Fly on the Wall : Modi prods for NaMo App, MP s not worried

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group


Fly on the Wall for Friday publication 

Harish Gupta 

Modi prods for NaMo App, MP s not worried

Ever since Prime Minister Modi castigated his party Mps for not responding to his “Namaste” every morning, there is virtual panic among them. When Modi disclosed that of the 330 BJP Mps only five respond to his NaMo App daily. Top ministers present at the meeting were sheepish while others rushed to download the NaMo App so that they join the “Namaste” club. While the BJP opened a special counter at the parliamentary party office to enable the Mps to download the App, the Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha internet cell also went out of its way to help the Mps. Some of the Mps are using not one but three phones; one for people in their respective constituencies, the other for party leaders and third for private use. Secondly, they have at least ten What's App groups they have to deal with every minute. The Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha secretariats have one group for their Mps, the other is for BJP parliamentary party, the third is MPLAD, fourth is parliamentary party committees and so on and so forth. In addition, they also have to deal with the problems of family and constituents. As if this was not enough they also tell Modi ji and Amit Shah desperately as to what they have done in their constituencies, upload photos of their visits, update on PM's 20 welfare schemes etc etc. Majority of Mps are not well-versed in technology either and find it difficult to communicate. They cannot hire the services of a full time technical hand as their salaries and perks has not been enhanced. Some of the vocal BJP Lok Sabha MP s made it clear that they will not reply on NaMo App come what may. “If our performance is to be judged by whether we do Namaste every day, then we are better off without a ticket,” said at least five Lok Sabha MP s belonging to Haryana, Maharashtra and even Rajasthan. Surely, the PM may be getting better feedback. At least three ministers say that they don't use smart phones.

Mayawati plays pricey

BSP Chief Mayawati has signaled that she will neither contest in a byelection for the Phulpur Lok Sabha seat and nor seek re-nomination for the Rajya Sabha seat. The byelection for the Lok Sabha seat can be announced by the Election Commission anytime and biennial poll for Rajya Sabha is due this April. The Samajwadi Party and Congress have sent feelers to the BSP that “Behanji” contest a common Opposition candidate from the seat vacated by the BJP MP Keshav Prasad Maurya who resigned to become deputy Chief Minister. Mayawati has not responded but her party sources say that opposition unity cannot be a onetime affair. Secondly, she doesn't want to contest in a byelection. With regard to Rajya Sabha seat, Mayawati said she had quit the Rajya Sabha to fight for the Dalit rights and the battle has ended. She will keep away, say party sources. Perhaps, Mayawati is playing pricey. Mayawati has given any clue whether her party will support the Samajwadi Party in the Phulpur and Gorakhpur bye-polls.

New Solicitor-General ? Modi knows

The appointment of new Solicitor General has been hanging in the air for months after Ranjit Kumar quit the post months ago. Ranjit Kumar quit a couple of months after Attorney General Mukul Rohtagi quit without assigning any reasons. It is said both were uncomfortable and could have stayed on if persuaded. But finding successor to Ranjit Kumar has raised eyebrows in legal & political fraternity. After great difficulty the government was able to find new AG, K K Venugopal. But the new Solicitor General is nowhere in sight. It was speculated that Gujrat's Advocate General Kamal Trivedi be brought to Delhi. But the idea did not find favour with powers that be. Then the name of senior advocate Rakesh Trivedi cropped up. It is learnt that some of the senior advocates considered close to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley didn't find favour somewhere in the Law Ministry. The Law & IT Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad wouldn't say anything except that the new SG will be appointed shortly. There are a couple of vacancies for the post of Additional solicitor general as well. It now transpires that a section in the government favours promoting Tushar Mehta as the new Solicitor General. Mehta also hails from Gujrat and is ASG for almost three years now. It is said that the file pending somewhere in the Prime Minister's Office.

Rahul Gandhi to travel to West Asia

If Prime Minister Modi goes to Davos to address the plenary on January 24 to woo the global investors, Congress president Rahul Gandhi plans to travel to West Asian countries. It is learnt that he had finalized his plans to visit Dubai and Bahrain during the year-end. But he had to change his plans in view of delay in Parliament's Winter session dates. Secondly, he didn't want to give an elbow room to the BJP which always harps on his foreign visits. In fact, Rahul Gandhi is perfecting the art of Modi who garnered support from NRIs long before the announcement of Lok Sabha polls. This biggest constituency was never nursed by the Congress for the past 20 years by the Congress and even her mother Sonia Gandhi. He thinks its a barren land which was wisely cultivated by the BJP and its leader Modi. Realising the tremendous response that Rahul Gandhi received of his interaction at the Berkeley university back home in India, Rahul Gandhi has decided to target NRIs as a policy. Sam Pitroda is his foreign policy adviser and none in the foreign affairs cell of the AICC is aware of what's happening.

