By Sushil Kutty
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s kilometre-long roadshow in the heart of the national capital with PM Modi hanging out of the black SUV’s front-door! If anybody missed Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, fret not. He was at the BJP national executive discussing the health of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s election-preparedness along with the election-winning negative campaigns against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Did Mandaviya write a letter to the Prime Minister on mask and social distancing while showing off the BJP’s electoral prowess on the move? Even a one-km stretch of choc-a-bloc could be a feast for the novel coronavirus. Rahul Gandhi got the Mandaviya letter, why wasn’t Prime Minister Narendra Modi honoured with a similar gesture?
That said, the January 16 roadshow paved the way to the two-day BJP national executive at which the ruling party discussed how to win 2024 after making a clean sweep of 2023! The BJP’s Delhi roadshow was to honour Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the BJP’s stupendous Gujarat victory.
The Congress called it a “joke of a roadshow”, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s rattled response to Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’. The idea was to hold the Modi roadshow on the second day of the BJP national executive. Second thoughts, however, moved it up to January 16. More proof of a rattled BJP? Why should the BJP be scared?
Is the Himachal Pradesh loss eating into the BJP’s confidence? The BJP blames BJP-rebels for the Himachal loss. What if there would be BJP rebels in all the “nine states”? Think of the havoc visited on the BJP!
Over and above the anti-incumbency dogging the BJP, forcing the party to drum up confidence with outlandish vows, top of which, the promise to sweep all nine states going to polls this year.
The day before Union Home Minister Amit Shah had showcased the Gujarat victory as a message for what’s to come. “Narendra Modi will be re-elected as the prime minister in 2024,” he said. If there was doubt, he covered it up well. The point is, take Gujarat out and will Modi not be Prime Minister again?
Both AAP, and the Congress, worry the BJP. Top of the BJP’s wish-list is the fervent desire that opposition parties keep insulting Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Some or the other opposition party/leader should keep calling Modi ‘neech’ and ‘maut ka saudagar’, any lousy name that comes to mind, and the BJP will win 2024.
Every time an opposition party or opposition politician calls Modi a “good-for-nothing liar”, Modi and BJP win. Amit Shah spelled it out when he said “the people have responded with victory for BJP whenever somebody defamed PM Narendra Modi.”
It was almost like Shah wanted the defamation of Narendra Modi made a template by the Opposition. The people vote for the BJP when Modi is insulted, so bring it on! For the BJP, the Gujarat result is also important for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The country should be prepared to make Narendra Modi prime minister again, is the BJP’s resolve.
This is the topmost resolution of the BJP national executive. And every speaker at the national executive stressed on the Opposition defaming and insulting Modi. From Amit Shah to Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju. Union Finance Nirmala Sitharaman made the insult of Modi the centrepiece of her presser.
The Opposition’s continued “insult” of Narendra Modi was essential content in all the speeches, each one of them concluding with “Modi Saheb will again become the Prime Minister in 2024.” Rijiju’s nine-point political resolution was the highlight of the first day of the national executive.
And Rijiju listed the number of times opposition parties ran a “negative campaign” against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman spoke of the “Opposition’s derogatory remarks” on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “The first discussion was on how opposition parties are using abusive language to attack PM Modiji,” Sitharaman said.
The Opposition’s “negative campaigns” against the BJP and “Prime Minister Modi again” are the winning tickets for the BJP. Every BJP heavyweight wanted the Opposition to keep running “negative campaigns” against Narendra Modi. The Supreme Court will “crush” the campaigns and the Bharatiya Janata Party will win again!
That is the BJP strategy going into the 2023 nine states assembly elections, and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The BJP doesn’t seem to have any election-winning issues other than the “Opposition’s negative campaigns” and the “abusive language to attack PM”.
The BJP intends to counter Pegasus, Rafael, misuse of EDs, Central Vista, and Demonetization with the “insult of Narendra Modi by the Opposition”; tell the people that all these allegations were fought in court and the court had given a clean chit to the Modi government, and to Narendra Modi.
The message: The Opposition played dirty with negative campaigns against Modi and the courts cleared him. With that established with the electorate, the party will win all nine 2023 state elections, and thereafter the 2024 general elections. (IPA Service)
