Haunting past

THE maxim that you reap what you sow must be ringing in the ears of floor managers of ruling NDA. 

That the BJP in Opposition led by Sushma Swaraj had choked Parliamentary space of UPA-II would not yet have faded from the memories of Congress leaders. And the fact that the BJP had been so nasty to call the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a thief must surely have run a knife through the heart of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi. 

There is no denying the fact that Indian Parliament witnessed many a theatrical acts during the UPA time. The then Opposition had to lynch the UPA-II in the face of damning revelations made by the CAG. The UPA-II was struck by CAG vindicated torrents of scams.

Context is not permanent. And even memories fade away with the passage of time. But wounds of hearts do not heal even after decades.

Of all the attributes, Sonia Gandhi is uniquely gifted with combativeness. And she had been a steadfast protector of the honour of Manmohan Singh. That her son Rahul Gandhi ridiculed him the most is an aberration in an otherwise unique bonhomie of Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh.  

A week has passed by of the Monsoon session of Parliament. No business has been transacted. The Modi government has pinned much hope to push his reform agenda in this session. But the Congress is sizzling in forcing a lock-down on Parliament. 

THE Lalitgate and Vyapam scam are mere pretexts. They would have passed off as "routine" matters in times of cordiality between the Opposition and government. What Sushma Swaraj has done for Lali Modi has been done by every Congress politicians in their days of glory. And the Vyapam scam is a legacy of the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh, which lived through the BJP rule in the state as well. Those who grew in Bihar in 1990s know from hearts that impersonation in entrance and recruitment examinations had been well entrenched. Same continues in Uttar Pradesh and elsewhere also. 

Impersonation and bribing to book seats in colleges and jobs have been Indian story.

Beyond the issues, Modi has not only to pay for the "sins" of BJP as opposition, but also for his brazen approach with the Opposition. 

Modi has charmed most of the non-Congress Opposition parties. He won over acerbic Mamata Banerjee. She made Modi a hero in Bangladesh. His bete noire Nitish Kumar hailed him. Mulayam Singh Yadav seeks cordial relations with him. And it's to the credit of Modi that he scripted excellent working relations with all of them.

But the Congress never figured in the scheme of things of Modi. That he coined "Congress mukt Bharat" surely seems to have outlived the election campaign. He has sought to demoralize the Congress. That the Congress is the largest Opposition party both in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha has hardly figured in Parliamentary scheme of things of Modi. 

And, the Congress has sized the "God send" opportunity to pin Modi down. 

                                                    *****

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BY 1971 Indira Gandhi was perched as an empress of Indian democracy. She had established a political cult with no parallel. After about six years of flux in Indian politics, Indira Gandhi had unveiled a one party rule. She had no challengers. She had run her surgical knife on Pakistan. She midwifed birth of Bangladesh with a surgeon’s precision. She lifted the doom from the conscience of millions of Indians who suffered collective national depression following India’s humiliating defeat at the hands of mighty Chinese army in 1962. The Opposition hailed her as ‘Durga’ (symbol of Shakti, power).

Destiny could not have been more kind to Indira Gandhi. She had her firm grips over absolute power. She was the face of India’s resurgence. She effected fundamental changes in Indian democracy and economy. She gave Indian democracy twin legs of secularism and socialism by incorporating them in the Preamble of the Constitution. India firmly embraced an identity of a welfare state.

The mighty lady is arguably the mother bank of ideology of not only her party Congress, but also the whole lot of socialist parties which dot vast swathes of the country. Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru had groomed her politically and ideologically. He shaped his daughter’s worldview. Destiny was much kinder to her, for Indira Gandhi not only grew in the bosom of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru but was also adored by Mahatma Gandhi.

Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru was an internationalist. He was arguably the father of industrial India. His daughter was a case in contrast. She was more of a nationalist than an internationalist. Her father co-opted industrial world. She shunned them. Her father knocked at the doors of United Nations for solutions to vexed Kashmir issue. She cared the least for any international power. She was uncluttered and shunned lures to romance an international stature. She charted her own course.

Mahatma Gandhi was arguably her ideological father. Nehru dreamt of India having large industries and equitable distribution of wealth. She embraced his ideas in her statecraft. She anchored her politics on the plank of anti-poverty measures. She was no believer in large industries and the free market economy taking care of the poor. She unapologetically disowned Nehruvian economy through industrialisation and instead believed in direct transfer of wealth to poor.