Nemesis rides a Bicycle

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

It is the last week-end before the fate of the Maha Gathbandhan or Grand Alliance of the non-BJP parties in Uttar Pradesh is decided. While the SP and Congress have finally agreed to a seat-sharing arrangement, others have yet to chip in. In the state with 403-strong assembly, the young SP supremo and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav inarguably holds an image hugely surpassing that of Congress’ Rahul Gandhi. While SP won 224 seats in the 2012 election, the Congress got only 28, or a little over a tenth of the former. However, while SP bagged 29.13 per cent of votes, Congress tally was 11.65 per cent, which is not so abysmally low in relation to the winner. While the ‘grand old party’ had very few strong candidates in any region, including Awadh, its historical forte, it had, and possibly still has, flocks who’d still swear by the centenarian party.

And that perhaps explains why the 2017 alliance between SP and Congress is crucial for both SP and Congress. Akhilesh has just maneuvered his way out of the grip of old-timers led by his father Mulayam Singh Yadav, SP’s founder, and his crafty brother Shivpal Singh. Despite being the young, affable and smart CM of UP much of Akhilesh’s inability to pull it out of its disappointing image of being a lawless land lies with his father and his associates. These old-timers had imposed their authority on the young leader. After a lot of public spat, and jousting with an army of “uncles”, Akhilesh has finally secured the liberty to shape his legislative party the way he wishes. But he is neither cut in the mould of the Yadav clan’s rebellious child, nor would it give him any electoral percentage if he does so. SP under Akhilesh has to be a ‘compromise’ with SP of his father, who still enjoys some following. It’s a necessity that has driven Akhilesh to offer a ticket even to Shivpal and Azam Khan.

That is quite a tight-rope walk and is risky as Akhilesh alone cannot bring about an image makeover of the SP, which is identified with patriarchy, misogyny and gangster-worship. An alliance with Rahul, the young leader of an old national party, is expected to go a long way in wrapping up the Akhilesh-led combination in an aura of youthfulness. Besides, the Congress party’s traditional link with the state’s large Brahmin community (12 per cent) is a bonus.

The alliance looked wobbly until the last minute as Congress was playing pricy by demanding more than it deserved based on the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The Congress won just two seats, those of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi while the SP managed to win 5 against the ‘Modi storm’ and the decline in its vote share was much less than Congress’ cliff diving.  To nurture its pocket-boroughs, the VIP Lok Sabha constituencies of Amethi (Rahul Gandhi) and Rae Bareli (Sonia Gandhi), Congress demanded maximum assembly seats in that area.  

In the tough bargaining between Akhilesh and the Gandhi clan, the latter’s leverage is the Brahmin support it has always attracted. In Uttar Pradesh, Brahmins are more than a caste. They’re opinion makers as they interface with the public—be it in the local media, educational institutions or the bar associations or religious institutions. It is from these platforms that the hawa, or the popular consensus, moves as to which side is ‘winning’. And this verdict motivates fence-sitters, who represent majority of voters in a state like Uttar Pradesh where ideology, unlike, say, in Kerala, counts for very little. In 2007, it’s the hawa fanned by the upper caste that had made fence-sitters believe it was Mayawati’s turn, and she made it to the top office. In the last Lok Sabha election, the upper caste voters including Brahmins voted overwhelmingly for Narendra Modi as they saw him as a symbol of both conservative Hindutva and a modern reformer. But, over the years, BJP in Uttar Pradesh is perceived as an outright communal party with OBC groups at its core. Keshav Prasad Maurya, an OBC leader, now holds the post of BJP state president. BJP MP Yogi Adityanath, much criticised for his communal hate-mongering, has been chosen among the party’s main campaigners. Besides, the memories of riots at Moradabad and Saharanpur are still raw. It peeved the educated class that expected Modi to usher in a wave of modernisation, but got communal slugfest in its place.

From Akhilesh’s perspective, Congress’ demands of 125 seats were undoubtedly irksome. But the dividend he can expect from an SP-Congress unity, extending to JD(U), RLD and even Mamata Banerjee’s TMC being on board, goes a very long way. If the future alliance ultimately trounces BJP in India’s most populous state—and that too three years after BJP had grabbed 73 of its 80 Lok Sabha seats—it will get flagged as evidence of the 2014 victory of Modi being a purely temporary phenomenon, something like a flash flood. If the BJP-Akali Dal combine also flounders in Punjab, it will lead to considerable diminution of Modi’s stature as winner in 2019.

By emerging as the new face of his party to defeat the old cabal of men with backward ideas and orthodox mindset, Akhilesh has already positioned himself as an icon of young voters. If he can forge and lead a powerful alliance in the next two years, he can  become the unquestioned national alternative. That should make BJP see its nemesis coming on a bicycle (SP’s poll symbol).