Politics in contemporary India.

BJP and RSS leaders are infamous for hate speeches and statements which hurts the sentiments of thousands of Indians. Prime minister Modi often humiliates former prime ministers of India and their contribution. Prime minister Modi should understand that he is the prime minister of a country and not an ordinary petty politician. He shouldn’t make nasty statements about women and those who sacrificed their life for India. Senior BJP and RSS leaders should set example for others to follow. How many times prime minister Modi used derogatory terms against Sonia Gandhi, a widow who sacrificed her life for India? Is it appropriate for a prime minister’s stature? So, why did the court sentence two years prison term for Rahul Gandhi, when we live in a country where mudslinging, using derogatory remarks and hurting the sentiments of people is acceptable?

It is needless to say that the argument of OBC community being hurt by Rahul Gandhi’s statement is baseless and it is conveniently taken out of contest. On 13 April 2019, Rahul Gandhi said in Kolar (in Hindi) in an election rally for Lok Sabha; Why do all the thieves have Modi as the common surname? Then he gave example by taking out names of Lalit Modi, Nirav Modi and Narendra Modi. We will find more corrupt Modis if we search, he added. BJP leaders and cadres are the only few who are hurt by Rahul Gandhi’s statement. Taking a statement out of contest and awarding maximum punishment is inappropriate and is politically motivated. Rahul Gandhi’s appeal was heard by a magistrate who was once Amit Shah ‘s advocate.   

Rahul Gandhi’s explanation for his immediate disqualification followed by the Surat court’s verdict. 

Rahul Gandhi said that the prime minister fears his next speech. Hence, the union government wanted him out of parliament. Rahul Gandhi keeps repeating that he is not scared of prime minister Modi. The reality is that Modi has no reason to be scared of Rahul Gandhi, but Rahul Gandhi should worry about his political career and life. Prime minister Modi and the union government can avoid unnecessary embarrassment by just informing the public that there will be a penalty if the Adani group has engaged in any sort of unfair business practice or manipulation. In 2021, SEBI imposed a penalty of rupees 25 crores on Reliance Industries and rupees 15 crores on its chairman Mukesh Ambani for allegedly manipulating shares of Reliance Petroleum in November 2007. The above said Manipulation took place during UPA regime, but SEBI penalized Reliance Industries in 2021, under prime minister Modi’s regime. Then why is the opposition relentlessly misleading people saying that the union government is controlled by Ambani and Adani.

Political leaders are good diplomats. Rahul Gandhi lacks this quality. When Purnesh Modi approached court, Rahul Gandhi should have proactively apologized to people with Modi sir name, along with an explanation that his speech in Kolar was against corruption and not against OBC community. Such a down-to-earth approach could have helped him to get rid of this case long ago with a negligible fine. Rahul Gandhi could have very well avoided this court sentence and disqualification. Instead, he chose to carry this burden.  

Either Rahul Gandhi can quit politics, or he should start behaving in a more mature way. It can’t be going back and forth. Congress and Rahul Gandhi can never beat BJP without a perfect plan and strategy. BJP leaders and supporters will try to belittle everything Rahul Gandhi says. They will ridicule even a slip of tounge. It’s in their blood to prove that they are intelligent and wise. People can bring an end to this cheap strategy of BJP. But Rahul Gandhi also should stop making blunders one after the other. His statements while addressing the media, public and during election campaigns shouldn’t be without any preparation and homework. He can consider hiring a more efficient team to work on this. Bharath Jodo Yathra was really an image makeover for Rahul Gandhi. Rahul Gandhi was doing good throughout Bharath Jodo Yathra except in Kashmir. 

