Narendra Modi
has become the classic pill that still affects you irrespective of your
decision to swallow or not to swallow it. If you ignore the pill you suffer
from relapse; if you swallow it and then throw it out you still suffer from wrong
diagnosis and if you swallow it with a contented heart you are still not sure
of escaping from its side effects. Greatly
relishing the spectacle the Congress party already quipped that the very
mention of Narendra Modi’s name had made many BJP stalwarts sick unable to
attend Goa meet.
For a change
media attention has somewhat shifted from the still raging IPL Spot Fixing
scandal and has now been totally focused on Narendra Modi—the Chief Minister of
Gujarat famous for his successful development model and arguably the most
controversial leader within the national opposition Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP). Recently there were a few opinion polls on General Elections-2014 that
forecast that with Modi as the BJP campaign leader or a declared Prime
Ministerial candidate the BJP would much better to possibly form a government
at the centre. Besides, Modi has also done exceptionally well in the just
concluded by-elections in Gujarat sweeping all
the Parliament and Assembly seats. Narendra Modi cannot be ignored anymore. The
two-day National Convention of the BJP started in Goa
with a pre-Convention agenda meeting yesterday. It has been widely speculated
and expected that the party would take a decision this time to make Modi BJP
Election Campaign leader or BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate or both.
However, things
are far from easy because Narendra Modi’s record of delivering stupendous
growth rate and good governance always gets weighed against his fundamentalist
leanings or connections and his dubious role during communal riots in his state
in 2002. BJP being a party for Hinduism with tacit blessings from various
fundamentalist groups notwithstanding, some leaders within its fold vouch for a
secular changeover. It knows that it cannot form a government on its own in
diverse India and has to play coalition politics for its National Democratic
Alliance (NDA) that brought BJP into power in 1998 and then in 1999. The NDA
has other parties with secular ideologies and their own Prime Ministerial
candidates too. Allies within the NDA has been fighting bitterly during the
last two tumultuous years while cornering the ruling coalition again and again
on new and newer scams and hardly allowing the Indian Parliament to perform. In
this complex era of confrontational politics the basic reason for infighting is
still Narendra Modi.
Several senior,
competent and ambitious leaders within BJP make things murkier. There are two
main groups—anti-Modi led by veteran LK Advani with the support of leader of
Opposition in Lok Sabha Shusma Swaraj, Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha, Venkaiyya
Naidu etc, and the pro-Modi group led by BJP national President Rajnath Singh
with the support of leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley, Goa Chief
Minister Manohar Parikkar, for BJP President Nitin Gadkari, Rajiv Pratap Rudi
and others. Speculation has reached fever pitch with several anti-Modi BJP
leaders including LK Advani deciding against attending Goa
convention.
The BJP must understand
that it must put up a Modified front, must present a tolerably united
alliance and must desist from petty politics, if it seriously wants to aim at
forming a government after the 2014 General Elections.
