Finally the BJP
national President Rajnath Singh seemed to have mastered the required support
and/or dictates of the party’s top rank leaders including prominently LK Advani
who absented himself from the Goa convention
and the fundamentalist organizations to take the decision awaited with abated
breath since the last few days. It had been a most suspenseful run-up to the
announcement made in the last moments of the two-day convention in Panaji, the
capital of the state of Goa . He was flanked by
Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj on his left and right respectively as if to
render him the most needed moral support. Narendra Modi was not present in that
brief news conference where Rajnath Singh just made the announcement and did
not take questions from the press.
Yes, Narendra
Modi has been declared the Chairman of the BJP Election Campaign Committee for
General Elections-2014. Celebrations started inside the venue and outside in
Goa, in Gujarat and also in other parts of India as thousands of BJP workers
welcomed the decision. All three BJP Chief Ministers including Manohar Parikkar
of Goa too were part of the decision coming
after three days of classic indecisiveness. This step is being looked as the
first in clearing the way for Modi to emerge as the consensus Prime Ministerial
candidate for 2014. Rajnath Singh and Arun Jaitley gave rousing speeches
afterwards fully justifying the decision and the party’s faith in Narendra
Modi. In his animated speech Modi magnanimously acknowledged the senior BJP
leaders for grooming him for this hugely responsible post and he assured that
he would leave no stone unturned in his efforts to ensure victory for his party. Of
course, there had been innumerable references to the ‘non-performance’ of the
ruling coalition of India
in all of their speeches. Now it is up to Modi to provide a ‘performing’
alternative for the politically restive nation.
Allies of the
BJP led National Democratic Alliance were non-committal about the declaration. Some
of them referred to it as the BJP’s internal affairs while some pointed out
more directly that Modi had only been anointed Campaign Chief and not as a
Prime Ministerial candidate. The Congress took potshots at the national
opposition party over the apparent divide within its top brass on the decision.
The party also said that the Modi appeal is only limited to his own state Gujarat
and his ‘communal’ politics would go against the interests of India as a
whole. The final tale on Narendra Modi would only unfold in the aftermath of
2014 General Election results. .
