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desijat
December 8th, 2012, 10:16 PM
An article that was published Indian Express (Shekhar Gupta) explains where has BJP gone wrong. This infact resembles emotions supported by a few BJP supporters on Jatland:


National Interest: Flopposition

Once again, just as the build-up to a fresh national election begins, the BJP has pulled the loser’s cap on to its own head, rediscovering its nuclear deal moment. To be so stupid for the second time within four years needs special talent.

Even BJP leaders ruefully admitted that the loss of the no-confidence motion over the nuclear deal allowed the UPA to neutralise the incumbency disadvantage in 2009. You could have gone to the polls claiming you were cheated through cash-for-votes in Parliament. But, for that, the underlying issue, the nuclear deal, had to have great emotional appeal. It turned out to be a dud. Even the fantasy that such a strategic alliance with the Americans would anger Muslims into dumping the Congress and its supporters was belied.

Why did the BJP repeat exactly the same blunder? Once again, it struck an entirely cynical alliance with political forces with which it has nothing to share but hostility. Simple logic suggests that you build new alliances and equations in the life of one parliament that expand your base and reach into the next election. Did the BJP/NDA achieve that by joining hands with Mayawati, the Left and even Ajit Singh, against the nuclear deal? It ended up, and inevitably so, fighting each one of these so-called allies in the 2009 election. The defeat over FDI indicates it learnt no lessons from that disaster.

Here is an idea. Trace the BJP’s history of post-2004 blunderings to one common fact: that it never accepted the 2004 loss with humility. From May 2004 onwards, therefore, it failed to build a political plan for a full five years in opposition. It has built, instead, a politics for each Parliament session. The central belief is the old one, that the UPA is about to collapse, just a case of ek dhakka aur do. That “dhakka”, usually, would be something that pushes out one of the UPA’s fence-sitting allies. As a result, it has written off many Parliament sessions. And yet its target looks steadier than before, even with the loss of an ally, the TMC.

When the party was blocking the last monsoon session over the CAG report on coal allocation, I had gone to chat with some of the topmost BJP leaders. The analysis based on those conversations was published in National Interest (‘Coal vs coalition’ IE, August 25, http://goo.gl/53xi4). If you revisit that, you can easily see where the BJP has gone wrong. It had then calculated that the SP, TMC, and even Mayawati, were keen on an early election and would bring down the government in the winter session. Coal had also given them their first opportunity to target the prime minister. So they could take the corruption issue to an election in January-February 2013.

That hope is now belied. The BSP and SP have, instead, saved the government. And the UPA has been allowed to put coal and other scandals on the backburner, helped along by the BJP, which so quickly leapfrogged to retail FDI. Coal ceased to be a war cry as the winter session began. Retail FDI has now died as an issue midway through the same session. Mayawati was indulging in Lakhnavi euphemisms in calling this sour grapes. It is much worse.

Today’s aspirational India has no place for politics with such a lack of imagination and such boring predictability. Unless we see a dramatic turn in the weeks following the Gujarat election, it would seem that the BJP will again return to the next general election seeking a vote against the UPA rather than a positive mandate on the basis of a distinctive and competitively attractive agenda. It is because of this lack of imagination — and patience — that the only strategy it has had for nearly nine years now is to somehow bring down this government.

It started with Uma Bharti and Sushma Swaraj threatening extreme forms of self-flagellation, including shaving their heads, sleeping on the floor and eating parched gram if Sonia Gandhi became prime minister in 2004. This carried on. There was a “strong” belief among the party’s higher counsels that the UPA would fall by October 2004. Why? Because their favourite “bulls-eye” astrologer (somewhere in West Delhi) had said so. And then it continued on to the nuclear deal. In the current Parliament, one session was nearly written off by protests on FDI in retail (budget session, 2012) until Pranab Mukherjee announced a deferral, another was fully blocked by the demand for a JPC on telecom (winter session, 2010), yet another on coal, (monsoon session, 2012) and nearly half of the current one again on FDI.

