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Mamata going for broke to disrupt Modi rally

Ashish Shukla
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Mamata going for broke to disrupt Modi rally

Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Bannerjee is going all out to turn Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally in Jalpaiguri’s Maynagauri on Friday into a flop show.

Nothing could be ruled out, least of all violence, as Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) plans to hold its two rallies within 50km of PM’s venue the same day. One, it would scare people from turning up at PM’s rally; two it would prevent transporters from renting out vehicles for the rally.

Apart from meetings in Alipurdaur’s Falakata and Cooch Behar’s Mathabhanga Trinamool has planned sit-ins across Bengal for two days from Thursday.

Churabhandar in Maynagauri, the venue of PM’s rally, is 36km from Falakata and 53 km from Mathabhanga.

The BJP has got the wind of TMC’s real plan. “The meetings are called to create tensions and discourage many from attending the PM’s rally. Trinamul will also start hiring vehicles on the pretext of meetings to create an artificial shortage,” said Ganga Prasad Sharma, the BJP chief of Alipurdaur

TMC’s brazen blockade or creating hurdles in BJP exercising its constitutional right in pitching for its poll prospects bear no repetition – even though much of it is blanked in English mainstream dailies. For instance Shivraj Singh Chauhan, vice-president of BJP and the former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh was not allowed to land his chopper for rally on Wednesday but very little or no mention has appeared in mainstream media. Consequently, his Murshidabad rally was cancelled.

Discerning readers must also keep a watch on the report which the West Bengal governor Keshari Nath Tripathi would present to the Centre following a meeting with the chief secretary and the DGP of the state. It’s also worth reminding the readers that the controversial Kolkata police commissioner, Rajeev Kumar would’ve to present himself in Shillong before this week is out where he would be grilled by the CBI for his alleged damaging role in chit fund scams.

Watch this space readers. Your newspapers won’t let you the real picture.

Sachindra Nath Sanyal: The unsung hero who pioneered Indian armed resistance against the British

OpIndia Staff
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Sachindra Nath Sanyal: The unsung hero who pioneered Indian armed resistance against the British

India owes its independence not just to Gandhis and Nehrus but to a legion of unsung heroes who sacrificed their everything to see India free from the clutches of British imperialism. Today, February 7, is an opportune day to recognise and honour one such unsung hero of our independence struggle- Sachindra Nath Sanyal. It is his 77th death anniversary today, who not only pioneered the armed resistance against British inequities but also inspired and mentored a generation of Indian youths to fight against the British hegemony.

Originally hailing from Bengal, Sachindra Nath Sanyal was born in then North-Western Province in the city of Benaras in 1893. Right from an early age, Sanyal was known for his maverick views and revolutionary ideas. At the age of 20, he opened a branch of Anushilan Samiti in Patna. Anushilan Samiti was a Bengali Indian organisation that existed in the first quarter of the twentieth century and expounded revolutionary violence as the means to end the British Raj in India.

Sachindra Nath Sanyal played a pivotal role during the Gadar party conspiracy. It was an anti-British mutiny modelled on the great uprising of 1857. The plot started taking shape at the onset of the First World War, between the Ghadar Party in the United States, the Berlin Committee in Germany, the Indian revolutionaries underground in British India. Large scale arms and ammunition were expected to smuggled into India to initiate a pan-India anti-British uprising. However, due to coordinated intelligence input and spy network, the Britishers got wind of the movement and they repressed the movement in February 1915. Central figures were arrested, revolts in smaller units and agitated armed groups within India were also crushed. Sanyal went underground to escape British action and to continue the freedom struggle.

Sanyal, however, was caught and sentenced to jail in the Cellular prison in Andaman & Nicobar Island. There he wrote his famous book titled Bandi Jeevan (A Life of Captivity, 1922). He was briefly released from the jail since then. The agony he endured in prison did not deter him from continuing his subversive activities after his release from the prison. Following the end of Non-Cooperation movement, Sanyal, Ram Prasad Bismil and other revolutionaries founded the Hindustan Republican Association in October 1924. He was the author of the HRA manifesto, titled The Revolutionary, that was circulated in North Indian cities on 31 December 1924.