FOUR and a half decades later Narendra Modi is perched as an emperor of Indian politics. Even his political rivals privately admit that Modi has surpassed the 1971 stature of Indira Gandhi. They firmly believe that India is on the cusp of a single party rule for quite a long time. He has eclipsed all his rivals. He has a grip over absolute power. His stature is a notch larger than that of Indira Gandhi of 1971.

Indira Gandhi incidentally had to struggle through her political course, as she was a contemporary of a galaxy of stalwarts not only within the Congress but outside. If Kamraj and Morarji Desai were her challengers in the Congress, she had to politically outweigh leaders like Jayprakash Narayan, Charan Singh, George Fernandes, Atal Bihari Vajpayee et al. But Modi seems to be lucky as he has none to challenge him inside his party and outside as well on a scale as faced by Indira Gandhi. 

NARENDRA Modi is also arguably the first non-Congress Prime Minister of India. There were seven before him from non-Congress ranks, including BJP's Atal Bihari Vajpayee. But they all bore strong ideological footprints of Congress and carried the legacy of Indira Gandhi in their thoughts, beliefs and statecraft. Modi stands apart because he carries no Congress baggage in thoughts and actions. He could do so because, he does not belong to New Delhi, which has a character of thinking India being just an aggregate of various bungalows in Lutyens' zone.   

In 1991 when Narsimha Rao took over the reign of the country, India was reeling under deep economic crisis. India had to mortgage gold to meet the requirement of current account deficit and pay interest on international borrowings. Rao appointed Manmohan Singh as his finance minister and gave him a template to revive the economy. Singh unleashed a slew of reforms and broke the shackles to put India on the path of free capitalist economy. 

A lot of systemic changes were brought in without being conscious of the poor, as the belief was in growth rate and trickle down theory. No doubt growth was achieved, but a vast population were left on the margins, leading to rise of Left Wing Extremism. Most of the analysis have revealed that liberalisation and LWE witnessed parallel growth. Later, when Vajpayee took over, he and his finance minister Yashwant Sinha followed the same path and Indian growth story reached to its zenith (9+ growth).  

In 2004, the Vajpayee government and the ruling party launched “India Shining” campaign. But it backfired. The left leaning and socialist forces galvanised against the ruling NDA. Even Congress sided with Left policies and managed to become the nucleus for such forces to dislodge the Vajpayee government.

However, it was a travesty of history that the architect of liberalisation, Dr Manmohan Singh, became the leader of the left leaning group of parties. Singh was anointed the Prime Minister of India. As the Manmohan rule progressed, it had the imprint of Sonia Gandhi and the four left parties with more than 60 seats in Lok Sabha supporting the government. Here again Manmohan Singh did not work on his own template, as was the case when he had been the finance minister. Then he worked on Rao’s template’ and as Prime Minister he worked on a combined template of Sonia Gandhi and Left Parties. Thus began the one decade of India being a ultra-welfare state, as the UPA government was repeated in 2009. Several pro-poor direct transfer and right based policies were put in place. They included like MGNREGA, RTE, RTI and food security act.

Now with Narendra Modi at the helm, it seems the state has drifted from its path of ultra-welfare activities and instead sowing seeds of being an enabler for people to avail benefits of the fruits of development. In case of most of the UPA flagship schemes, Modi did not discontinue, but has showed least interest in them in their implementation. Today nobody is talking about MGNREGA and even if some talks are made, they are all about non-payment of wages to labrourers. Even Right to education seems to have become a non-issue. Right to Information too has become irrelevant as many thousand applications are reported to have been pending in the office of CIC. 

In place of these the new government has launched several social sector schemes to empower people living on the margin. But in none of them the state is directly contributing anything. Be it Jandhan Yojna, or Pradhan Mantri Bima Yojna or for that matter Atal Pension Yojana, the basic criteria to avail them is to contribute, though very meager. Therefore, the Modi is government, in the name of welfare, has only been creating platform for people to come and join with their own money and get the benefits of the schemes. And that is the template of an enabler Narendra Modi India is witness to after the 2014 verdict.

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Off the mark

The voice of the poor is most difficult to hear. You make efforts to hear them. The voice of the rich and affluent are too easy to hear. They're everywhere. 