The top 15 leaders of the BJP now are veterans in national politics. They are by no means intellectually challenged. Watch them in Parliament and in public debate, and they sound as good as any of their rivals, if not better. Yet, they allow a single agenda to drive their political responses: anti-Congressism. Driven by that one emotion, they even sacrifice (or suspend?) their essential ideology. On the nuclear deal as well as retail FDI, they made common cause with the Left. And how does it work in the end? Each time the BJP joins hands with the Left, it is suspending the key elements of its own essential ideology — pro-Americanism, on the nuclear deal (who but Vajpayee’s NDA first had the courage to call America a strategic ally, reversing five decades of the Nehruvian worldview), and free market championship, on FDI in retail. In each case, the Left could justify embracing the BJP because it was only bringing some most unlikely converts into its ideological tent. The BJP was going out on a limb, totally confusing its core voter. That is one of the reasons it was so thoroughly rejected in 2009 in all the major cities where it had hoped to win. The last thing a loyal BJP voter wants is to see his party as the B-team of the Left.

It is not as if the BJP has nothing substantive to offer. It has won several new states and renewed its mandate in many. Its chief ministers are, by and large, the most efficient and effective in the country. They even have a stellar record in implementing anti-poverty schemes — including MNREGA. Their states have been, by and large, scandal-free. The party could build a story around these successes, along with modern, new, reformist ideas on the economy, foreign policy, national security. It has squandered nine years. Now its stalwarts can only wait for the formality of the Gujarat election results, and the inevitable rise of Narendra Modi. The story will then resume with an entirely new twist.

sanjeev1984
December 10th, 2012, 10:45 AM
explain karne wale bhi bahot badhiya bande hote hain... ek-ek cheez observe kar ke likhte hain... ye dekh...