During the period between 1920-1924, Sanyal and Mahatma Gandhi engaged in famous debates published in Young India about the means of achieving freedom from the British. Sanyal argued against Gandhi’s non-violent approach and argued that to free India, Indians need to respond to the British in their coin. Sanyal held firm Hindu beliefs, although some of his followers embraced Marxism and opposed religions.

His thoughts and ways of achieving liberation from British inspired youths across the country. Some of his celebrated proteges were Chandra Shekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh who continued to employ his methods to take on the British might. Bhagat Singh evidently cited Sanyal’s beliefs in his book ‘Why I am an Atheist’. Jogesh Chandra Chatterjee was also a close associate of Sanyal. A Congress supporter, Maulana Shaukat Ali provided Sanyal with weapons. Another Congressman, Krishna Kant Malaviya, who didn’t share the same zeal for non-violent methods as Mahatma Gandhi, also supplied Sanyal with weapons.

Sanyal was once again incarcerated in 1925 and sent to the Cellular prison in the Andamans for being allegedly involved in Kakori conspiracy. His ancestral home in Varanasi was seized by the British authorities. Sachindra Nath Sanyal died while serving his second term in cell prison on February 7, 1942. He was forced to live in an environment infested with tuberculosis and soon he contracted with tuberculosis infection in the captivity at the Andaman prison. He was transferred to Gorakhpur prison during the final phase of the infection, where he subsequently succumbed to the disease.

‘Garibi Hatao’ and scraping Triple Talaq Bill: Rahul Gandhi’s Congress will do worse of both, Indira and Rajiv

OpIndia Staff
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‘Garibi Hatao’ and scraping Triple Talaq Bill: Rahul Gandhi’s Congress will do worse of both, Indira and Rajiv

Almost 50 years since former Prime Minister and Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s grandmother gave the slogan ‘Garibi Hatao’ (eradicate poverty), not much seems to have changed as even after being in power for most of these five decades, Rahul Gandhi is still promising to ‘end poverty’ once Congress comes to power.

Addressing the AICC minority event, Congress President Rahul Gandhi said that once voted to power, Congress will end poverty. In 1971, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had used the ‘Garibi Hatao’ theme in the election campaign. Clearly, despite Congress being in power for most of the period in these five decades, nothing seems to have changed.

But it is not just his grandmother whom Rahul Gandhi is trying to emulate. Taking a leaf from his father Rajiv Gandhi’s book of minority appeasement, Congress party today said that if voted to power, they will scrap the Triple Talaq Bill brought in by the Modi government which makes triple talaq an offence. In 1986, Rajiv Gandhi overturned the 1984 Supreme Court judgement by passing The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986.

While the Supreme Court of India had granted Shah Bano the right to maintenance, the Rajiv Gandhi led Congress government in the centre succumbed to the possible confrontations from the Muslim Personal Law Board. Rajiv Gandhi’s government passed a law in the name of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 and basically reversed the Supreme Court Verdict. The SC verdict that could have been the harbinger of equal rights to all Muslim Women as the rest of the women of this country was overturned in the name of Muslim appeasement.

Gandhi then took on the BJP and said that BJP’s aim is to destroy all institutions. “BJP President is not letting the Supreme Court work. They consider themselves above India. They think India is below and we are above it. In three months, the country will teach them that India is above and they are below,” Rahul Gandhi said.

Threatening to purge the RSS workers from government offices, Rahul Gandhi further said that “I will tell you about Rajasthan, MP and Chhattisgarh. Since 15 yrs, MP and Chhattisgarh, the government didn’t work. Every institution was being filled with RSS people. Kamal Nath told me, in Madhya Pradesh, special ministry was set up with Rs 800 crore – that money went to RSS people. I want to assure you that not only have we won the election, but one by one, we are removing everyone who is associated with the RSS from these government organisations.”

So, essentially, if you are a government official and are a Swayamsevak, Congress will root you out and go after your employment. The revenge politics game is quite strong in Congress.