And there lies the explanation for disoriented commentary on the Narendra Modi government in the first 50 days in the office. Not that all of them are undeserved, for Modi sowed their seeds by his brazenness in forming his Cabinet, which is, arguably, full of "Yes, Prime Minister" men.  

But first turn the focus on magnitude of lamentations post-budget. Some have commented to the extent to suggest that sky has fallen. Predictably, loads of advice have poured in for Modi and his colleague Arun Jaitely. 

Undeniably, India is a country of advisers, who offer their services mostly free. And mostly they are unmindful of the fact that hardly any one is keen for their well thought out advice. 

Furthermore, India is blessed with majority of its population who suffer from stereotyped thought process. And a large number of Indians are affected by the opinions of the rich and affluent, who enjoy ease and comfort in transmitting their vested interests as "independent analysis". Niira Radia tapes are just some confirmation of the malaise.

Post-Budget lamentations mostly veered around missing "big bang". We should forgive these anglicized commentators, for their little knowledge of language and governance. Evidently clear from the origin of "big bang", it's a phenomenon too rare and full of unprecedented consequences. Indian economy saw such "big bang" reforms in 1990s; first orchestrated by P V Narsimha Rao and Manmohan Singh combine and secondly by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Yashwant Sinha duo.

Perusing to find out what "big bang" reforms Jaitely could have done but did not, one would come across suggestions to scrap "Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA)", "National Food Security Act (NFSA)", "dust-binning retrospective tax", "hammering away subsidies -- diesel, urea, LPG, Kerosene, etc.", "taxing big farmers", etc.     

Wishful thinking is too common. And they are passed on as well-thought views most of the times.

Could Modi and Jaitely scrap MGNREGA and NFSA? No, they can not and would not. For a great majority of people in this country have no secured means to ensure two meals a day. Almost half the Dalit (Scheduled Castes) population are dependent on MGNREGA for their livelihoods. That holds true for Scheduled Tribes (ST) also.

This blogger in a previous post titled "Red ant eaters" has illustrated field stories on how senior citizens work with their daughters-in-law from Mahadalit community in Bihar to run their families, as their young men idle away time with social ills for lack of jobs. Vast swathes of the country have not yet seen industries. And, undeniably, more than half of India's population are economically vulnerable.

And, therefore, to think that the Modi government can scrap MGNREGA, one needs to delude oneself with high dose of opium. 

But the widely unknown fact is that the state governments are no more able to spend MGNREGA funds as they had been doing in 2006-12. That was due to the performance audit by Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and a few CBI cases. Even though it being an Act and, therefore, the government bound to provide for whatever the demand is, the fact is that expenditures under this head is going down. From the high of Rs 42,000 crores a few years ago, it's now about Rs 28,000 crore a year. And demand for jobs under it's going down also because of vulnerable people having earned enough to buy small parcel of land tp work on their own. 

The National Food Security Act is fundamentally a bad law. Not that it would suck over Rs 1.49 lakh crore each year to implement it in its entirety. It's bad, because it considers 75 per cent of population in rural and 50 per cent in urban areas deserving of almost free foodgrains. This is like splurging. That too when government estimates that 4 per cent of grains meant for public distribution system (PDS) ends up in black market. 

The business of subsidy is undeniably highly profitable for a few. Even without NFSA, government's food subsidy burden is close to Rs 80,000 crore a year. Barring Chhatisgarh, Odisa, Tamil Nadu, food subsidy through PDS has only fattened a class, which includes bureaucrats, politicians and middlemen 

And amendment to the NFS Act to limit beneficiaries to not more than 35 per cent population (currently 67 per cent) and ensuring Aadhar enabled PDS delivery system could give a robust direction to deliver the benefits to needy only.

Dust-binning retrospective tax, introduced by former Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee who handed over death warrants to industry and investors, could not have been practically possible for one simple reason. India has been dragged into international arbitration by Vodafone. Therefore, dust-binning it would have adversely affected the ongoing litigation.    

Rest of the possible "big bang" ideas are not really big bang but procedural in nature and doable as well. 

One digs to look for specifics to justify a lack of confidence. And Modi is himself to blame for this lack of

confidence in his Cabinet. He chose a bunch of ultra-loyalists as his Cabinet colleagues. And, he, thereby, shut the windows for free flows of ideas. His basket of talent is too narrow to instill confidence, that he can do a Vajpayee on Indian economy.   

