Fly on the Wall | BJP’s offensive worries NCP

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

BJP’s offensive worries NCP

The BJP seems to have mounted a fresh offensive against the NCP leadership after a lull. Two recent acts have turned heads. The first case relates to Enforcement Directorate action against former Maharashtra minister Anil Deshmukh which forced NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, Supriya Sule, Jayant Patil and others to repeatedly come out in his defence. What has made NCP leadership worried is the extremely proactive action by the ED as if the agency is in a hurry after being instructed by political bosses in Delhi. It is not as if the CBI and other agencies have not registered cases against NCP leaders in the past. But such super speed action was never witnessed before. But it is the second action by the Maharashtra BJP against Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar that has raised eyebrows. The BJP’s top Maharashtra leadership recently passed a resolution named Ajit Pawar in the Sachin Waze case. The BJP specifically asked for a CBI probe against Ajit Pawar based on Sachin Waje's letter. Though both- the BJP and NCP down-played the dragging of Ajit Pawar’s name in the case, insiders say that a lot is cooking in Maharashtra’s “unworkable” ruling alliance. The BJP high command seem to be veering round to the view that any alliance with the NCP will not be in the larger interest of the party either in Maharashtra or the country as a whole. The one-day wonder experiment is better be buried and the BJP should launch a full throttled attack on the NCP. Whether any arrangement with the Sena is arrived at or not is a secondary issue. Thus, the twin actions are part of this strategy. Whether this action will result in any future alliance with the Shiv Sena or not, is yet to be seen. PM Modi has taken the Maharashtra affairs in his own hands now and he has the habit of throwing surprises.

BJP’s UP Waterloo

The BJP leadership is extremely worried about UP Assembly polls due next year. Though polls are taking place in Uttarakhand, Goa, Punjab and Manipur too. But BJP’s watershed moment will be what happens next in the “Ulta Pradesh”. The hearts of the Opposition leaders are gladdened after the shock defeat of BJP in West Bengal and Mamata’s tumultuous return in the most ugly poll battles. The BJP had many handicaps in West Bengal, the foremost being the language barrier. None of the top BJP campaigners was familiar with the local language. The BJP had not projected anybody as its CM face and it had no grass root presence either in villages. However, they forget that UP is not West Bengal. Here, the BJP is already ruling the state and Yogi Adityanath is a tough CM. His graph went up in UP ever since the message went around that he did not buckle under the pressure of Central leadership. Secondly, the BJP has a battery of local leaders and no outsider tag can be fixed. In West Bengal, the BJP had a fierce and personally honest adversary like Mamata. Despite best efforts, she could not be dislodged through defection or other means. In UP, the Opposition leaders have all sorts of corruption charges being probed by CBI, ED, Income-Tax and others.

In the given scenario, the UP Assembly poll may be as polarized as we witnessed in West Bengal. It is also gradually emerging that Akhilesh Yadav of Samajwadi Party will emerge as the rallying point of the Opposition and Congress, RLD and others will come a cropper. The Jat community will go against the BJP due to farmers’ agitation and may lean towards Akhilesh Yadav along with the Yadavs and Muslims. Even Mayawati may not be able to swing the SCs’ votes as she used to in the past. These factors are worrying the BJP high command despite BJP being on the strong footing. The outcome will have a bearing on the Presidential poll due July 2022 too. Thus, a lot is at stake in UP for the BJP and PM Modi.

Uttarakhand: A new pain in the neck

While mystery continues to shroud as to why sitting Uttarakhand CM Trivendra Singh Rawat was shown the door in a mid-night coup by the high command, the incumbent Tirath Singh Rawat finding it difficult to choose his Assembly seat. He has to get elected as an MLA before September 9. He can contest from Gangotri or Haldwani. Both fell vacant after the demise of sitting MLAs due to Covid. Trivendra Singh Rawat can also be asked to vacate his Doiwala seat and Tirath Singh can contest from there. But Tirath Singh is scared of contesting a byelection in the current adverse political scenario. The Election Commission is quiet and so is BJP high command.

Finding a new defence minister a herculean task

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Special report

Finding a new defence minister a herculean task

Harish Gupta

New Delhi, May 3 :

Finding a new Defence Minister is getting extremely tough for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 

Though pressure is mounting from the Opposition parties that Modi find a full-time Defence Minister considering continued threat from across the borders, Modi is finding it difficult to relieve Finance Minister Arun Jaitley of the additional charge.

The issue cropped up again when Jaitley called on the PM yesterday ostensibly to discuss the crisis in the Valley and mutilation of bodies of the Indian jawans by the Pakistanis.

Jaitley who was to visit Japan had to defer his visit by two days in the wake of current situation. It is learnt that he pleaded with Modi to relieve him of the additional charge as early as possible. However, Modi is reported to have said that it will take a while to find a suitable person for the key Cabinet post. Modi doesn’t want to reshuffle his Cabinet in a hurry and under pressure.  

The reasons for not appointing a full-time Defence Minister after Manohar Parrikar’s sudden departure to Goa are many. Sources say that the matter was discussed at the high-powered core committee meeting of the party comprising of PM, BJP chief Amit Shah, Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari and M Venkiah Naidu. 

Modi reportedly said the situation is back to square one as it existed in May 2014 when Arun Jaitley had to be given the dual charge of the defence ministry in May 2014.