Former ‘model’ Rehana Fathima, who attempted to desecrate Sabarimala, convicted in cheque fraud case

OpIndia Staff
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Former ‘model’ Rehana Fathima, who attempted to desecrate Sabarimala, convicted in cheque fraud case

Rehana Fathima, the controversial former ‘model’ and ‘kiss for love’ campaigner, who attempted to desecrate Sabarimala, was convicted in a cheque fraud case and awarded a fine of Rs. 2.1 lakh and one day of imprisonment. In 2014, the activist had borrowed a sum of Rs. 2 lakh from one Anil Kumar, a resident of Alappuzha, which was returned through a cheque. However, when he approached the bank with the cheque, it bounced as there was no money in the account.

Kumar had moved to the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate in Alappuzha in 2014 who handed her a day’s imprisonment and ordered her to pay the fine. She then filed an appeal against the verdict before the High Court. However, the High Court upheld the previous verdict as well.

Fathima, who has a controversial past, was earlier arrested after her Sabarimala misadventure for hurting religious sentiments through a Facebook post. She had also stirred controversy after she posed topless in a photo with watermelons as a mark of protest against a Kozhikode-based college professor’s remark comparing women’s breasts to watermelons.

Another consequence of her misadventure was that she was transferred to the Palarivattom telephone exchange in Kochi by BSNL, where she would not be required to interact with the public. Her employers had even initiated disciplinary procedures against her and promised more action after the completion of an internal inquiry.

Congress spreads fake news by saying India is global number 1 in fake news

OpIndia Staff
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Congress spreads fake news by saying India is global number 1 in fake news

Today the Congress party posted a tweet from its official Twitter handle saying that India has become the number 1 country in the world for fake news. Quoting a report by dubious website newscentral24x7, the party mocked the Modi government for this ‘achievement’.


The newscentral24x7 report, which is based on a Microsoft survey on digital civility, says that India has topped the fake news menace globally, and that is likely to get worse before Lok Sabha polls.

But when we checked the original survey report by Microsoft, we have found that there is no truth in the claim that India is number 1 in fake news.

The study by tech giant Microsoft measures Digital Civility Index (DCI), which factors various online behaviour, fake news is a part of which. 22 countries across the world were included in the study. In the DCI, India ranked 7th among the 22 countries.

The fake news problem has been covered under the section Hoaxes, scams & frauds, and as it can be seen in the screenshot from the report given below, it is clear that Argentina tops the list with 75%, much above the global average of 57%.

Global Hoaxes, scams & frauds ranking

Other top countries in the spread of fake news include Columbia and Hungary with 67%. The global report for fake news does not include India, but the India specific report says that the India average for fake news was 64%.

Therefore, although 64% is significantly higher than the global average of 57%, it is definitely not the highest as per the report. Hence to say that India tops the fake news in the Microsoft survey is fake news itself.

This means that while Congress party is blaming the Modi government for rising fake news in India, the party itself is spreading fake news. If Congress party continues this, one day India will definitely top the list of fake news.

UP Budget: Sanskrit receives a boost, Rs. 447 crores allotted for Gaushalas

OpIndia Staff
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UP Budget: Sanskrit receives a boost, Rs. 447 crores allotted for Gaushalas

Uttar Pradesh Finance Minister Rajesh Agarwal presented the state budget for the financial year 2019-20 today. The 4.79 lakh crore budget was 12% higher than the previous year’s budget.

Among its salient features, special emphasis has been given to the promotion of the Sanskrit language. An allocation of Rs. 242 crores has been made for grants to Sanskrit Pathshalas in the state. Another 30 crores has been allotted to provide a grant to aided Sanskrit schools and degree colleges.

The Kashi Vidyapeeth will receive Rs. 21 crores for promoting education in Sanskrit while Sampurnanand Sanskrit Vishwavidyalaya will receive an amount of Rs. 21.51 crores. The Vedic Vigyan Centre at Banaras Hindu University will be given a grant of Rs. 16 crores. It’s the biggest allotment to any research centre by the state government in a decade.


In addition, Rs 247 crore was allotted for the maintenance and construction of gaushalas in rural areas and Rs 200 crore for Kanha Gaushala and Destitute Cattle Shelter Scheme in urban areas. The government also expects to earn Rs. 165 crore from the cess imposed on alcohol which it plans to use for the upkeep of stray cattle. Rs. 459 crores were allotted for the modernization of Madrasas.

