This campaign season has so far proven to be a new dawning in Indian political history. Needless to say, this is primarily down to two main contributors, one of who at the end of it all could be crowned as the leader of the country, the Prime Minister. One is exhuberant and brimming with spirit and confidence coming from his spectacular successes as a 3 time Chief Minister of his state. The other is harping on a mellowed approach by highlighting pains and sorrows of self and the public on the 'sorrow shared is sorrow halved' lines.
The waves the first one, Narendra Modi, has created across the country has rarely been seen for any leader in this generation. The astounding nature of his popularity can be guaged from the nearly 3 lakh people assembled for his rally in Tiruchy, Tamil Nadu, a state where his party, the BJP, never manages more than a couple of seats. So much so that he himseld admitted surprise at the reception he recieved there. Oh, and that was despite a Rs 10 entry fee. And it was only better in the northern parts where people climbed poles and grabbed onto every inch of space they could to be a part of this wave.
As a politician going into the failures of the ruling govt is a part of the package. But the difference between him and others lies in so much more. His ability to connect with audience being unparalleled, the country has hooked on to his studied plans and vision for India. Of course the vision is spoken on broader terms, but at this stage that is in itself a great deal with problems and bad policies staring everyone in the face whichever way they turn. His great eye sensitive issues is exemplified by his defense of the PM and condemnation of the Pakistani PM when the latter made a distasteful remark of the former. Even though the PM's own party members and national media let it slide and even went to the extent of defending the Pakistani PM's remark. The textbook political rally contents of development and corruption by the ruling party are much easier for him to connect to the audience, thanks to the utter failure on these fronts by the present day govt.
Of course they would be all but hollow rhetoric if he had nothing to show for. Which is why his references to the Gujarat model of development have become a model that everyone would like to see implemented throughout India. Even let us give some leeway and accept that there might still be a few regions without 24x7 power, some unirrigated regions, some skewed development etc. But the simple facts like more parts of the state enjoying quality 24x7 power than other states, the industrial development and consequent rise in jobs, healthy compensation for land to rural landowners and farmers, and visible development as in Ahmedabad BMRT, the Sabarmati waterfront, administrative efficiency and transparency and a much better maintainance of law and order and peace have made the people look up to the Gujarat model and see that it is for real.
Of course the nitpickers abound as well. Sadly for them, they have no option but confide in just lie peddling and distortion of statements and the age old but failed strategy of bringing back ghosts of 2002 riots. An everyday dose of sooth-saying keeps the spirits of these people alive. By sooth-saying, that they keep disregarding that Modi is the most popular leader in the country and go on with drivel that says he has no mass appeal and is irrelevant outside his home state of Gujarat. That despite the fact that he attracted larger crowds in some parts than even local leaders would have. There is no shortage of distortion of statements be it an expression of sadness over lives lost in a riot or the idealistic notion that one is a nationalist as well ascribes to his religion. By distorting statements to the effect saying for example, Modi compared Muslims with puppies, says more on the cheap thought process of the distorters rather than anything but a sincere expression of remorse by Modi. Not a day passes too without someone or the other accusing Modi of inciting communal tensions and being a enemy of minorities. When in truth, nobody can find any content in his addresses other than related to development, policies, or simply the failure of the ruling govt. This is the reason that they keep bringing up 2002 for everything under the sun, or distort his statements like in the 'puppy' or 'hindu nationalist' cases. A concentrated attempt to make as much of what Modi says as they can to appear as communal or divisive.
