New Beginning or Temporary Upswing?

In recent months, the aura of invincibility around Modi and the BJP seems to be wearing off. As Santosh Desai writes, there are signs of jitteriness in the BJP about the elections in Gujarat, the “effects of demonetisation continue to reverberate through the economy”, GST implementation is having its share of issues, and the “cultural agenda too ends up with too many unhinged statements”. And in this backdrop:
“Being on the back foot does not come naturally to Mr Modi and his reactions lack the surefootedness of an earlier time.”

So who could rise now in the Opposition? Nitish went to the NDA, the Yadavs are barely standing, and Mamata never grew beyond Bengal, writes Chetan Bhagat. No wonder then that Rahul Gandhi seems to be on the rise, at least on the Net:
“There seems to be a new zing in his tweets and statements about the government, particularly PM Modi. It is like someone took boiled daal and gave it a tadka. His lines are spicier (or more entertaining), which in turn makes them more viral.”
His visits to NRI events in the US didn’t have his usual share of gaffes either.

Yet neither Desai nor Bhagat feels this marks the turning point in the Congress’ future. Says Desai:
“Nobody is clamouring for the Congress to return, nor for Rahul Gandhi to lead this country. For most people who oppose this government, the Congress is at best a bitter pill that one will need to summon up resolve to swallow.”
And as Bhagat points out:
“The point to note is that even if many Indians are unhappy with these policies (demonetization and GST), few doubt the positive intentions behind them.”

A lot of work needs to be done from here on if the Congress/Rahul are to become serious contenders in 2019. As Desai says:
“Unless there is more ground level movement in this area, the effect will be superficial. More importantly, the party needs to build an emotionally resonant narrative, that goes beyond individual failures of the ruling party.”

All of which is why I wrap up with these lines from Bhagat:
“Modi is seen as a doer and perceived to be more in sync with the average Indian. Rahul is seen as a symbol of dynastic politics… He will have to convince India about what he plans to do differently from Modi, and how it will be better for India. Spicy tweets are a good snack to begin with, but eventually people will want a more substantial main course.”

Comments

  1. Ramiah KumarNovember 17, 2017 at 12:09 PM

    The summing up seems correct. Rahul is not going to lead, because he doesn't have it in him. While Modi may be less assertive during this election campaign, BJP will make it this time around too.

    Let's see where the BJP governance and politics will lead us. If Modi is a vote winner for the party, then his personal power equation will have clear effect. At state level, the vote winning ability did give power to the CM candidate. At national level, how long the vote winning auro will last for a PM is not easy to predict.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Student of the Year

Image
As a toddler, my daughter loved Alia Bhatt’s songs, esp. the ones from Student of the Year . (That movie did have many good songs and well-choreographed dances). Fast forward to present day, when she is 12 yo. She rarely watches Hindi movies now, but one of the few ones she likes of late, Raja aur Rani ki Prem Kahani has, yes, Alia Bhatt.   If I had any hopes that there was anything to be read in the name of her toddler-time favorite ( Student of the Year ), they have been dashed. Our conversations come exam time are perfectly captured by this photo and its caption: In fact, the pic below captures how she and I look at her answer sheets – me intently, she with an expression of “It’s over, so why are you even looking at it?”   Of late, we pull her leg and tell her that she isn’t showing any signs of academic prowess, she’d better find a rich guy to marry. Some time later, she showed us this meme on the Internet: “Me No Study, Me No Care Me Go Marry Millionaire If He Die
Read more

Animal Senses #7: Touch and Remote Touch

Instinctively, we think touch is based on contact. Not entirely true, explains Ed Yong in Immense World – there’s a more important aspect than contact: “These incredible feats are possible through movement. If you rest a fingertip upon a surface, you can get only a limited idea of its features. But as soon you’re allowed to move, everything changes. Hardness becomes apparent with a press. Textures resolve at a stroke.” As you run your fingers over a surface, they hit the tiny peaks and troughs and set off vibrations in the mechanoreceptors at their tips.   At the tip of its snout, the star-nosed mole has many pairs of hairless appendages. It uses them to touch things around itself. Alive or dead? Food or ignore? It does these movements at an insane speed. In the time it takes to blink our eyes, the star-nosed mole can probe, identify and swallow its food. “Light may be the fastest thing in the universe, but light sensors have their limits, and the star-nosed mole’s sense of
Read more

The Retort of the "Luxury Person"

Image
Coming up with biting and witty retorts. It’s something we dream of, but rarely manage to pull off. Worse, the more we stew over the offending remark, the more likely we are to come up with that dream retort, as Calvin ruefully points out: During our last holiday at the Taj Resort, seeing my wife carrying towels to our poolside chairs, one of the kids there mistook her for a member of the staff and asked for a towel. When my wife narrated this to us, I did not imagine that my 8 yo daughter would come up with her own retort. But a day later, my daughter recapped the incident, an incident that didn’t even involve her in the first place , and said, “You know what I’d have told that kid who asked for the towel?”. And without waiting for an answer, she told us anyway: “I don’t work here. I too am a luxury person who is living at this resort. Go get your own towel.” We were highly amused by the phrase she had coined: “luxury person”. It certainly captures the kind of holid
Read more