The UP government also announced the launch of a new scheme for women. The ‘Kanya Sumangala Yojna‘, which will be implemented from the next financial year, “with a view to raise health and educational standard of girls, brighten their future, bring in a positive change in the thinking towards women and instil a sense of respect towards them.”

The budget also allocated Rs. 300 crores for shrines and their development. Another Rs. 207 crore has been earmarked for the development and beautification of the Ganga Ghat to Kashi Vishwanath Temple corridor.


Besides these, Rs. 1298 crores have been reserved for the Ayushman Bharat scheme. The Swachh Bharat Mission received a grant of Rs. 6000 crore. The budget was hailed by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath as a ‘Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas’ budget.

Congress promises to scrap anti Triple Talaq law if voted to power

OpIndia Staff
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Congress promises to scrap anti Triple Talaq law if voted to power

Addressing All India Congress Committee’s meet, Congress leader Sushmita Dev said that if Congress comes to power, then Congress will scrap the Triple Talaq Bill, which was brought in by the Modi Government making triple talaq an offence.

“Through Triple Talaq Bill, Narendra Modi has given a reason to Muslim women to fight with Muslim men and send them to jail,” Dev said to a cheering audience. Congress, ironically, wants to bring about the women reservation bill even as they promise to allow triple talaq.


When the Narendra Modi led government batted for the abolition of Triple Talaaq in a bid to empower Muslim women who were being given triple talaq for frivolous reasons and being rendered homeless, Congress not only tried to stall the bill and often displayed double standards, senior Congress leaders even tried to justify their opposition to the bill in ridiculous ways.

34 years after Rahul Gandhi’s father Rajiv Gandhi overturned the Shah Bano verdict Rahul Gandhi again punches one of the biggest holes in the women empowerment facade of Congress. While the Supreme Court of India had granted Shah Bano the right to maintenance, the Rajiv Gandhi led Congress government in the centre succumbed to the possible confrontations from the Muslim Personal Law Board. Rajiv Gandhi’s government passed a law in the name of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 and basically reversed the Supreme Court Verdict. The SC verdict that could have been the harbinger of equal rights to all Muslim Women as the rest of the women of this country was overturned in the name of Muslim appeasement.

It seems like the ‘women empowerment’ promise continues to be a farce for the Congress party.

In Congress-ruled Madhya Pradesh, family of 8-year old gang rape survivor asked to vacate house

OpIndia Staff
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In Congress-ruled Madhya Pradesh, family of 8-year old gang rape survivor asked to vacate house

The Indore Development Authority (IDA) has told the family of an 8-year old gang-rape survivor from Mandsaur who were allotted a house and a shop in the city by the previous BJP government, to vacate their home. The officials claimed that no official order was issued by the previous BJP government.

The father told media outlets, while admitting that no official order was issued by the erstwhile BJP government, “When the BJP government was replaced by Congress government several people told me that I would have to go back to Mandsaur as the government has changed. Their words have come true.”

IDA executive engineer NL Mahajan reportedly said, “We don’t have any right to hand over the house to anyone without a formal order. The family was not living in the house either. The house was rented out to get some money and use the same money for them to get a house on rent near the temple where the shop was given to father of the girl,” he added.

State BJP spokesperson Rajneesh Agarwal said the issue should be dealt with without politicizing it. Higher education minister and legislator from Indore, Jeetu Patwari, also assured that he will look into the matter and ensure that the family doesn’t have to vacate the house.

The perpetrators of the gang-rape, Irfan and Asif were caught by the police and because of the stringent laws introduced by the then Shivraj Chouhan government, were prosecuted within two months and were awarded the death penalty by a Mandsaur court in August last year.

The child was abducted, gang-raped and had her throat cut by the perpetrators last year. She had to struggle for her life for five months in a hospital.

Why we don’t deserve PM Modi: A 16-year-old’s open letter to fellow Indians

nidhianand
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Why we don’t deserve PM Modi: A 16-year-old’s open letter to fellow Indians

On 16th May 2014, I was an eleven year old kid, who got up at six in the morning to watch the General Election results being declared. Politics had always been a hot topic in my family. We celebrated that day, ordered pizza, said prayers of thanks, and distributed sweets, because we thought that the country finally understood how desperately we needed change. I now know that we were gravely mistaken.

