2019 polls: BJP, Cong may witness cakewalk by BJD

Narendra Modi is still known for having ‘engineered’ modern India’s worst riot, the Godhra carnage in 2002. He became PM only because the UPA regime kept committing grave blunders without expressing any remorse.

Further, Modi went on a touring spree as if with a vengeance and wasted precious public time and money in the name of ironing out long pending snags on the diplomatic front. The outcome of his trips are yet to be assessed. He just was mad to get away and breathe fresh air outside India. More than this, he began a strangely innovative diplomatic culture of hugging every head of state the moment they came close enough. Now, this act is known as ‘hugplomacy’, which is perceived as more farcical than useful. Modi demonetised 86% of the currency and brought in a draconian tax regime, GST, which introduced five different slabs of taxation and shaved off 2% of the country’s GDP.

Yet, his sycophantic image-promoters projected him as a ‘game changer’. By now, nearly all the silly ‘Modi tricks’ have been exposed and evaluated. By and large, Modi has not been rated even as an average state head. But as a talker and theatre fellow, his rating is very high.

Modi, mainly guided by the tradesman president Shah, has to face a united opposition consisting of a resurgent Congress and most of the regional parties. He loves public glare; so, his oratory ranting and fuming screams are noticed by some as grand patriotism.

Meanwhile, the BJP has failed to triumph in Karnataka; and the victory euphoria is gone forever. Goa and Gujarat are hanging on an extremely fragile string. virtually gone. Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are already roaming the departure

platforms with exit tickets in hand. Bihar is in trouble as the grand alliance is building up against an anxious, repenting Nitish Kumar. Andhra Pradesh has chosen to sever relationship. Bengal is an avowed enemy, formidable enough to scare the saffron gang away without much effort.

Odisha is only where no other political outfit than the homegrown BJD has any sizeable foothold. The Congress is more damaged under the new president; and the BJP is increasingly being seen as a laughing stock under Dharmendra Pradhan and a dust-biting party president. Somehow it has gone into the mind of the MP from MP that he is going to replace Naveen Patnaik. He has never been keen to know that his fold is becoming loose all over the country.

The oldest ally Shiv Sena has announced going alone. TDP supremo Chandrababu Naidu, who had first proposed Modi as PM candidate, has opted out of the alliance. The latest divorce from Mehbooba Mufti in J&K has literally taken the sheen out of the BJP.

It is ‘1989’ once again for Indian politics. Back then, the Left and the Right had propped up VP Singh to keep the Congress out. Though a big pan-India alliance is not likely today, rivals have the desire and strength to configure any formation that can destroy any of Amit Shah’s designs.

High-profile regional leaders including Mamata Banerjee, K Chandrasekhar Rao, Mayawati, Akhilesh Yadav, Arvind Kejriwal, Naveen Patnaik and even Uddhav Thackeray are ready to counter the saffron aggression. While Mamata is militantly poised and most others are just fuming to explode,

Naveen remains cool and composed as he considers no outfit even fit enough to battle with. He knows just too well that the Congress in Odisha is an intangible entity only. And the BJP with too many loudmouths has no base or presentable face to lead it to victory. Further, the hurdles created for the AAP Delhi Government, threats of prosecution against Mamata Banerjee’s second line of leaders and political tensions caused in Kerala have all led to an anti-Modi stand adopted by the regional parties.

Joblessness and agrarian distress have added further to the BJP’s worries. Modi’s promise of creating two crore new jobs a year ended in a

paltry 20 lakh which has exposed his poor development plank. IT, realty and retail sectors have lost so badly that they are constantly diminishing their workforces just to survive. Modi has failed to give minimum support prices to farmers, implement Forest Rights Act for tribal cultivators without land rights and waive farm loans.

Instead of working on innovative development initiatives, squandering with trivial issues such as ‘Love Jihad’, cow vigilantism, ‘Ghar Wapsi’, Padmavati, the Modi Government has gravely degraded itself on the social harmony index. Dalit attacks in various States have led to increasing Dalit disenchantment with the current dispensation despite the tokenism in appointing a ‘Sanghi Dalit’ as India’s President who is not considered a Dalit anymore. Even foreign policy failures and border skirmishes have disgusted people as there is more theatre than real shows.

Modi has failed to dissuade China from getting entrenched in Doklam, failed to win over Nepal after a suicidal economic blockade of the Himalayan nation, failed to raise large-scale investments from abroad despite endless trips and failed to put a break on the Pakistani violations along the Line of Control, resulting in a higher number of Indian soldiers getting killed than ever before.

The Indian banking system is gasping for breath with NPAs having soared to Rs 9 lakh crore, more than double the number when Modi took over as PM. Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and many other thugs have proven how vulnerable the banking fundamentals are. While growth has plummeted by 2% after the twin blows of demonetisation and GST, MSMEs are dying fast.

Black money stashed abroad hasn’t been brought back. The same amount of cash demonetised has been pumped back into the system indicating no black money crook has been dispossessed. A Lokpal is still not in sight. The CBI is still behaving like a caged-parrot.

The shady Rafale deal from the UPA times still remains a nail in the coffin. The Army is crying for funds when a crony capitalist with no Defence production experience has got the procurement and servicing contract of Defence products.

Nobody forced the Government to promise people Rs 15 lakh each. Nobody forced Modi to wear a wildly-expensive suit. Nobody forced the BJP to use Photoshop and fake images. Nobody forced the BJP to appoint prehistoric sexist moralists in high posts. Nobody forced its silence over the horrific lynching of Muslims and Dalits. No one forced it to treat protesting

students like criminals or threaten Pakistan on national television. Nobody asked it to force Aadhaar down the throats of unwilling citizens. Nobody told it to jettison a competent RBI Governor. Nobody forced it to start dictating citizens’ personal choices.

Nobody made the BJP turn nationalism into a bigot’s weapon. Nobody asked it to trample science under superstition and religion. Nobody asked it to force digital transactions on a nation where bank access, data connectivity and electricity are partial at best. But each of these was done, and blatantly so, and often hopelessly justified using a pliant media.

Apart from the Advani-Joshi-Sinha-populated BJP Margdarshak Mandal and others like Shatrughan Sinha, several current Central Ministers like Sushma Swaraj and Rajnath Singh are apparently unhappy with the concentration of power in the PM’s hands. Challenges are also being posed by UP CM Yogi Adityanath from within the party, the VHP’s Pravin Togadia from outside the party and Subramanian Swamy from somewhere in between. One conspiracy theory today is that Amit Shah ensured the defeat of the party candidate in Gorakhpur by choosing a lightweight candidate to cut Yogi to size.

If the BJP wins again, it will be purely due to the misadventures by the Congress currently governing only three States and the party president is young and inexperienced. But surprisingly, Rahul the novice has sent quite some chill up Modi’s spine by delivering a fiery speech and a subsequent hug that has left the saffron fold utterly confused and scared for quite some time to come. People are noticing the young Gandhi as a force to reckon with.

Interestingly, the revelry among Congress biggies or the fear in the saffron minds have nothing to do with Naveen for he knows that his outfit is still the only one people believe will deliver the goods that improve the quality of life. He is perceived as the cleanest politician without a routine family to rob the State for or any craving for luxuries that generate hate and envy in the minds of the ruled communities.

The BJD is certain to have a cakewalk in 2019. The BJP may emerge as a remote second. The Congress has obviously to work very hard under a clean leader to even remain in plain public glare.