He had a great difficulty in persuading Manohar Parrikar to come to Delhi and hold the charge of Defence Ministry. But he had to go back in less than two years. He asked the core group members to suggest a name for the post as none of the senior Chief Ministers of the BJP ruled states can be moved out as Assembly elections are likely to be held within the next 12-18 months in their states.

Though one of the proposals under the consideration was to move Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu to Defence and give additional charge of the Railways to the Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari. But it was felt that no purpose will be served by replacing dual charge of one minister with the other.

Secondly, Modi is keen to undertake a major reshuffle of his Cabinet. He wants to do it after the President and Vice President’s elections in July-August. 

Modi is also keen to find new faces in states who can be brought to the Centre. Amit Shah is already on tour of states for next 90 days and tirelessly campaigning. 

The PM had told a group of MPs from Maharashtra the other day that 30 ministers of his government have no work after 2 pm. He had also said that good governance is minimum government which virtually signaled that he may trim his ministry.

Therefore, finding a new Defence Minister is turning out to be a herculean task.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

So it looks like the time for Rahul Gandhi has arrived! There are two reasons why it cannot wait anymore. First, though the Congress has given a general impression of stolidity after its recent defeat in Kerala and Assam, the mood of its senior leaders is unpredictable. After Assam, a wave of exodus from the party is in the offing in various states. In Chhattisgarh, the exit of Ajit Jogi signals a grave development for the Congress.

A further twist to the plot came with veteran leader Digvijaya Singh speaking of the need for a “deep surgery” in the party. Its a metaphor that, in the context of Congress party, can only imply an alleged dysfunction in its reigning ‘family’. It got the party so rattled that Kamal Nath, a politician known to hold his cards close to his chest, readily appeared on a Karan Thapar TV interview to erase the notion that there could really be something amiss in the party. There is no possibility of a “surgery”, Nath reassured and Rahul Gandhi would take charge of the party in “due course”.

It is clear that the party does not have much time on hand. Elections to Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur and Goa fall due early next year, and with that will the curtain be rung up for the general elections in 2019. While all the five states going to poll next year are crucial, Uttar Pradesh is the bellwether for the two so-called national parties, BJP and Congress, as it represents the heart of north India. In the south, accounting for 131 of India’s 543 Lok Sabha seats, state parties seem firmly in the saddle everywhere except in Kerala, where too the Congress seems in terminal disarray. In east India, BJP is far from blooming; its recent electoral victory in Assam hinged on the support of regional groups. Elsewhere, politics is strictly regional, be it in Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal and the smaller NE states. And, with a power vacuum emerging in both Congress and BJP across western India, the contest actually boils down to the battle for Uttar Pradesh. In 2014, Narendra Modi grabbed 73 Lok Sabha seats in the state because his doughty campaign, and over-arching appeal that rose above castes (though not communities). Though his success was limited in eastern and southern India, he won most of the Lok Sabha seats as he could conquer the north Indian roadblock of caste. In Uttar Pradesh Modi’s candidates won the votes of both Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav in large numbers. It was much like the triumph of Indira Gandhi in 1971 or Rajiv Gandhi in 1985—the two other elections in recent times where votes were cast in response to a sense of national exigency.

If Congress has to return to power in 2019, its moment of truth is now. It must test if a member of its ‘first family’ is capable of creating, across a mini-India like Uttar Pradesh, the same over-arching appeal as in 1971, 1985 or 2014. If the experiment succeeds then, from a shockingly low of 44 as in 2014, it can hope to recover to 200 or even more. But numbers short of that can at best raise coalition hopes. It’s of little use as BJP can easily beat it at the game, given the huge resources at its command. In 2004, the government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee lost power as, after the Gujarat riots of 2002, other parties deserted BJP. Modi regained Vajpayee’s baton decade later by appealing directly to the people, not to political bosses with a war chest unheard of in electoral history.

The Congress has only two cards: Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Vadra. Is Rahul competent to ride a wave of hope and dreams? Party elders are not sure, whatever they may say in public as loyal followers of the ‘high command’.  Rahul and Amarinder Singh were not on the best of terms till the other day, but now Singh is suddenly back in Rahul’s favour. The party vice president had ignored the sober advice of many Kerala leaders to remove corruption-tainted Oomen Chandy and octogenarian Tarun Gogoi in Assam from chief minister’s post. But he did not listen, and the lapse cost his party dearly and reignited the BJP with a win in  Assam. The blunder was costly for the Congress. But Rahul remains unruffled as he feels politics is a wheel and what goes up has to come down. Modi sold dreams in 2014 and he cannot repeat the same in 2019. He is bent upon cleansing his own party and wants to run it like a corporate house. He believes that there is no permanent “loyalty” in politics. He is willing to wait for a longer time that what political pundits think, five years or even ten years. But his ageing Party leaders are in a hurry.   

Therefore, the clamour for Priyanka is mounting.  It is no wonder that BJP has sniffed it right and working hard for a “Congress (read Family) Mukt Bharat”. The BJP is digging up Robert Vadra’s alleged links with an land and arms dealers. In the Uttar Pradesh election, if the coin flips in Priyanka’s favour, it should be the forerunner of the Grand Old Party being on the march with a new icon, that of Priyanka Gandhi, whom many old-timers compare to her illustrious grandmother, at least in her looks. It’s a different matter that Rahul is not giving up.

Be it Priyanka or Rahul, either of the Gandhi children,  they cannot be pinned down to any major caste or community group. The Gandhis will therefore carry a larger gamut of following than BJP as they are ready to play a second fiddle to like-minded regional parties.