Modi rips off BJP's mukhauta
The country has to wait till Dec 23 for the outcome of the Modi Vs the Rest electoral battle in Gujarat, but not the BJP and the extended Sangh Parivar.
By C L Manoj, TNN |
The country has to wait till December 23 for the outcome of the ‘Narendra Modi Vs the Rest’ electoral battle in Gujarat, but not the BJP and the extended Sangh Parivar. With his mid-course correction in the campaign strategy — abandoning the role of development messiah to embark on brazen communal propaganda — Mr Modi has single-handedly exposed before the nation the BJP’s underbelly, defeating the saffron strategists’ attempt to earn for the party a degree of acceptability outside its core constituency in these days of coalition politics.
Not just that, by unleashing a single-window operation that has comprehensively undermined the BJP’s cultivated mantra of “collective leadership” and “democratic team work”, the Gujarat chief minister has also ensured that every single projected USP of the party, as an alternative to the Congress and its style of functioning, stands demolished.
Irrespective of whether Mr Modi wins or loses, the unleashing of Moditva in its naked form in the Gujarat campaign has ensured that the BJP has already jeopardised its cleverly-crafted image make-over, meant to re-package the saffron party for its national constituency comprising the religion-sensitive, yet by and large peace-loving, Hindu middle class, the upwardly ambitious but equally image-conscious urban India and business class. This bit of plastic surgery had also targeted the anti-liberal, anti-Congress, anti-Left crusaders, who, barring a few exceptions, always want the cover of ‘the Vajpayee mukhauta (mask)’ to justify their stake-holdings in the BJP-driven political and electoral projects.
The best, or the worst, part of Mr Modi is that he does not believe in leaving his open admirers or secret allies any comfort zones for social and political positioning or strategising. “With me or against me,” that is the clear message from the chief minister not just to the people of Gujarat, but even to every section of the BJP and Sangh Parivar and their fellow stake-holders. He is also clear that those who are with him should play the game as per his thumb rule or else will be humiliated and exposed in public.
For all his grooming as a committed Pracharak, it did not take a minute for Mr Modi to thumb his nose at the RSS publicly by telling the patron saints of the BJP in Nagpur and Jhandewalla to lay off the Gujarat campaign when they tried to control him. The same treatment was meted out to Keshubhai Patel and friends, VHP and other Sangh outfits.
That much for the so-called disciplined RSS-driven Parivar code of conduct. Except for a few trapped BJP leaders, none of the senior party leaders, especially the projected ‘Gen Next’ dares enter the Modi den, where even a leader of L K Advani’s stature has been rudely and systematically reduced to an inconsequential campaigner. To the BJP, a party that reportedly loathes personality cult and ‘durbar culture’, Modi has sent a cultural shock.
Modi did not even spare his own committed image-makers or the fans in the reform circuit, who naively took his pre-poll teasers at investment meets to spin a ‘development-oriented, no-nonsense administrator’ out of his persona.
As he started feeling the election heat, the Gujarat chief minister has thrust Moditva upon the entire BJP and its fellow-travellers, leaving little scope for projecting a ‘sober’ face at the national level, which is essential for retaining and winning more supporters and allies. The BJP brass may be uncomfortable with this rude co-opting tactics of Mr Modi, but they are only getting a doze of what he has been doing to the polity of Gujarat – co-opting them unilaterally to his past sins and present revenge theme.
Mr Vajpayee succeeded in forming the first-ever BJP-led coalition government by virtue of his liberal face. Will Mr Advani be able to repeat the feat with a Modi-fied face? If Sonia Gandhi’s one ‘merchants-of-death” remark has modified the BJP’s face, has Ms Gandhi succeeded or failed in the larger scheme of things?
Not just that, by unleashing a single-window operation that has comprehensively undermined the BJP’s cultivated mantra of “collective leadership” and “democratic team work”, the Gujarat chief minister has also ensured that every single projected USP of the party, as an alternative to the Congress and its style of functioning, stands demolished.
Irrespective of whether Mr Modi wins or loses, the unleashing of Moditva in its naked form in the Gujarat campaign has ensured that the BJP has already jeopardised its cleverly-crafted image make-over, meant to re-package the saffron party for its national constituency comprising the religion-sensitive, yet by and large peace-loving, Hindu middle class, the upwardly ambitious but equally image-conscious urban India and business class. This bit of plastic surgery had also targeted the anti-liberal, anti-Congress, anti-Left crusaders, who, barring a few exceptions, always want the cover of ‘the Vajpayee mukhauta (mask)’ to justify their stake-holdings in the BJP-driven political and electoral projects.
The best, or the worst, part of Mr Modi is that he does not believe in leaving his open admirers or secret allies any comfort zones for social and political positioning or strategising. “With me or against me,” that is the clear message from the chief minister not just to the people of Gujarat, but even to every section of the BJP and Sangh Parivar and their fellow stake-holders. He is also clear that those who are with him should play the game as per his thumb rule or else will be humiliated and exposed in public.
For all his grooming as a committed Pracharak, it did not take a minute for Mr Modi to thumb his nose at the RSS publicly by telling the patron saints of the BJP in Nagpur and Jhandewalla to lay off the Gujarat campaign when they tried to control him. The same treatment was meted out to Keshubhai Patel and friends, VHP and other Sangh outfits.
That much for the so-called disciplined RSS-driven Parivar code of conduct. Except for a few trapped BJP leaders, none of the senior party leaders, especially the projected ‘Gen Next’ dares enter the Modi den, where even a leader of L K Advani’s stature has been rudely and systematically reduced to an inconsequential campaigner. To the BJP, a party that reportedly loathes personality cult and ‘durbar culture’, Modi has sent a cultural shock.
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Modi did not even spare his own committed image-makers or the fans in the reform circuit, who naively took his pre-poll teasers at investment meets to spin a ‘development-oriented, no-nonsense administrator’ out of his persona.
As he started feeling the election heat, the Gujarat chief minister has thrust Moditva upon the entire BJP and its fellow-travellers, leaving little scope for projecting a ‘sober’ face at the national level, which is essential for retaining and winning more supporters and allies. The BJP brass may be uncomfortable with this rude co-opting tactics of Mr Modi, but they are only getting a doze of what he has been doing to the polity of Gujarat – co-opting them unilaterally to his past sins and present revenge theme.
Mr Vajpayee succeeded in forming the first-ever BJP-led coalition government by virtue of his liberal face. Will Mr Advani be able to repeat the feat with a Modi-fied face? If Sonia Gandhi’s one ‘merchants-of-death” remark has modified the BJP’s face, has Ms Gandhi succeeded or failed in the larger scheme of things?
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