A wake up call

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

In parliamentary democracy, an election is not the war. It is a battle. In public perception at least, the outcome of an election can be outdone, or nearly so, if it is reversed in the next election, be it a major assembly election of even a slew of bye-elections. Just as it is happening now. Narendra Modi's spectacular victory in the Lok Sabha elections in May got chipped off a month ago when his BJP lost all the three assembly bye-elections in Uttarakhand. But that's a minor damage compared to the big dent in the 18 assembly bye-election results that came out yesterday. BJP lost four of the seven seats it won in Bihar to a dour coalition between JD(U) of Nitish Kumar and Lalu Yadav's RJD, and to Congress.

The Outsider

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 65-minute speech from the ramparts of Red Fort on Independence Day last week will be remembered, if at all, for the jolt it gave to the political class. Many of its members had assumed that, despite his being a rather crotchety guy, he's in the arena of politics after all and therefore it'd soon become 'business as usual'. Modi's speech and his style said it would not be so.

Why Modi is Silent ?

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

The glitterati of Lutyen’s Delhi, who made Narendra Modi’s fan club a year ago, when the future downslide of UPA had become self-evident, have suddenly become sullen. They are restive about inflation not receding and the drought in investment continuing even though it is not even three months that Modi became the Prime Minister.

When a courtier turns a foe

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

One of the worst ill-effects of a prolonged dynastic administration is that it creates an army of useless rent-seekers. Delhi is too full of them. Their sole mission in life is to convince others that they are 'consulted' almost on a daily basis by members of the dynasty. Such perception of access gradually becomes their reason for existence. Any cessation from such proximity makes them wild. Kanwar Natwar Singh, the 84-year-old former courtier of the Gandhis, seems going through such 'withdrawal symptom'. That alone explains the gall in which he dipped his pen before writing his autobiography, One Life Is Not Enough.