Mommy! Yeh kya hai? How did I become the head of the Congress coordination committee for 2014 Lok Sabha polls (http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/rahul-to-head-cong-coordination-panel-for-lok-sabha-polls/article4098583.ece)? Nobody asked me for my consent. Yeh to jabardasti hai.
Please, don’t tell me that this is about my future and the future of the country. Bhar me jaye……why can’t the country leave me alone?
Look, I did not mind becoming an MP since I know that I am a Mediocre Person. But I have resisted all temptations to be part of the government or be a minister, because then you are responsible and liable to be blamed for all the department’s faults. I do not want to give anybody the opportunity to humiliate me. I am smart enough to learn it from you! Akhir beta kiska hun?
I am okay with being the General Secretary of Congress – I can behave like a general without even knowing the job of a secretary. And I do not mind becoming the High Command in future. Ask my friends – they will tell you I like to be ‘high’ and can command right and left as long as I do not have to carry them out.
But why does the party keep on demanding more? How many posts can I hold? Can’t we have other leaders from this pre-historic party who can share some responsibilities? I know you do not like that idea because of the risk of other leaders overshadowing the family. But you have to understand that I cannot pretend anymore that I enjoy politics.
Is politics ke liye mujhe kya kya nahin karna para!
First they call me an ‘icon’. In this age, while ipod, iphone and ipad are pioneers in their respective field, my detractors can easily distort icon from the leader of congress to the head of the conmen – yeh mujhe bilkul pasand nahi hai.
Next, I have to fake myself as a youth leader when I am not a youth anymore. Is umar mein to Vivekananda aur Jesus Christ duniya chorke chale gaye theh.
I had to eat with Dalits and sleep in their house (http://www.indianexpress.com/news/rahul-spends-night-at-dalits-house-in-up-village/521039/). I had to travel second class (http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/UttarPradesh/Rahul-rides-aam-aadmi-train/Article1-619097.aspx)with people that Shashi bhaiya disapproved as cattles (http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article21179.ece). I have to spend half my time holding meeting at places where I would have never gone otherwise. Moreover I have to do all of these with a smiling face.
Yeh bhi koyi zindagi hai! Forget about girlfriends (http://in.lifestyle.yahoo.com/rahul-gandhi-s-girlfriend-113513396.html), I do not even have time to visit London (http://www.firstpost.com/politics/happy-birthday-rahul-gandhi-our-future-prime-minister-in-hiding-349153.html) or Boston (http://www.frontlineonline.info/thehindu/2001/09/30/stories/02300003.htm) anymore, let alone go to mama-bari in Italy.
I know you will remind me that I am important! It is my destiny to become PM. Even our silent PM agrees (http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-05-25/india/28274357_1_rahul-gandhi-ministerial-berth-young-leader)with that, whenever he is allowed to speak. You will also tell me that my opinions count. I try not to behave or talk like a future PM. (Fortunately, I am blessed because it comes natural to me). But still the scribes keep on insisting? How am I supposed to know that nobody can understand that there is no difference between Kargil war with Pakistan and FDI war with Walmart? (http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/rahul-gandhi-equates-fdi-with-kargil-war-opposition-up-in-arms-288402)
Then look at the hullabaloo they created after I said that ‘Hindu groups could pose a bigger threat to the country than activities of groups like Lashkar-e-Tayiba’ (http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-rahul-warned-us-about-hindu-terror-says-wikileaks/20101217.htm). What I meant was, since Hindus are the majority, we should make sure that they remain oppressed enough, so that there is never a possibility of Hindu terror. Now, is it my fault if ignorant people cannot follow my point? Why do they ask for my views then?
That’s the reason why I also avoid Parliament sessions (http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-who-bunks-parliament-the-most-rahul-sonia-sidhu/20120830.htm). It is so boring, anyway. All they discuss are scams – CWG, 2G, CoalG(ate). And then they ask me ‘what is your opinion Rahul-ji’? Baap re, mujhe to chakkar aata hai.
Actually I am convinced that there is a deep conspiracy going on. First our party and its allies were being connected to all sorts of scams. Then they attacked our family directly. Robert bhaiya ko to kareeb band baja diya tha (http://www.livemint.com/Politics/bIyiB4vh8SxBgjy54H1BGP/DLFRobert-Vadra-controversy-A-news-roundup.html)…thank God he could fence away, at least for now. All these Annas and Arvinds are their stooges. I know all of it. I am not a bachcha anymore and neither am I kachcha in politics, though sometimes my oppositions tend to believe that (http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/rahul-gandhi-is-bachcha-and-kachcha-in-politics-shiv-sena/1/227651.html).
And now Subbu uncle, who fondly calls me a buddhu (http://www.newzstreet.tv/ns/node/54678), is accusing even you and me of fraud (http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-11-01/india/34856534_1_rahul-gandhi-congress-general-secretary-sonia-gandhi). This must be part of an international scheme. Otherwise why would, all of a sudden, even the foreign media start taunting us. How dare they refer to me as the Rahul problem (http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2012/09/indias-gandhi-family)? Can anyone otherwise explain why they suddenly decided to declare our famous ‘son of sardar’ PM as an underachiever (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2170634/PM-Manmohan-Singh-labelled-underachiever-Time-magazine.html)?
I know who is behind all of these. It is the man from the west – i.e. the western state of India. All those vibrations from the vibrant programs, where they showcase their state, are shaking our roots here. No wonder they have him as their cover boy (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Narendra-Modi-on-Time-magazine-cover/articleshow/12296366.cms). And no wonder suddenly even our friends from UK are warming up to him (http://ibnlive.in.com/news/uk-reaches-out-to-narendra-modi-asks-envoy-to-visit-gujarat/299931-37-64.html).
I think you need to pull some strings. Otherwise all these conspiracies and foreign interests can bury us badly in coming elections. Can you imagine where my reputation, which is already heavily tarnished after losing Bihar and UP elections (http://www.firstpost.com/politics/up-results-will-cong-now-dump-rahul-as-show-piece-campaigner-236138.html), will be, if we lose the Lok Sabha 2014 polls? Do you still agree that I should hold this post of the head of coordination committee? I think yeh dil maange no more.
Honestly I am also tired of this political role play, jo mere bas ka kaam nahin hai. Sometimes I want to live a normal life. Think about it – I cannot even party with my friends, without criticism (http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/Rahul+in+party+mood+soon+after+Mumbai+crisis/1/21442.html). This is very unfair.
Besides if I ever become the PM, what will happen to our Garibi Hatao programme? Look, for example, at Amethi – my constituency. It can compete with anywhere else in India for its garibi. (http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/j2lLKwkwvdXOgCZoOxPxNN/The-blazing-lights-of-AmethiRae-Bareli.html?facet=print) Even Bill Gates failed (http://www.indianexpress.com/news/bill-gates-promises-to-develop-amethi-as-it-hub/617321/)to turn it around. If I become PM and the whole of India utilize my expertise and try to emulate Amethi, how can we then implement Grandma’s Garibi Hatao program?
I think Ramu dada has probably figured out (http://in.news.yahoo.com/illiterate-rahul-dumped-country-ram-jethmalani-090537976.html)that India’s PM post is not the right position for me, though he mentioned it in a slightly eccentric way. I admire his cynicism in general but strongly object to his openly criticizing me as illiterate. Publicly bolna nahi chahiye thah …..
Seriously, I think we have to find some new strategies before even the aam aadmi (or mango people, according to Robert bhaiya) decide to dump us.
Why can’t people like Diggy mama (http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-06-20/india/29677157_1_digvijay-singh-general-secretary-party) or Sallu chacha (http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-11-16/india/35155653_1_congress-party-salman-khurshid-digvijaya-singh) try to convince Priyanka? They can also talk to Robert-bhai. He is famous now-a-days. And part of the family too.
And, don’t try to confuse me by telling that my father and grandmother gave their life for the country. At least they had some sort of a life going before they died. Meri to zindagi bhi abhi suru nahi hui. It seems that nobody cares whether I have the right to have some sort of a personal life. At least I could have used some sympathy for my enforced bachelorship. Has anybody thought that if I do not get married, what happens to the continuity of the family tree?
Mera nahi to kam se kam dynasty ki to socho!