Nearly five years later, the country stands at the precipice of the next election. I’m going to be as blunt as humanly possible now: PM Modi deserves to be re-elected. This may not be the politically correct thing to say, given the warm and open atmosphere created by our left-liberal ecosystem (irony much?), but it’s the truth. He is without a doubt, one of the earnest, and dedicated leaders we have seen. He works solely towards progress, takes all (often sickening and malicious) criticism in his stride, and does not consider himself above the public. He calls out anti-nationalists and urban naxals, and does not endeavor to be politically correct at the cost of his own integrity. He is a living embodiment of the “By the People, For the People, Of the People”, principle of democracy, one of the very few we’ve seen so far as an independent nation.

All of which are among the many reasons why we don’t deserve him.

We must admit this; we’re a very uncooperative and ‘hard-to-govern nation’. There’s so many stakeholders, vested interests, and different points of view. While dissent may be the beauty of democracy, nationalism should always be, in my opinion, impermeable to dissent. You can choose to hate your government, not your country. A lot of people currently hate PM Modi because of how openly and strongly he supports the idea of nationalism. We can’t seem to digest the fact that our Prime Minister encourages us to love our country. After all, he’s challenging the status-quo, instilled by years of UPA governance. Where we sing patriotic songs, perform skits and hoist our flag two days in a year, and spend the rest oblivious to how our nation is being looted mercilessly. PM Modi urges us to change that, through Swacch Bharat and several other such campaigns. This poses a problem for us, as the older scheme of things was much more convenient and didn’t require much effort.

Another thing we must admit is that we love complaining. This could also be attributed to the years of UPA rule. They made us the whiny, perpetually unhappy nation we are today. We’ve now come to believe that the entire onus of driving our country to prosperity is on the government. PM Modi, however, urges citizens to be active participants in the process. This becomes a problem as while we’d all love to shout slogans and criticize, no one is willing to step up and take action themselves.

Think about it. Swachh Bharat was, almost entirely, a citizen driven initiative. It relied most importantly on awareness campaigns and public participation. This fits well with the Modi government’s “Minimum Government, Maximum Governance” slogan. But, majority of people fail to credit or even acknowledge the contribution of the government in this regard.

Here’s something all those people need to know:

You are not doing a favour by voting a government into power. Merely exercising your right to vote does not absolve you of your moral duties towards the country. It is not wrong of a leader to encourage you to love, and contribute to your own nation. He’s just reminding us of our long forgotten duties, something that isn’t in his job profile.

We cannot appreciate a leader that projects himself as a ‘sevak’, not a ‘Messiah’. Who inspires us to uplift ourselves, rather than asking us to be completely helpless and dependent on a savior. He reiterates countless times that he is one of us, and is grateful for the opportunity we have given him to serve our nation. If we cannot recognize his value, we do not deserve him.

It is incredibly easy for a politician to become well-liked, especially given the vast disparity in the layers of Indian society. All it takes is a few moves of appeasement, some photo-ops, steering clear of all controversial issues (no matter how crucial they may be), and if all else fails, they could always entice the economically downtrodden with a few thousand bucks or a bottle or two of liquor. Forgive me for the thick cynicism, but I couldn’t put it in softer words. PM Modi has taken none of the aforementioned steps. He has been hands-on with controversial issues, refrained from appeasement on religious or casteist lines, and never introduced any measures or policies only to garner public support.

This is what makes him loathed by several sections of the Indian public.

We can’t help the existence of such people. We really can’t even attempt to change their minds. It is their own restricted mindset that prevents them from looking at these points objectively. The people I’m aiming to reach out to here, are the fence-sitters. The genuinely open-minded people who are willing to make an informed decision, and are aware of the dire consequences of ill-informed voting.

Your vote is hugely more important than you realize. Please do vote, and when you do, please make sure you have the interests of your country at heart, and nothing else.

Going mental on Modi didn’t help Kejriwal, will it help Mamata or Rahul?