The Modi cabinet is so inexperienced that it's very well vulnerable to become prisoners of suave bureaucrats. Inexperience of Modi ministers has already been exposed in the current Budget session of the Lok Sabha. If not for Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, the government could have been ripped apart for being callous in Parliamentary matters.

Post script

July to October is a period when prices of onion, tomato shoot up and leads to hullabaloo for a few months only to revive a year later. A seasoned bureaucrat having seen all of it for four decades had to say this:

"Onions and potatoes can easily be grown in pots. And it can be done rooftops and balconies easily. so,

while a lot of people grow flowers in pots, time has come that some vegetables like ladyfinger could be grown at home. So, in place of breast-beating lamentations on price rise, people should just take a little effort to become self-reliant in vegetables and that's doable also."

One would believe that individual actions too when aggregated can make a big difference. And that too when the flavour of the time is organic farming. So, why depend on vegetable carts; have your own small farm at your home. 

New Delhi spring

Former Income Tax officer Arvind Kejriwal must have seen with wide eyes the 2004 Mani Ratnam flick Yuva. The Ajay Devgan starrer was high on idea and inspiration. Even the most politically fortified state could allow intoxicated youth to put their feet on the doorway and Kejriwal took the screen fantasy to ground in Delhi in quite earnest. That his fate would be known on December 8 is not so important, as he has been able to open up Delhi's bipolar politics already. 

The 2012 was a year of spring and the jasmine flavour swept through the Arab world, first taking flight

from Tunisia, a country of olive oil. Tahrir Square happened a little afterwards. Soon, Kejriwal began pleading at Jantar Mantar with media, with Anna Hazare on the day one of his iconic fast for Jan Lokpal, for coverage. "It's not a Tahrir Square but a movement in the making," he would plead then. Later, crowd gave him enough "high" to take off into the world of politics.

Anna movement had assured Kejriwal, that crowd and money in India could come easily and he just had to keep banging the well fortified political wall. He was right. Money flowed and with that people too, many convinced that this was the man for the change of the system.

But he probably did not watch Yuva too closely. There the Devgan led former student politicians had made entry into the state Assembly in a small way. Just a few of them were there. And here Kejriwal tells each office-goers in their cars through the FM, that he would be forming a government in Delhi with 47 seats. His ambition has taken a fantasy flight. But politics, historically, has been very harsh to dreamers. 

In Andhra Pradesh, a former Babu Jai Prakash Narayan had formed Lok Satta party and wanted to change the system. He contested all the Assembly seats in AP. In the end, his party won one seat and that was him only. Union minister Jairam Ramesh recalls Andhra too had witnessed a similar sympathy wave for Narayan. But politics turned out to be too harsh for his flight of dream.

Nonetheless, Kejriwal should be happy that it was none other than the BJP's PM candidate Narendra Modi who had to focus on Aam Admi Party in his speeches. From an NGO man, Kejriwal is a politician and making his presence felt. 

The BJP should in fact thank him for committing another suicide by not going ahead with Vijay Goel as it face. That Dr Harsh Vardhan had to be named as BJP's CM candidate is Kejriwal's significant contribution.  

Furthermore, Kejriwal has thrown up ideas, taken from his book Swaraj, for local manifesto and they have all been grabbed by the BJP. Even the Congress is gearing up to come up with state specific manifesto in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.   

Delhi has been the political capital even before Babur discovered India. The pulse of Indian politic is easily felt in Delhi. From the capture of Delhi by Muslims first to the British rule to the last 67 years of post-Independence India, the national capital has shown the way to the trend across the country.

This was evident in 2008 when Sheila Dikshit was pleasantly shocked to know that she had been re-elected third time despite the back-breaking price rise even then. That was Manmohan Singh undercurrent, not seen till then, which came out in full force in 2004 Lok Sabha elections. 

But not all are blessed with the sense of time and Manmohan Singh is the last to leave the seat of power under any circumstances. Had he retired in 2004, he would have been the most successful Prime Minister of India. But this was not to happen and in the next five years he took dive into the mud. And now the feet of the Congress is stuck in the mud collected all these five years.

The sense of resignation among the Congress leaders in Delhi is hard to be ignored. The fatigue in the campaign is too visible. Sheila Dikshit looks tired. The impregnable forte of the Congress in Delhi awaits December 8 verdict with dread. And hence there are no new ideas from Congress in Delhi but only a promise for continuation of the past and that makes people more dreadful.