desijat
December 10th, 2012, 10:47 PM
At above post- irrelevant.

Your post of comparing a man with a whole party with criticism just substantiates the topic.

sanjeev1984
December 11th, 2012, 10:32 AM
ok .............................. thanks ye batane ke liye ki baton ka "relevent ya irrelevent" hone ka certificate jari karne ki authority tere pass hai... mai to sochta tha ki ye kaam Dogvijay Singh karta hai...

Maine tere idol "Raul Baba" ko compare nahi kiya... maine to bas ye batane ki kosish ki hai ke.... jitni bewakoffi sari BJP mil ke karti hai, utni akela Raul kar deta hai...


At above post- irrelevant.

Your post of comparing a man with a whole party with criticism just substantiates the topic.

VPannu
December 12th, 2012, 04:37 AM
ok .............................. thanks ye batane ke liye ki baton ka "relevent ya irrelevent" hone ka certificate jari karne ki authority tere pass hai... mai to sochta tha ki ye kaam Dogvijay Singh karta hai...

Maine tere idol "Raul Baba" ko compare nahi kiya... maine to bas ye batane ki kosish ki hai ke.... jitni bewakoffi sari BJP mil ke karti hai, utni akela Raul kar deta hai...Bhai Sanjeev, tu eeb tak seeng uljhaa ra hai ke is geil ? desijat is the controversy queen of JL. Our own version of beloved Rakhi Sawant, who always like to stir the pot by bringing up these controversial threads. We all know the truth very well. Should there be a poll and ONLY internet users are allowed to vote, I bet Congress ki jamanat jabt ho jayegi. The reason I kept it to only internet users is - media can easily change someone's opinion by dishing the twisted truth. Information, no matter right or wrong, flows freely on the internet and this is probably one of the reason that govt wants to censor it.
Modi kuchh dhang ka bol dega to desijat credit dega uski PR team ne, par jab Digvijay/Rahul/Sonia etc itne sharmnaak byaan dete hain jab iski jeebh chip ja hai.

desijat
December 12th, 2012, 05:41 AM
desijat is the controversy queen of JL.