Rahul Roushan
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Going mental on Modi didn’t help Kejriwal, will it help Mamata or Rahul?

Arvind Kejriwal, Mamata Banerjee, and Rahul Gandhi – there are more things common amongst these three leaders than just being in opposition while Narendra Modi is the Prime Minister of India.

Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal actually have been similar for a long time before Rahul Gandhi decided to join and complete the triad. Both the Chief Ministers are autocratic and there is no place in their respective parties for anyone who doesn’t suck up to them. When criticised on any aspect, both attack either the critic or blame some third party. Both went on to further the same kind of behaviour and policies against which they scored massive political victories. Both have zombies as online supporters. Both were, or maybe still are, favourites of Anna Hazare.

And both have gone mental against Modi in the last couple of years.

I’m not saying they have some medical problems that needs psychiatrist’s intervention – I don’t have access to their health records to infer either way – but I use ‘going mental’ as a figure of speech.

Both Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal use extreme language for Narendra Modi, conjure up irrational scenarios under Modi’s leadership, and blame him for everything under the sun. Imagine, when a private airline’s flight hovered over Delhi airport due to air traffic congestion, it was seen as a murder attempt at Mamata Banerjee by Modi government, while Modi is supposed to be sending people with chilli powder to murder Kejriwal.

It’s a bit unfathomable why Kejriwal has gone on this trip. He fought the 2014 Lok Sabha elections against Narendra Modi from Varanasi and lost badly. He soon realised that attacking Modi is not going to help. He made amends. For 2015 Delhi assembly elections, he just went on saying sorry for having resigned from the post of Chief Minister in just 49 days.

He didn’t launch any virulent attack on Modi as part of his poll campaign; on the contrary, the party put up a banner on their official website that read “Modi for PM, Kejriwal for CM” as being Delhi voter’s choice. They had to soon remove it after facing embarrassment as this was for the first time that a rival leader’s image was being used by a political party to solicit votes for themselves.

Kejriwal swept the 2015 Delhi assembly elections.

And things went downhill for him and the Aam Aadmi Party after that, very fast.

The party broke, and those who were not loyalists of Kejriwal were thrown out, literally. Lokpal was forgotten, governance issues started cropping up, and there were allegations of corruption too. To hide his failure on these fronts, Kejriwal started blaming Modi for everything, with his famous “coward and psychopath” (with spelling mistake, possibly because Ashutosh was still in the party then) tweet for Modi confirming his transformation.

Around the same time, BJP had lost Bihar. The Congress fed ecosystem, which includes the large section of the mainstream media, was orgasming. This was second successive defeat for BJP in the Modi era after Delhi assembly elections. Though he was not any factor in Bihar, Kejriwal went on and hugged Lalu, signalling to the ecosystem that he was ready to take the national stage and make any “sacrifices” to see BJP losing.

This was followed with Kejriwal joining every event where he could attack Modi and appear like a national leader. From going to Hyderabad over Rohith Vemula’s suicide to having a rally in Delhi where a farmer committed suicide live on cameras, he tried to create a spectacle everywhere. He even tried to create controversy over surgical strikes, where he embarrassingly got support from Pakistan.

Then came demonetisation towards the end of 2016, and Kejriwal totally lost it. Coincidentally Mamata Banerjee too was most vocal opposing demonetisation.

All this while, Rahul Gandhi, the person who comes of age every few months, was watching Kejriwal and getting ready to come of age, again.

I had predicted in January 2017 that Rahul Gandhi would become more and more like Kejriwal. I had written:

“Punjab election results will also decide if Kejriwalification of Rahul Gandhi will continue or not. If Congress wins, Rahul will have all the reasons to believe that Kejriwalification helped him, and thus the process will continue. If AAP wins, Rahul Gandhi will yet again resolve to learn even more from AAP and that might actually accelerate his Kejriwalification.”

And was I not right! At this time, you can’t tell a Rahul Gandhi from Arvind Kejriwal. “Prime Minister chor hai” is the new “Modi is coward and psychopath”.

(update: Some time after this article was published, Rahul Gandhi used the term darpok i.e. coward for Narendra Modi. Insert ‘I told you’ emoji here.)