 Rahul Gandhi spoke about full statehood for Kashmir and bringing back Article 370. Rahul Gandhi should understand that Kashmir has full statehood like Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nādu and the rest of India. Kashmir has been a burden for India all this while.  It is an emotional issue for Indians. It involves blood and tears of many brave soldiers. People in the west who talk ‘Kashmiri perspective’ never spent for Kashmiris. They aided Pakistan generously. Pakistan used all the aid to produce and export terrorism to India. Without India, Kashmir wouldn’t have been a free state. It could have been part of Pakistan, a debt-ridden country where people suffer for food, healthcare and other basic necessities with hostility, terrorism and violence. We Indians spent a lot for Kashmir believing that Kashmiris are part of India. Many brave soldiers from Kerala, Tamil Nādu, Karnataka, Punjab and other states have sacrificed their lives to protect Kashmir. Revoking Article 370 was to allow people from Kerala, Tamil Nādu and other states to purchase land and reside in Kashmir. It is intended to reverse the demographic changes brought by Pakistani terrorists. Such ridiculous statements of Rahul Gandhi will hurt the sentiments of millions of Indians.   

Rahul Gandhi lost all that he gained in Bharath Jodo Yathra and more, because of what he said in Kashmir. What he said during and after his trip to United Kingdom has grounded his image like never before. Insulting our country on foreign soil and insulting the tears of family members of brave soldiers who are no more will attract more prison term. 

Congress lost in all three states in the recent elections (Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya). This humiliating defeat was after winning Himachal Pradesh state election. Congress won a state election after four years. After the defeat of Congress in every election, the media will say that the grand old party needs to introspect. I haven’t come across any media, including National Herald reporting news after deep dive analysis to find the reason for the failure of Congress. 

One of the major reasons for the failure of Congress is that the party is not at all active. Rahul Gandhi was disqualified from the Lok Sabha soon after Surat court’s conviction and there wasn’t any reaction from Congress workers. There should have been at least a paid protest across India, or a nation-wide strike for at least a day to show the strength and support for their national leader. Rahul Gandhi’s appeal was rejected by the court and Congress workers were calm. This issue is not helping Congress to get people’s sympathy in Karnataka election. Senior Congress leaders in Karnataka like D K Shivakumar are busy battling with their own sob stories. However, Congress stands a chance to win Rajya Sabha election in Karnataka due to the fight within the BJP leaders. There were several incidents of strong Hindutva and abuse of minority sentiments in Karnataka in the last five years. The ban on Hijab and Halal meat is just an example. 

Indian National Congress needs to work tirelessly and need to spend a lot of money to get back to power. BJP was successful in destroying the black money existed with opposition leaders, which was in hundreds of crores. Still there are a lot of leaders, who have got plenty of money and are reluctant to spend. Congress just cannot win elections the way they used to do in the past. Congress is not a cadre-based party and used to depend on people who are very influential. It could be someone rich, a caste or religious leader, etc. That strategy alone won’t work anymore. Then there are people who will win elections in their constituency, regardless of the party they represent. Unfortunately, such people are moving away from Congress and are joining BJP. Here are a few such examples. Anil Antony, son of Congress veteran and former union minister AK Antony recently quit Congress to join BJP. Kiran Kumar Reddy, the last Chief minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh resigned from Congress to join BJP. Congress should have had a great plan for 2024 general election by now and should have been working hard to win all upcoming state elections. Instead, they are in a damage control mode. 

In fact, the Congress party needs to hire lot of people for their survival. They can think of ways to come out of crisis management and work to win elections. They can do it only if they hire enough people to form a think tank and a team of strategists. There are lot of extremely talented people in India who are fit for the job. Then there are thousands of Youtubers, bloggers and social media influencers. They create content without someone paying them. Most of them who create political contents will often choose achievements of India and Modi, because it is risk free. Many of them will be happy to work for Congress, if they were to pay for good content creators. BJP is doing it through their IT cell, which consists of a big team in all major cities, who are full-time paid employees. As a result, BJP has more supporters on all social media than Congress.  

Tamil Nādu is ruled by DMK a Congress ally. People in Tamil Nadu are not ready to accept BJP and the state was ruled by Congress for several years even before DMK and AIADMK came into existence. It is an opportunity for Congress to increase its influence in Tamil Nadu by organizing protests against anti-people policies of union government, Book fests by senior Congress leaders like Shashi Tharoor and by engaging with people in Tamil Nadu to know their problems. It will help both Congress and DMK in the upcoming election. Congress is not doing any of it. Instead, we see BJP reaching out to people in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Seema Andhra and Telangana. BJP will buy few MLAs in states like Tamil Nadu, they will make few join BJP using ED and CBI. Then they will form government in states like Tamil Nadu after next election, along with their week ally AIADMK. 