In contrast, Sheila Dikshit had come out with magical ideas in 2008 -- regularization of unauthorized

colonies, home to one-third of Delhi's population, and five lakh flats for the poor at Rs 50,000 each only. The people lapped those ideas and left the BJP looking a fool with an old man V K Malhotra as the challenger.

Now the ideas are coming from Dr Harsh Vardhan and coming in plenty. Those ideas are taking wings with the big crowd puller Modi. And finally, the price rise appears becoming an election issue. 

Though Kejriwal is seen hurting the BJP by cutting into the negative vote base, trend in the last decade has been of decisive mandates, with Uttarakhand being the only exception. This began from Bihar and spread to Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal and other states. Therefore, Delhi heading for a fractured mandate would be against the established trend.

If the Congress loses Delhi, the grand old party would be shaken. And that would also confirm that the change is in the air -- a much awaited one. 

India on short fuse

Argumentative India of Amaryta Sen fame is past. India is now on short fuse. The angry India is feasting on fire in the bellies of the youth. Fire is raging, because Indian dream has turned a mirage. With over 50 lakh jobs lost in the last five years and a glut of employment seekers, there is no patience left to argue but to explode. And the shrill from loud-mouthing Indians is only gaining more adrenaline, as hopes struggle to incubate. 

Roughly one per cent GDP growth translates into 15 lakh new jobs. From the high of over eight per cent growth rate, Indian story is grasping for breath. Because now even a five per cent growth is a steep challenge. With three per cent gone, Indian economy lost on opportunity to create additional 15 lakh jobs a years. 

And over 45 lakh educated and qualified job seekers join the mad rush each year for their stake under the sky. They include 7.5 lakh engineers, five lakh MBAs and 30 lakh graduates. The glut is overwhelming. More so

because, the economic survey for 2012-13, authored by Raghuram Rajan, informed jobs are merely being created in construction (labour) and informal sectors. The Planning Commission admitted in March that India lost 50 lakh jobs during 2005-10, while only 27 lakh jobs were created.

National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) found that those gainfully employed have come down from 42 per cent in 2004-05 to 35.4 per cent in 2011-12. The unmistaken verdict is that there is a deep cut in the job market.

If not for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and a relatively good spell of Monsoon since 2009, the Indian story would look more horrific. That is so, because MGNREGA alone gave jobs to over 23 crore households in the last five years, while agriculture continues to be the backbone of rural employment.

The story of rural and urban India is in deep contrast. While rural India is relatively better off, for reasons stated above, gloom in urban India is hard to miss. The Monsoon blessed rural India is better off by engaging largely in self-employment and trade, almost 75 per cent as per official estimates. 

However, urban India banking on Manmohan Singh leadership is left in the lurch, with a double whammy hitting them in the form of inflation refusing to be tamed despite singular focus of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and job losses galore.

Former President A P J Abdul Kalam had made Indian dreamy. He gave wings to their dreams, that India by 2020 would be brimming with a skilled workforce engaged in productive works to help the country become a developed nation by 2020. With Raisina hills now part of his autobiography, the dream is more of a nightmare, as poetry is no substitute to hard works for the policy makers.

In five years, China transferred 150 million of its rural people into the manufacturing sector, after imparting them relevant skills. In contrast, 14 million of Indians from rural areas, due to distress migration, were absorbed largely in construction sector in the same period -- no skills came their ways. These people soaking cement dusts will return after a decade with TB and lung cancer, with none to look them after. 

The apologists who shy away from comparison with China should reckon that India's new economy is no more a baby, a full two decades have gone by. It's an adult and still malnourished. 

While the rupee threatened to commit suicide over the fear that the US Fed would begin withdrawing stimulus, Chinese and Mexican currencies were least bothered. That was because their economies stand on their feet with robust manufacturing sector. India on the other hand deluded that it could become a superpower by tapping outsourcing business alone. Delusions are not permanent. And this is the stark reality of India now.     

While the corporate is on pill-induced sleep over job creation, government at various levels abandoned this responsibility long back in the name of liberalization. However, India continues to recruit much larger bureaucrats -- almost 10 time than of 2000-03 intake. No wonder the government is bureaucratic and red-tapism too obvious in its functioning.

