Modi and BJP’s TINA factor – there is no alternative

Iamanidiot · 24-05-12, 04:27 PM

Modi and BJP’s TINA factor – there is no alternative

By Sanjay Pugalia

Sanjay Joshi’s exit from the BJP national executive is a major development. It heralds a major paradigm shift in power equations within the BJP.

What it means is that the Narendra Modi factor is looming larger in the party’s scheme of things. Modi’s refusal to attend the last national executive meeting was related to Joshi’s presence; his refusal to campaign in Uttar Pradesh was also because party president Nitin Gadkari had made Joshi the man in charge of UP.

Joshi’s ouster indicates that the Modi factor is playing itself out in a way where the top leadership of the BJP and the RSS can only react and respond and adjust to the emerging situation instead of seeking to control it.

The BJP’s top brass were forced to let Joshi go because Modi just can’t stand him. Joshi was sidelined some years ago after he surfaced in a sex tape, but his reinstatement by Gadkari made him a pawn in the battle for primacy between Modi and Gadkari.

Reuters
For now, while the Joshi chapter is closing, it opens a new one on future power equations in the BJP. It also has a large relevance to the current political scenario where the Congress is on the decline.

When people discuss the political situation in the country, they first curse the Congress party for is terrible performance. But, almost inevitably, there is much tut-tutting over the alternative – the BJP’s completely confused state. This inevitably leads to the next point of discussion: why shouldn’t they project Modi when he is their best and only bet?

From here the views diverge, but there is no denying the fact that Modi’s name comes up unprompted from Nagpur to Varanasi, from Ahmedabad to Guwahati.

A BJP driven by Delhi’s leaders and led by a Nagpur man may collectively want to wish Modi away. Their argument is that the BJP’s allies won’t accept him as a prime ministerial candidate due to his 2002 post-Godhra image. In short, his detractors say whatever his iconic status within Gujarat, India at large will not accept him in that role.

The argument held some merit in the past. But now? The UPA government has messed up so badly and the magnitude of public anger is so intense that the acceptability of Modi is increasing every day.

BJP leaders have serious problems with Modi’s style of functioning and his unconventional approach to politicking; even the RSS top brass gets unsettled by him.

But the choice before the RSS-BJP leadership is very clear. In the 2014 polls, they can either go in with their current lacklustre and fragmented leadership and settle for 120-140 seats and hope the allies make enough between them to cobble an alliance together, or they can take their chances with Modi and try for at least 175 seats.

Many second-rung BJP leaders are asking themselves whether they want to be another carbon copy of a rudderless UPA or a purposive NDA where Modi will be the driving force.

The BJP-RSS’s concerns over Modi are clear: in Gujarat, he has reduced them to ciphers. It is Modi, Modi all the way. Yes, that is the risk they have to learn to live with.

As far as Modi is concerned, it’s clear he has a plan. And the plan is to use the public mood, specially the mood of the traditional BJP voter, to convince the RSS that he is their man if the RSS wants to see its political wing come to power in Delhi.

The RSS realises that the Hindu agenda is not selling. The number of RSS shakhas is dwindling, and so is the new enrolment. On the other hand, Modi is repackaging himself as a development icon. He could make all the difference between closeness to political power and irrelevance.

For the RSS, it is an existential dilemma. They have a choice to make between a man whose ambitions they are uncomfortable with and their own decimation in case the BJP makes a weak showing in 2014.

Sanjay Pugalia is Editor-in-Chief of CNBC Awaaz

Modi and BJP’s TINA factor – there is no alternative | Firstpost

parijataka · 24-05-12, 05:44 PM

what babu... starting thread about cow pee people ...

Modi and BJP’s TINA factor – there is no alternative

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