By Sushil Kutty
There was only one issue at play, only one man who was a fleck of dust in the eye, Arvind Kejriwal! Prime Minister Narendra Modi was never a player in the Delhi assembly elections. But who will tell that to the Prime Minister? There’s nobody in the BJP with independent charge of his thoughts. Everyone is at Modi’s beck and call and everybody wants to be in Modi’s good books.
So, Kejriwal didn’t lose – Modi won! Forget liquor scam, forget Kejriwal’s arrogance, forget Kejriwal’s lies. None of that counted. Only Modi’s promises. Only Modi’s guarantees. Women voters. Dalit voters. Middle class voters. All of them voted for the BJP because of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “guarantees”.
The elections were not lost by the Aam Aadmi Party. There was no Kejriwal factor plaguing AAP. Kejriwal’s Delhi excise policy wasn’t a reason. Kejriwal in the Tihar did not matter. Nothing mattered except Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s genial and amiable personality. Delhi’s crores wanted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “double-engine ki Sarkar.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the first man rising and the last man standing. The Modi government flogged to death Kejriwal’s “sharab ghotala” but it was Modi’s zero-tolerance for corruption which won Delhi for the BJP. Kejriwal went to Tihar but who was it who sent him there?
The BJP-friendly media were throughout the day feting Modi for the victory knowing well that Modi never tires of trumpets. Has Modi’s stock and stature grown with the Delhi victory?
That is a no-brainer. The Bharatiya Janata Party has returned to power in Delhi after a gap of 27 years in political wilderness. The BJP and the “captive media” hasn’t stopped going gaga over this and over Modi’s extraordinary exploits!
It is sickening, but you are told, again and again, that it’s worth dying for; that you’re lucky to live in the age of Prime Minister Modi: Think of what you would have missed if Modi wasn’t around to lead you away from Arvind Kejriwal’s garden path? It is another matter that Modi tweeted that “good governance, vikas and people’s power” won the day!
This is not to deny that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s stature has grown by leaps and bounds with the Delhi victory. Modi promises, “all his guarantees” and the promised “vikas unfettered”, all of them contributed.
Modi will be going to meet President Donald Trump in a victorious frame of mind. Will Modi ask Trump to stop punishing illegal Indian-origin aliens with handcuffs and shackles? Has Modi’s stature grown to that extent? Problem is, Modi forgets promises as easily as he makes them. His 2014 promises remain unfulfilled.
Ask anybody. Ask Delhi’s voters 100 days from today. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s stature must have grown but he doesn’t carry a magic wand and he isn’t half as cunning as his just-defeated political rival Arvind Kejriwal, whose roller-coaster reign is hard to forget.
Thing is, there are things other than an election victory which raises a politician’s stock. Leave it to BJP spokespersons and anchors galore and Modi will be coated with a sugary goo. On February 8, there wasn’t a single BJP leader who didn’t give the credit for the BJP’s victory to the ingenuity of Prime Minister Modi.
One of the sycophants went to the extent of giving two reasons for the BJP victory: “No. 1, Pradhan Mantri Modi; No.2, Pradhan Mantri Modi!” There wasn’t a single BJP spokesperson who didn’t mention Modi at least twice in one sentence as the results unfolded. Among them, Gaurav Bhatia — a transplant from Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party — whose sugary sweet nothings for the “one and only Modi-ji” is slavish beyond belief.
As for the star media anchors, they couldn’t stop themselves from mentioning Modi’s “big” hand in the Delhi victory. It was as if the BJP is a one-man party and that one man is capable of moving mountains, shifting hills and working wonders. Media across technologies single-pointedly acknowledged Modi as the architect of the BJP’s Delhi win.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi alone! Forget Amit Shah. Who is Rajnath Singh? JP Nadda? Yogi Adityanath, never heard of him! But Modi was on every media-man’s lips! “Modi ended AAP’s and Kejriwal’s golden run. Modi saw Kejriwal’s end coming. No INDI-Alliance politician saw it coming. What’s gonna happen to the INDI-Alliance now?
Analysis that AAP lost because of the Congress was lost in the din. With media focused on declaring Modi as the sole victor, nobody was speaking of Rahul Gandhi’s strategy. The BJP did not want credit going to Prime Minister Modi wasted on the Congress. With Modi in the picture, Rahul Gandhi wasn’t worth criticism.
Talk throughout the day was “Modi defeated all three of them” — Kejriwal, Atishi, Manish Sisodia. All because of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Vikas ki Rajniti” — Modi’s all-inclusive “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas” slogan. The Delhi assembly polls victory is the first one in a long time when Modi could claim credit, Modi alone.
“Modi breached AAP’s fortress, the Delhi victory is a feather in Modi’s cap; Pradhan Mantri Modi ne karke dikhaya…blah, blah, blah.” Such was the talk in the entire mainstream media, anchors shouting like the country was deaf and dumb. True, Kejriwal’s Delhi loss is a big setback to the Opposition. But the smug media over-did the “Modi did it alone.”
Not only did AAP bite dust, but also AAP’s ally, the Samajwadi Party. SP’s Milkipur loss was a personal defeat for not only Akhilesh Yadav but also for “Ayodhya Naresh Awadhesh Prasad, whose son Ajit Prasad was the Samajwadi Party candidate. And it wasn’t Modi who fashioned the BJP victory. The credit in Milkipur went to Yogi Adityanath, who exacted revenge for the Faizabad Lok Sabha defeat.
Don’t be surprised if tomorrow Modi’s legion of sycophants grants the Milkipur bypoll victory to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity and “Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas.”That the Delhi victory and the Milkipur bypoll win can also be because of Hindu vote consolidation is something that Prime Minister Modi prefers not accept as then it would be tantamount to acknowledging “Batenge toh katenge” and credit going Elsewhere. Prime Minister Modi’s hunger to take sole credit for the BJP’s victories knows no bounds.
Just like Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday made a “great fall” after rising to the top, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also will make a “great fall” one of these days. At the end of the day, everybody has something of the Humpty-Dumpty in him and Prime Minister Narendra Modi cannot live in splendid isolation.
That said, the results of the Delhi assembly elections and AAP’s loss have turned upside-down the Opposition’s apple-cart. Prime Minister Narendra is already his usual strutting self after this victory despite heading a government hobbled by crutches. For the Opposition, there’s Bihar round the corner. (IPA Service)
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