This happened primarily because Rahul Gandhi would have wanted the ecosystem, which his family so well nurtured, to put faith in him and not flirt with Kejriwal. Congress and the ‘ecosystem’ need each other. They might, and they do, fight with each other, but these are lovers’ tiffs. They can’t do without each other. Kejriwal unfortunately was bringing infidelity in this relationship.

Once Kejriwal lost Punjab, a state AAP was supposed to win on the lines of Delhi, the ecosystem realised that they better stick to Congress than flirting with Kejriwal. They fell in love with this charming young man who had come of age, again.

Now this is where the paradox lies. Acting like Kejriwal helped Rahul, but Kejriwal himself has been on decline ever since he went mental on Modi. He has not taken any corrective measures like he did after the 2014 Lok Sabha loss, but has gone only more mental against Modi, and there is nothing to suggest he’s going to taste any electoral success soon.

AAP is for all practical purposes finished outside Delhi, and even in Delhi the party is trying to get in partnership with Congress to save their face. The utility of Arvind Kejriwal in opposition rallies is that of a loudmouth troll who can say some absurd things that other leaders might find infra dig.

So why should one act like Kejriwal?

Why should Mamata or Rahul Gandhi be like him?

Answer lies in the difference between winning elections and winning the ‘ecosystem’. Going mental on Modi surely helps win the hearts of the Lutyens and the broader ecosystem. As explained earlier, Rahul Gandhi was copying Kejriwal to win back the ecosystem, which he has now successfully done.

Mamata too has won hearts of ecosystem. Hardly any Delhi based media talked about the Saradha chit fund scam, for which CBI, following SC’s orders, had gone to Kolkata to probe the police commissioner. Mamata ridiculously made it about ‘democracy under attack’ and Lutyens played along. The less said about Bengali media the better. Just two words are sufficient – The Telegraph.

These are perks on going mental on Modi, which is why, despite Kejriwal on decline, Mamata or Rahul will still be like him.

But this ‘ecosystem’ is not the only thing that you need to win elections – else BJP would have never won any elections – so a political leader will cleverly weigh this strategy.

Kejriwal is on decline as he’s no longer the darling of the Congress fed ecosystem and going mental on Modi alone is not enough to taste electoral success. This strategy could surely galvanise a particular set of people, or should I say a ‘particular community’, to rally behind you when it comes to voting, but it won’t generally impress everyone else.

For Mamata this is a sound electoral strategy too as that ‘particular community’ is in dominating numbers in her home state, so she doesn’t need to worry about Kejriwal failing to taste electoral success using the same strategy.

But what about Rahul Gandhi?

Catering too much to a particular community was one of the reasons Congress itself had put as one of the major reasons for 2014 Lok Sabha elections defeat, so will they risk doing the same in 2019 by Rahul going mental on Modi? Even for 2017 Uttar Pradesh elections, many had argued that coming together of Congress and Samajwadi Party triggered a religious polarisation, for the only thing common between these two parties were Muslims.

Congress too realises that this could backfire and thus they are using two pronged strategies to neutralise this risk – first, make some ‘Hindu’ sounding noises too e.g. Rahul Gandhi becoming janeudhari Shiv bhakt Brahmin and newly formed Congress governments in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan taking forward issues like cow protection, and second, divide the average Hindus on caste lines.

Interestingly, this is where Kejriwal is now copying Rahul Gandhi. Though he’s still to declare himself a bhakt of some Hindu god, he is on special mission to play caste politics by claiming that BJP has got names of Baniyas struck off from voter list. If Congress refuses to ally with AAP in Delhi, maybe soon we will see Kejriwal singing bhajan in some maata ka jagrata.

So in all probability, all three – Mamata, Rahul, and Kejriwal – will continue to remain mental on Modi, hoping that their strategy to neutralise the risk arising out of it will work. In fact, not just these three, even someone like Chandrababu Naidu appears to be going on the same route and maybe more could join.

However, there is one extra risk that they will create with this ‘mental on Modi’ strategy – they reinforce the belief that it’s Modi vs All in 2019 Lok Sabha election – a perception the ecosystem is working overtime to fight because it is supposed to help Modi.

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