Narendra Modi is vegetarian and so, I presume, is Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti. Neither would know the feeling of a tiny fish bone stuck in the throat. In rare situations, the gag hold can be fatal. Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti is the fish bone, which the prime minister can digest, only if he could swallow. The abominable Sadhvi’s lack of facility with language and her penchant for rhymes have landed her and her boss in a shark soup. The BJP was quick in not defending the indefensible.
The Opposition has an opportunity it doesn’t want to let go of. The government cannot spit her out because she is a deadly combination of a Dalit and a Sadhvi. The BJP has Dalits who can replace her; it also has ascetics who can do so. It doesn’t have another combo offer that satiates both the vote banks, though.
After trying the usual apology tricks in the book, the BJP has now scraped the bottom by highlighting her Dalit card. The prime minister wants the Opposition to forgive her because she is new, and a village simpleton. If he meant that she was not experienced enough to know the right from the wrong, it’s far more damaging. A half-decent CEO doesn’t suffer newbies when he/she has to deliver results in a short period. Just being marginally better than the last government won’t cut it, because the expectations are huge from this one.
The people of India are already anxious to see spectacular changes in the way the government functions. The status quoism on issues like Black Money, Henderson Papers, etc. have added to the anxiety. They voted for good governance, not for compromises in the name of balancing caste equations and creed creds. Of course, vote banks are a reality, but the other reality is that the Indian voter went beyond that and took a risk, for want of a better governance model. They removed the UPA because it perpetuated the compromise formula. Narendra Modi is seen as a strong man, who will not compromise with national interest.
So, how does Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti run her ministry? How does she manage the sloth-like bureaucracy? Just a day ago, President Barrack Obama praised Narendra Modi for the latter’s willingness to dismantle the notorious red-tapism that India is famous for. An MP with no administrative or parliamentary experience has been given a portfolio in the central government.
She entered the Assembly for the first time in 2012. With two years of legislative experience, how does Narendra Modi think she will be able to implement his agenda of change? These are not rhetorical questions that Sambit Rhetorics Patra can answer. These questions are key to the mandate.
The mandate, the biggest in 30 years, wasn’t only because of the previous government’s failures. It came about also because Narendra Modi held out a promise to a billion people. In spite of a chequered curriculum vita, India offered him the position of the prime minister because his credentials in administering Gujarat were credible. After the "nonsense" – Rahul Gandhi’s word, not mine – of ten years, in which allies held the government to ransom and the PM was reduced to a puppet, Indians wanted a no-nonsense man at the helm. So, when BJP offered Modi’s candidature, it managed to sway the fence sitters to vote the party to power.
CommentPrime Minister Modi also displayed an eagerness to move from extreme right to right-off-centre. He ran Gujarat like its CEO, and new India wanted a CEO, who could turn its fortunes around. Hence, the wave. If anybody in BJP thinks that the wave will continue to favour it, he/she should sit on the seashore one day. Waves recede, and ever as quickly.
The challenge before the BJP is to make the most of it and cement the image of a party devoted to Development First. What has happened of late is the worst kind of appeasement of the extreme right, which is not worrying the right people. The fear of the liberals and civil society is not misplaced, but it’s the BJP that should be worried as hell.
Agreed that the Congress is at its weakest at this moment. Also, that the Third Front’s attempts to become a united second front may not sustain at all. But with ministers like Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti in his team, Narendra Modi doesn’t need a united Opposition to pour cold water on his Project Achche Din.
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