Thank you, Mr. Digvijay Singh of Jatland for the brilliant comparison. (Though it was totally uncalled for)

VPannu
December 12th, 2012, 09:00 AM
Thank you, Mr. Digvijay Singh of Jatland for the brilliant comparison. (Though it was totally uncalled for)
hahahaha maan gaye tera congress prem. Comparison eeb bhi congress party aale gelya kara hai . Tu majnoo congress teri laila ;)

ssgoyat
December 12th, 2012, 10:02 AM
hahahaha maan gaye tera congress prem. Comparison eeb bhi congress party aale gelya kara hai . Tu majnoo congress teri laila ;)

इह की पिलसन बांध राखी से दिखे कांग्रेस आल्यान ने :livid:

जुकर फोजी कदे फ़ौज ने नहीं बिसराया करदा, न्यू इ इस गेल बन रही से :stupid:

sanjeev1984
December 12th, 2012, 10:22 AM
ha ha ha... bhai itna doglapan congressi hi dikha sakte hain... ki ek taraf to vo apne leaders ka naam gali (diggi of JL... ha ha ha) ki tarah istemal karte hain, or doosri taraf unke talwe chaat-te hain... :)

jai ho...


hahahaha maan gaye tera congress prem. Comparison eeb bhi congress party aale gelya kara hai . Tu majnoo congress teri laila ;)

rinkusheoran
December 21st, 2012, 07:49 AM
Desi congress well explained bhi padh le, it is not as much as biased as one that written against BJP

http://www.firstpost.com/politics/how-modis-win-changes-the-political-pitch-for-2014-565146.html?utm_source=frontpagepicks&utm_source=article_mumb

(http://www.firstpost.com/politics/how-modis-win-changes-the-political-pitch-for-2014-565146.html?utm_source=frontpagepicks&utm_source=article_mumbai)If you’re frothing at the mouth and are going apoplectic, it’s a sure sign that you have nothing coherent to say and have allowed emotion to interfere with lucidity of thought. In that sense, Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam’s vulgar abuse directed at Smriti Irani of the BJP, in a television talk show late on Thursday (watch the clip here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=HaIp9_phznY#t=46373s)), is symptomatic of the Congress’ colossal failure to get its head around the political significance of Narendra Modi (http://www.firstpost.com/topic/person/narendra-modi-profile-20711.html)‘s win in Gujarat.
Appearing on ABP’s post-election analysis, Nirupam resorted to the usual Congress strategy of launching ad hominem attacks on Modi based on wilful misrepresentation of facts about his record of governance in office, which was far and away the one election issue on which Modi returned to power for a third time. Challenged by Smriti Irani, Nirupam launched into personal abuse of Irani. “Aap to paise ke liye thumke lagati thi… Patha hai tumhara charitra (You used to dance for money, I know your character),” he sputtered, his hands flailing in extreme agitation.
Nirupam is, of course, a crass politician, from whom no one expects any better. But his outpourings are indicative of a larger failing within the Congress to challenge the very real political threat that Modi’s ascent, on the strength of a new idiom of developmental politics, poses to the Congress in 2014. (At another level, Nirupam’s manifest misogyny, unmindful of the fact that he was on prime-time television, provides a cultural backdrop to regressive attitudes towards women that create the enabling conditions for brutal assaults on women – of the sorts we saw in Delhi last Sunday with the gang-rape of a 23-year-old woman.)
http://www.firstpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Modi-win.gif (http://www.firstpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Modi-win.gif)Narendra Modi has demonstrated the India’s politics is aspirational. AFP.


