to power in the state over three decades ago. If it was hoping to make a fight of it in the ensuing polls later this year, the efforts have suffered a body blow though the full impact of the loss is yet to unfold. Congress chief spokesperson, Randeep Surjewala was at pains to point out that Vaghela...

BY R.K.MISRA Like Midas, whose touch turned everything into gold, every event of Prime Minister Narendra Modi turns into an extravaganza. Especially in his home state of Gujarat. During his recent two day visit which ended June 30,the Vijay Rupani-led BJP government pulled out all stops, going overboard in building the glitz and glamour quotient for the visit . The chief minister’s hometown, Rajkot where the Prime Minister had four high profile functions packed into as many hours, went into ‘paroxysms’ of weeklong celebrations .There were concerts, plays, ’lok-dayras’, street lighting, illumination of public buildings, cycle rally, fireworks, beautification of traffic circles, light and sound shows, laser shows. In the build-up, rallies galore to invite people,5.50 lakh stickers pasted door-to-door, for the Prime Minister’s road show,150 hospitals decorated with fairy lights,550 hoardings and 40,000 BJP party flags placed across the city. This was apart from the official ...

  BY R.K.MISRA The volcanic eruption of farmers unrest in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra which also threatens to engulf pollbound Gujarat had been simmering for long. The Narendra Modi government ,however,chose to remain in a state of denial to their miserable plight reflected in the rising tide of farmers suicides,countrywide.That is until a single individual from his home state ,Gujarat, decided to take it upon himself to point out that the emperor had no clothes.And with resounding success. ‘Main akela hi chala tha janibe-manzil magar,log sath ate gaye aur karva banta gaya’( I had started out alone in the quest of my goal but people kept joining in and it became a caravan). The words rang true for a Gujarat farmer whose desperate quest to stem the economic ruin and resultant suicides by scores of farmers countrywide, is now yielding results. It was milk and honey to his ears  when on May 2 the Centre admitted before the Supreme Court that over 12,000 suici...

BY R.K.MISRA Even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi was straddling Gujarat(April 16-17) on a two day high voltage, mass connect programme his political rival Shankersinh Vaghela upped the ante to demonstrate his claim to be named as the chief ministerial candidate of the Congress to take on the BJP in the state assembly elections due this year end. In a meeting chaired by the Gujarat Congress in-charge Gurudas Kamat, which went late into the night on Monday, 36 of the 57 Congress legislators in a House of 182 advanced the plea that leader of the Congress Legislature Party, Vaghela be declared the chief ministerial face of the party and  responsibility for the elections be handed over to him. The meeting was convened in the absence of the state party chief Bharatsinh Solanki. Kamat has since been replaced by former Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot as in-charge of Gujarat at  the head of a three person team. ‘Bapu’ as Vaghela is fondly called seems to have tak...

BY R.K.MISRA Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat  may well witness a full dress rehearsal for the 2019 general elections with a Congress helmed combined opposition firming up an alliance to take  on the BJP in the Gujarat Vidhan Sabha  elections due later this year. The building blocks of an opposition alliance were first put together in the Bihar elections  in 2015 which saw Nitish Kumar return to power at the head of a coalition comprising his bitter political rival Laluprasad Yadav’s RJD and the Congress. Mulayam Singh Yadav and his Samajwadi Party had opted out of the ‘mahagathbandhan’ (grand alliance)virtually playing into the hands of the BJP by putting up candidates in almost all the seats but the ploy did not work. A family fracas later with son Akhilesh Yadav dominating, the ruling SP firmed up an alliance with the Congress for the just concluded Uttar Pradesh polls but Mayawati’s BSP remained the loose cannon   and the triangul...

BY R.K.MISRA The howitzers of the hustings have boomed and bottomed out. The outcome has exultant victors celebrating and the vanquished in sullen silence.  As the dust settles and new governments go to work in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur it is time to look back and ponder. Was it at all necessary for the exalted political leadership of an emerging India to sully public discourse to such putrid levels as happened in these elections? A cost-benefit analysis will show there were actually no winners even if the BJP beat competition by a mile in UP and Uttarakhand and the Congress snatched Punjab from the Akali-BJP combine only to be pipped to the post in Manipur and Goa despite being the single largest party. It is not only that when you cheat the mandate through questionable methods you lower the bar a wee bit more for the next contest but also that when pollside discourse goes gutter low, political pollution only sinks to subterranean levels. Gu...