Lanco, an infrastructure company, laid off 4500 staff last month. The reason -- projects in the pipeline could not take off even after much delay. Educomp laid off 3500, because the company is now ill. With Bangladesh becoming the new low price textile power house, those employed in India are in lurch. The count could be endless.   

The NGO man turned social activist turned politician -- Arvind Kejriwal -- felt the pulse of the simmering anger early. In Anna Hazare, he found an ably ally to turn the anger into a mass hysteria. With more air, the hysteria has turned into a wild fire. That threatens to rage down all who look to have derailed Indian dream. Kejriwal is capacity constrained to pipe this rage to blast the obvious suspects -- Manmohan Singh and the Congress led UPA government at the Centre. 

The man who watched the deepening rage from a distance for a couple of years is Narendra Modi. He knows that the ammunition had long been collected. He commands a cadre which can set off anti-establishment blasts in most parts of the country. 

And so India gears up for the most vicious elections in which shrill will drown sanity. And one must forgive the loud-mouthing Indians, for the fire in the belly is raging to cloud civility.

Advani’s Shah Jahan fix

Even with much weakened eyesight, Shah Jahan ruled India through her most glorious days and fought bitter war to stop his restless son Aurangzeb from ascending to the seat of power. Till the very end of Shah Jahan’s rule, India was reckoned all over as a golden bird. His indulgences and misrule in later years sowed the seeds of destruction of Indian economy. With Aurangzeb later on, the mighty Mughal empire began crumbling, not because of lack of muscle, but for chronic economic disarray.

The BJP patriarch L. K. Advani is not a Shah Jahan. The golden boy of the

RSS – Narendra Modi – is also not an Aurangzeb, either. The detractors of the UPA and Congress, in particular, may, arguably, liken Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Shah Jahan. Larger history may wait for some more time for inks to dry for chronicling events of the recent times.

But Advani, who loves to call himself a blogger, threatens to be BJP’s Shah Jahan in a political avatar. The RSS, which prides in being the moral guardian of the BJP, has reasons to believe that its arguably second best product (Advani) (best, of course, being the wheel-chair bound Atal Bihari Vajpayee) has broken the parivar dharma.

Shah Jahan was more of a titular head in his old days, with his generals, including Aurangzeb, commanding followers and power of the day. The lust for power sucked Shah Jahan. Exasperated Aurangzeb settled the matter on sword, but it was his act of turning off the tap to Red Fort, that a thirsty Shah Jahan relinquished his throne. Such a moment has, however, not arrived for the RSS to make Advani bow before the change, which is inherent in the nature.

When V. P. Singh showed signs of scripting the social engineering with his Mandal Commission to institutionalize reservation for other backward castes in jobs and educational institutions, Advani reinvented himself and emerged out of the shadow of Vajpayee. He knew that secularism in India was bogus. Hindus nursed Historical grievances and monuments provided evidences in plenty of the wrongs committed by the Muslim invaders. 

And thus embarking on a modern rath, Advani told India the stories of emotional hurts at the hands of one – Mir Baqi – and the need to build a grand temple at Ayodhya. For him everything was on the stake, but he succeeded in BJP galloping to 89 Lok Sabha seats from just two earlier.

However, when the BJP sniffed power at the Ashok Rajpath, Advani very conveniently forgot the deeds of Mir Baqi and campaign for a grand temple for Ram Lalla at Ayodhya. He did not realize but people sensed that there was a serious issue with Advani’s credibility. Ram Lalla, meanwhile, stays under a makeshift tent amidst security bandobust, which none in the world may be enjoying. 

Afterwards, political redundancy pounced upon Advani when he discovered in Islamabad that the founder of Pakistan and Muslim League leader Muhammed Ali Jinnah was secular. It may have slipped out of Advani’s mind that Jinnah was very much a fresh character in the Indian history and his deeds of political opportunism in exploiting religion in breaking India was quite known to most. The RSS did not lose much time to tell Advani that he was a poor student of history.

In an eagerness to step into the shoes of Vajpayee, Advani abandoned the image he had built tirelessly for himself. He was on the path of reinventing himself again, this time in the tradition of a Congress leader, although leaning a little bit to the right. But such a path did not exist, as BJP is not and can not be a centrist party by its very nature.