Quite simply, the Congress in Gujarat was looking to do a repeat of the 2004 general election. That year, the BJP-led NDA was campaigning on the ‘India Shining’ platform, showcasing the entrepreneurial and economic resurgence it had laid the foundation for with a slew of economic reforms under Prime Minister AB Vajpayee. But the Congress under Sonia Gandhi (http://www.firstpost.com/topic/person/sonia-gandhi-profile-2030.html) launched only what can be called a ‘drains inspector’ campaign: of pointing to pockets of poverty (of which you can find plenty to this day) and running down the merits of economic growth on the specious ground that the poor and the dispossessed had not benefited from them.

The Congress’ success in that election – whatever the reason that underlay it – gave it reason to go on a populist binge and indulge in the cynical politics that placed a premium on welfare entitlements over aspirations. The effect of eight years of such “breast-beating economics” is manifest today: the economy is growing at its slowest pace in nearly a decade, and the country is perilously close to seeing its sovereign rating downgraded to junk status.

Yet, campaigning for this Assembly election in Gujarat, the Congress resorted to the same strategy of running down Modi’s claims to having fostered development. It was replicate the same cynical politics of the downward spiral that had proved successful in 2004 aat the pan-Indian level. Except that it didn’t work.

The success of Modi’s campaign pitch of reaching out to the aspirational sections of society, eschewing the politics of religious or caste identity, holds enormous significance for the economic and political discourse as it will likely be framed for the 2014 elections, but the Congress doesn’t appear to have got the memo. It is still stuck in the backward-looking politics of entitlements and populism and caste and religious identity, whereas Modi has demonstrated that India’s politics is aspirational, and that unlike in 2004, when the Congress succeeded in ambushing the India Shining campaign, ‘development’ and ‘economic reforms’ aren’t dirty words anymore.

Particularly in a context where the 2014 election is being framed as one that will see a head-to-head contest between Modi and Rahul Gandhi (http://www.firstpost.com/topic/place/rahul-gandhi-profile-22423.html), the contrast in the tones between them couldn’t be more stark.
As Pratap Bhanu Mehta points out in the Indian Express (here (http://www.indianexpress.com/news/a-modified-politics/1048292/0)), Rahul Gandhi (http://www.firstpost.com/topic/place/rahul-gandhi-profile-22423.html)‘s vision of India is as ”permanently dependent upon and confined to welfare. He does not display a trace of self-belief in India’s possibilities.” Modi, on the other hand, speaks to the future, even if he occasionally appears presumptuous in overemphasising the developmental theme.

Mehta sees this as a larger failing among Modi’s critics, and in particular the Congress, to set their own house in order before they target him. Virtually every criticism made of Modi is true of his critics as well. You say Modi fosters a personality cult? What of other parties – where the leader is bigger than the party? You say Modi is a propagandist? What do you say about the fact that the Gandhi dynasty has abused state power for decades and imprinted its name on virtually every scheme? You say Gujarat’s developmental record isn’t as immaculate as Modi claims it to be? What about the Congresss’ record over the 60-plus years since independence? As Mehta points out, if the Central government had been subject to the kind of scrutiny Gujarat has been subject to, our economic history would have been entirely different. The list is endless…

The real significance of Modi’s third consecutive victory in Gujarat, on the campaign theme of development, is that it has the capacity to dramatically alter the political discourse in the lead up to the 2014 election. Those who argue that the rest of India doesn’t abide by a Gujarati template of developmental discourse tend to miss out on the genuine yearning among aspirational sections of the neo middle class for just the rudiments of good governance.

Of course, Modi doesn’t measure up to the highest standards of liberal politics, but the same can be said of many other leaders as well. In that sense, Nirupam’s mindset is more prevalent among the ‘liberal’ political class than is readily acknowledged.
In such a political backdrop, Modi has already imprinted his stamp on the 2014 election theme. From its initial responses to Modi’s win in Gujarat, the Congress appears not to have got the message. The longer it persists in bad-mouthing political opponents as a substitute for offering governance, the more certain it is to lose the narrative. 2012 isn’t 2002, and 2014 won’t be 2004 either.