The media plays its part too. From wondering whether Modi as a PM would enforce liquor prohibition nationwide to repeated and dire efforts to make him accept culpability for 2002 on TV to silly twitter questionnaires (other than being silly for expecting Modi to reply to each of those tweets) meant for him that even those in official positions could be able to answer only after consultations. Of course they are broke at times. So they go after the next on the list, famously known as Modi's 'right hand man', Amit Shah. They put wonderful debate headlines like "Will investigation on Amit Shah lead to Modi's involvement?" Or something like that. Quite clearly both rival politicos and the media are in dire straits. They are clutching at straws trying to build huts from whatever they have. They are faced with a dry well. They just need something to 'nail' Modi with. Naturally this becomes the reason why graver and more important news topics go to the backburner more quickly than they should. No need for examples as they have been abundant in recent times whether it be foreign policy goofups, cross border atrocities or abominable statements by politicians other than Modi or his party BJP.
Coming to the wave the other person has been creating, if it could be called waves in the first place. Rahul Gandhi is poles apart in the tenor and content as opposed to Modi. His address to the CII has already acquired legendary comic proportions because of its richness in metaphors and similies and scarcity in substance and sense. His public rallies haven't been too much better. His speech after appointment as party VC reeked of divisive content and appeasement as he irrelevant to the occasion, harped on the illusionary threat of 'saffron terror'. Also the regular dose of melancholic wailing found its place as he recounted tales of how his mother and party chairperson Sonia, cried when she made him VC as she felt 'power was poison'.
One of the noteworthy things in any of his rallies is that, though he expounds on how his party thinks for the poor and does everything for the poor, he never once speaks of taking any measures that would actually aid them come out of poverty. And maybe something that may only make them feel worse, he regularly dishes out confusing philophical gems e.g. 'poverty is a state of mind' or 'you should get out of poverty with the escape velocity of jupiter'. What do those even mean? If that didn't work Rahul would innovate. The next strategy was to connect to the voters on his childhood trauma and violence. We do understand that he loved his grandma and father. But quite frankly how many people's votes does he expect to win on the basis of the pain he felt when they were killed or whether he played badminton with his grandma's killers. All he needed to do to realise the foolishness of that approach was to think about the families of all the army jawans and BSF who had been mercilessly killed through this year by Pakistani gunmen and all the ministers in his party did were absolve the killers by proposing the ridiculous theory that terrorists came in Pakistani army uniforms to gun down our soldiers. And still those families have seen not the slightest movement towards a fitting reply to Pakistan that would release an ounce of their pain. Explaining the pain he feels for the poor just because he was bit by mosquitoes make hilarious reading, imagine how hilarious hearing it live would have been. How Rahul choose an approach of crying over personal trauma is beyond logical reason.
The crying would continue and contagiously spill over to Sonia too, with Rahul saying that she cried when terrorists were killed in an encounter, cried when he was made party VC and cried because she was in the US when food security bill was passed. He has to be told that people have TV serials and shows to cry over daily and they don't need political rallies for it. But Rahul will have to overcompensate, that being the prime reason for his bravado appearance where he 'tears up and throws out' a 'nonsense ordinance'. Lie peddling would invariably become a utility as Rahul went about peddling lies about how UPA made '3 times more roads' than the 5 year NDA govt, despite his own govt agency reports admitting the opposite. His party seniors do the bigger job of personal attacks on rival Modi calling him Hitler, fascist etc and terming the opposition BJP as divisive and communal. That being a lie: It is the Congress and appeasement politics practitioners like SP etc crying hoarse for special courts for Muslims, early release of muslim youth (and not just youth) detained wrongfully and special banks and yearly doles while Hindu temple properties are attached and wealth liquidated.
This combination of speaking garbage, crying, lying and sudden hysteria by Rahul Gandhi is why he struggles to attract even half the crowd that his rival Modi's rallies attract.Because no one knows which Rahul will turn up that day. Because one could listen to his garbage for comic relief, but who would want to listen lies or weeps?
This is just the beginning and the polls are 6 months away atleast. The battle of contrasting styles of inspiring speeches and valueless gibberish has already thrown up so much. The inspiring parts could get even better while the gibberish could start stinking even worse. Keep an eye out and don't forget about the desperate buffoons on your national news and media TV.
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