Still, Advani in the absence of any alternative got quite a long shot to shoot his arrows at the Delhi throne. But he largely misfired. He allowed wades of currency to be displayed in Lok Sabha, thus bringing condemnation from all for the acts. He chose to hit out (2009) at Manmohan Singh at a time when India adored him as an honest, knowledgeable and upright man. The BJP’s tally was 116 after the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. People had given their verdict on Advani, but he refused to accept them.

For quite long Advani mentored Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitely in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha respectively. But mentoring was shallow, as the end result was the Opposition space largely being occupied by the likes of Sharad Yadav and Mamata Banerjee. The BJP was found lacking to project a strong Opposition to the UPA, which had been hell-bent to wreck India’s economy with its corruption and misgovernance onslaught. People refused to believe that the BJP could replace the Congress.

The BJP’s flip-flop is more evident on the issue of the India-Bangladesh land boundary agreement. When Advani was the home minister he had publicly stated his views against the boundary pact but when snubbed by a joint secretary then – G. K. Pillai -- who argued that this was in India’s favour. Advani then promised to check facts. But even after a decade he is not sure whether such a pact is in India's interest or not, as he now maintains that the party can not support it because its units in Tripura and West Bengal are opposed to it.

With Vajpayee wheel-chaired, it’s to the credit of Advani that the people invariably talk of a third front coming to power after 2014 Lok Sabha polls when it's largely believed that the people would finally boot out Manmohan Singh led and scam-ridden UPA government.

Arguably, Vajpayee was one of his kind and none could step in his shoes.

Advani can still ensure his rightful place in the political history of India by admitting that he could not be a Vajpayee. In fact, none could be like Vajpayee, who was blessed with the virtue of large-heartedness.

Everyone has to sign off one day, as all things have expiry date marked on them. If Advani could do this gracefully, Rajnath Singh would have to sweat less in announcing the inevitable, whose time has arrived.

The Congress already in dread of Modi is counting on Advani to self-destruct the BJP. The regional parties are poles apart and suffer from bloated egos to defeat any prospect of third front. 

With life spent on anti-Congress political platform, Advani can not sign off by letting this party to slip back in power through back-door. 

Had Shah Jahan anointed an able successor when he was strong enough to see through the succession, the course of history of India could have been different. But lust of power knows no age even if nation suffers in the end.    

Bansal's "Pipli Live" saga

Politicians are generally blessed with spring in their feet. The sacked railways minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, hours before he finally quit, covered a distance from his office to the lift, about 100 meters in all, at a speed that gave a near stampede. While reporters ran after him, 65-year-old Bansal was much younger than any of the scribes despite being hounded for about a week.

While politicians are thick-skinned, reporters are equally audacious in their pursuit to extract bytes. So, quite a few reporters forced themselves inside the lift, leaving ashen looking Bansal stunned. "You are not invited here. It's very unfair of the media," Bansal muttered.

Downstairs, Bansal's ambassador car was banged by cameramen, as he attempted to speed away. No bytes to confirm that he had resigned; but leaving scribes stunned of their own deeds.

Earlier in the day, reporters were watching tv channels flashing Bansal and his wife with a she-goat, giving a semblance of a little prayer. A dozing reporter was not excited. He texted a tv reporter standing firm at the residence of Bansal, that it should be a goat, as she-goat is never sacrificed. 

"Abhi-abhi maalum chala hai ki ye bakri nahi bakra hai jiski bali dene ki taiyari hai (just confirmed that it's not a she-goat but a goat, which is on the way to be sacrificed)," a tv reporter shouted on a channel.

The message was picked fast by other channels and the story of a sacrificial goat became the story of the day. 

A dozing reporter does not really switch off his fertile mind and has enough in him to set on fire wild imagination. So, the story of the goat and Bansal's sacrificial plan sent the media on a wild chase. 

A day before, the sacked law minister Ashwani Kumar was being shown on news channels having met the Prime Minister. But the minister was maintaining that he had not met the Prime Minister.

The puzzle was solved by another reporter, with his reason that "Kumar must have gone to the PMO but the Prime Minister must have refused to meet him". In 10 minutes, this was on the channel. And later it was that Kumar met officials in the PMO.

