Wordsmiths & Newsplumbers

BY R.K.MISRA A no-holds barred battle  is on the cards in Gujarat as the ruling BJP gets  down to defend it’s Congress besieged turf in the Vidhan Sabha elections slated to be held in just over a week from now .  Polling is due on December 9 and 14 with results to be declared along with the Himachal Pradesh contest on December 18. This is the first  Assembly elections being fought by the ruling BJP in Gujarat after Narendra Modi, it’s longest serving  chief minister left for Delhi to take over as Prime Minister in 2014 after having ruled the state  for a record 4610 days  through three Vidhan Sabha elections since 2001. Battling a debilitating ‘hangover’ of the Modi-era which reduced those who succeeded him -Anandiben Patel and the present incumbent Vijay Rupani-to lilliputs, their  problems have been further compounded by burgeoning anti-incumbency. Adding salt to sore wounds is that the BJP which has been ruling Gujarat for over two decades ,this time also faces a t

BY R.K.MISRA A shoe and bangles are hurled at the Prime Minister while he is in Gujarat.The reaction and the outcome in both cases are different.The first incident took place in the run up to the 2009 lok Sabha elections and involved Dr Manmohan Singh, then UPA Prime Minister.The  second incident took place in Vadodara on October 22 this year in the run up to the state Assembly polls and involved Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In the incident involving Dr Singh,he had directed that no action be taken against the youth and had even asked officers accompanying  him to ensure that no action was taken against him. The large heartedness of Dr.Singh notwithstanding,,the youth who hurled the shoe at the UPA Prime Minister seems to have been rewarded by the then BJP government. And last heard he works in the private staff of a top elected BJP functionary holding a  high constitutional post. In the recent incident, the woman who had hurled bangles at the convoy of Prime Minister Modi i

BY R.K.MISRA Over two decades ruling Gujarat, BJP is getting an attack of nerves with less than a month to go for  polling on December 9 and 14. How else do you account for Prime Minister, Narendra Modi dangling a caramel coated carrot one moment and menacingly wielding the club the very next . Three days before elections were declared in Gujarat, (October 22) Prime Minister Modi was in the state, sweet as sugar enumerating the manifold benefits of having the same party government, both at the centre and in the state to ensure speedy development. Modi was making a case for continuing with the BJP government in Gujarat where he was the chief minister from 2001 to 2014. He reeled off names in support of his argument. Morarji Desai as PM and Babubhai Patel as CM in Gujarat: Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Delhi and Keshubhai Patel in the state and off course he in Delhi and Vijay Rupani in his home, state conveniently choosing to omit the long line of Congress CMs  in Gujarat with the

  BY   R.K.MISRA It will take a fool or a fanatic to write off the BJP in the run up to the Gujarat elections scheduled for Dec 9 and 14 this year. Almost 33 years since it last won an election in Gujarat in 1985, the Congress is on the upswing but the BJP is exactly not a pushover though it is on the back foot, battles anti-incumbency and a host of other factors, mostly of it’s own making. It’s ace, son of the soil, longest serving chief minister of the state turned prime minister, Narendra Modi is yet to open his cards though some indications are available. This is understandable if you consider the fact that the BJP has been ruling Gujarat for good of two decades after veteran leader Keshubhai Patel first brought it to power in 1995. BJP leader  Shankersinh Vaghela’s rebellion the same year  and his move to split the BJP brought him chief ministership heading a regional party with the support of the Congress.  However Vaghela’s decision to go in for early electio

BY R.K.MISRA Development (Vikas), the mascot of the BJP in  the last two state Assembly elections in Gujarat may well find itself relegated to the background as the ruling party falls back on it’s old, tried and tested formula of tarring it’s opponents and dividing the opposition as it’s recipe for clinching the 2017 elections. The first indication of things to come emerged from the BJP political manoeuvre to defeat Ahmed Patel, political advisor to Congress president Mrs Sonia Gandhi in the august Gujarat  Rajya Sabha elections. With the Election Commission announcing the polls in Gujarat, the ruling party demonstrated it’s intent to carry the narrative of targeting Patel further. The state chief minister Vijay Rupani, at a hurriedly called media conference sought to link Patel’s name to the arrest of a lab technician who had worked in a well known hospital in Ankleshwar, on suspicion of being an ISIS operative. Hospital sources said that Ahmed Patel was a trustee of the