BJP leadership has got a perfect plan to make inroads into every state where they are not in power, and they are working on it. On the other hand, UPA led by Congress has no plan at all to beat NDA in 2024 general election. Now it is too late to come up with a plan to defeat NDA in 2024. NDA led by BJP has already planned a lot to topple any strategy of opposition. But working relentlessly will help Congress to improve their numbers and can aim for 2029 general election. 

Prime minister Modi is on a tight schedule on all 365 days a year. He hardly gets time to read, or to follow the news. Yet, he is well informed about everything that he needs to know. If one were to look at prime minister Modi’s schedule, he will not have time to go through what is in his teleprompter before its time to deliver. This means, he has a good team to keep him informed and plans everything prime minister Modi should be doing on a given day. It is humanly impossible to know everything under the sky. Rahul Gandhi should not have to know everything. But he should have a team to help him avoid embarrassment, like the one in Mysuru when a student from Maharani’s Arts College asked about NCC. With a great team to inform him on what he should speak and what he shouldn’t speak, Rahul Gandhi wouldn’t have embarrassed India in Cambridge. If Rahul Gandhi already has a team to take care of the above-mentioned things, then they are good for nothing and it’s time to replace them.  

All that Rahul Gandhi said in Cambridge could have been said in a much more polite way, glorifying India. He could have pitched for more business and investment from UK, highlighting the huge talent pool in India. He also could have assured that he and his party will bring an end to communal disharmony and any other drawbacks of Modi regime. Instead, Rahul Gandhi chose to say that the democracy in India is in danger and wanted foreign intervention, only to take a U-turn on the following day. He aggravated his problem by saying that his name is Gandhi and not Savarkar, when BJP demanded an apology.  

Union government of India is spending lot of money through PM Kisan Samman Nidhi. This is not a great initiative, because it won’t help in any sort of capacity or infrastructure building for storage or processing farm produces. It won’t help farmers to get what they deserve for their produce. Farmers will get only rupees 500 a month, in three instalments in a year as a compensation for middlemen exploiting them. But the poor uneducated farmers will think that prime minister Modi got them bank account through Jan Dan Yojana and is crediting money throughout the year. They may use it to buy seeds and pesticides, or they may use it to celebrate Divali. And periodic farm loan waiver continues as it was in the past. Most of the beneficiaries of PM Kisan Samman Nidhi will vote for BJP.  

Congress blamed the union government for not discussing the annual budget. In fact, the annual union budget is prepared keeping in mind that the general election is due in a year. As per the budget, there is no income tax up to rupees 7 lakhs income per annum. The middle class who are happy with this increase in limit will vote for BJP.   

Most of the beneficiaries of free cooking gas connection, aid for building toilets and housing through union government schemes will vote for BJP in the next general election in 2024. Same will be the story of beneficiaries of schemes meant for women empowerment.  

The ministry of Railways has set a target of 200 Vande Bharath trains to be manufactured in the next two years and to run the first sleeper version of Vande Bharath train by the first quarter of 2024. At least one Vande Bharath train running in every state and the highways people see around will make most of them vote for development in 2024 general election. Other than all the above-mentioned developments, prime minister Modi will surprise India with some generous package if elected to power in 2024. 

According to a report in Hindustan times, union government spent rupees 1700 crores for advertisement in three years.  

Prime minister Modi and other senior BJP leaders won’t personally read articles published in flamesofdissent.com. But someone reads it and will pass the information to the concerned, if there is anything useful for better governance. Prime minister Modi recently met Ayyo-Sharaddha. Prime minister Modi in his recent speech, thanked online content creators for their contribution in India’s development. The above few examples are good enough for Congress to understand that the Union government is closely monitoring even the subtle things people do and are acknowledging them. They have dedicated teams to think about all possible ways to please and appease voters.

This article is not intended to show Indian National Congress in a bad light. But a few feel-good statements about Congress, and few paragraphs to praise Rahul Gandhi won’t help Congress to win elections. The next article in flamesofdissent.com will be about; why Indian National Congress should survive?