Will Narendra Modi become the prime ministerial candidate ofthe Bharatiya Janata party? While there is intense competition within the partyand objection to his name from a crucial ally, Nitish Kumar of Janata Dal(United), he is bound to become the default choice for the BJP if he wins theassembly elections in December and gets a third full term for the party. Likehis previous electoral battles, there are factors in his favour and there arefactors against him, but one can safely expect him to scrape through if notsail through.
Modi himself is not taking any chances. He has alreadycompleted one round of campaigning. His month-long Swami Vivekanand Yuva VikasYatra ended on October 11 with a large rally (estimated crowd strength:1,75,000) in the temple town of Pavagarh. Over a month, he travelled 3,500 km(in a ‘rath’ previously used by party veteran LK Advani in his campaigns), andaddressed 32 major rallies.
The only other major party in the fray, the Congress, on theother hand, is yet to get off the ground: except for one rally Sonia Gandhiaddressed in Rajkot, no major national-level leader from the party has touchedbase in the state. As for Rahul Gandhi, who bravely went out and bloodied hisnose in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, there is no word if he would campaign in thisstate. When Modi ‘challenged’ the young MP to campaign in Gujarat, Congressspokespersons responded with a non-sequitur saying that a national leadershould not be equated with a regional leader.
Such comments only expose the Congress’s despondency in astate where it has sat in opposition since 1995. Political observers in Gujaratnote that in the BJP gained Gandhinagar even at the cost of Delhi in 2007, nowthe Congress is trying to retain Delhi by losing Gandhinagar. It may soundcounter-intuitive but a stronger Modi in 2014 may as well be to the Congress’sadvantage, given his polarising image.
Given the new low in the popularity of the grand old partythanks to scam-a-day governance and the latest expose on Robert Vadra, theCongress is in no position either to mount an attack on Modi. In some otherscenario, Modi might have faced a lot of uncomfortable questions. There is apiece of land his government has given to the same DLF at heavy discount (andis yet to cancel it, the process is on since 2009). The latest CAG report onthe state talks of financial irregularities worth Rs 16,000 crore. Two of hisministers are facing serious corruption charges. Two more ministers, thankfullyno longer in the ministry, have been charge-sheeted and one found guilty too.And, above all, activists have questioned his corporate-oriented decisions atthe cost of people.
Modi, too, does not want to discuss the affairs of the statein his campaign. When the Manmohan Singh government has made itself such aneasy target, why should Modi bother to explain what he meant to say in hisinsensitive comments on malnutrition? During the month-long yatra, herelentlessly targeted Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, in particular the latterfor her alleged travel bills.
Earlier this month, he first alleged that according to anRTI reply, Rs 1,880 crore of public money was spent on Sonia’s foreign trips.When the RTI applicant from Haryana clarified that he was yet to receive anyreply, Modi cited the figure once again and challenged the central governmentto clarify, which it did, unequivocally, saying not a penny from public fundswas spent on Sonia’s treatment or travel, within India or abroad. The mattershould have ended there, but Modi repeated the figure at another rally, thistime quoting a report of the PTI, forcing the news agency to issue aclarification saying it had not released any such news story.
That is typical of Modi. As the D-day comes closer, expecthim to go for the jugular.