But Bansal saga had the real masala to keep the channels on goose chase. He is a "mama", with his nephew landing him into a soup. So, the channels stationed their OB vans round the clock at his residence. Some of them were audacious enough to position high resolution lenses on the top of the OB vans, which were taking shots of even his bathrooms and toilets. "This is too much. There is something called privacy," an aide of Bansal pleaded with the channel, after which the bathrooms and toilets were not shown.

In about a week till Bansal quit, he became a parallel of the Princess Diana, whose death was blamed onto the insatiable interest of the media in her.

Six days after the CBI arrested the railway board member Mahesh Kumar and Bansal's nephew Vijay Singla in a Rs 90 lakh bribery case, the railways minister finally quit.

But just a couple of days before the arrests, Bansal was quite confident and had gone after Ashwani Kumar in a meeting of senior Congress leaders called by the law minister. "I am a collateral damage," Ashwani Kumar had told the huddle and sought better defence for him from the party.

"You are not a collateral damage. You are the main damage," quipped all the leaders, including Bansal, one by one in the meeting.

Future is quite unpredictable and so was the case with Bansal too, who also became the "main damage" for the party. But his case bewildered many within the Congress, as Bansal had apparently an image of a clean man.

Trying to understand Bansal's fall, one Cabinet minister took refuse in the dark underbelly of the Chandigarh man's quite large family. "Bansal has six sisters and as many brothers-in-law and going by an average of three off-springs, he must have had 21 nephews, beside his son. Also, his being a typical Punjabi baniya family, which is usually close knit, staying together, he was taken for a ride," proffered the minister in his defence.

Bansal is said to have told a reporter a couple of days back that "haramzadon ne 30 saal ka career barbaad kar diya (buggers destroyed my 30 years of political career)". Clearly, the political class will take a hard lesson to keep a close eye on the deeds of their relatives.

Conspiracy theory

The Punjabi quartet of Pawan Kumar Bansal, Ashwani Kumar, Kapil Sabbal and Manish Tiwari have been the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's men. There had been perceptibly corrupt ministers in railways earlier too, but the CBI had never dared to spread its dragnet on a Union minister. Out of four Chandigarh men, two have gone, after the Congress and its chief Sonia Gandhi cracked the whip.

Who benefits the most with the weakening of the Prime Minister? It's none other than the Finance Minister P Chidambaram, who knows in his heart that the Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalitha would not allow him to win the next Lok Sabha elections. It's the right time for Chidambaram to strike and position himself as the saviour of the sinking UPA ship.

Disclaimer: Journalists are infected with conspiracy theory virus too often. But enjoy the Pipli Live on news channels in the meantime.

Rahul's Vasundhara nightmare

Exultation is granted to foot soldiers of political parties to unwind. In less than an hour of beginning of counting of votes in Karnataka, 24, Akbar Road office of the Congress woke up to the sound of crackers. The Karnataka verdict even though outcome was known before the Election Commission set the date for votes gives the Congress a little sleep to dream. 

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been quick to credit Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for Karanataka victory. "He (Rahul) took a leading role in the campaigning and worked hard," Singh tweeted. The man in light blue turban is clearly wishing Rahul Gandhi, the boy not keen to become a man, a sweet dream before the little sleep.

However, the quality of dream depends on the longevity of sleep. Still, the dream will set in, with the government rushing in with the Rs 1,26,000 crore (annual cost) Food Security Bill. But little while later, Vasundhara Raje Scindia is set to terrorize the Congress, while turning the dream into a nightmare.

The Haryana and Rajsthan chief ministers Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Ashok Gehlot respectively are said to have rolled the red carpet to the son-in-law of 10, Janpath, Robert Vadra, in his land grabbing spree. The scale of land grabbing in Rajsthan is said to be of much larger scale than Haryana.

"The Congress is set to lose Rajsthan. Scindia will make public all documents to implicate Vadra. Therefore, the Congress to avoid the Scindia trap will go for Lok Sabha elections along with state elections or before that this year," said a senior Congress leader.

Indeed, the Karnataka verdict has shown that the corruption is now a major issue. A lot of credit must go to India's Julian Assange, Arvind Kejriwal. The NGO man, that Kejriwal is, would hunt in pack once the Vadra land deals roll out from Rajsthan. 

Additionally, the Jharkhand will go to polls during rains. The Congress has been out of the political ring in this state for quite a long time. Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh are test cases of BJP's good governance. 

Arguably, the "sweet dream" most likely has all the recipe to turn into horrendous nightmare by the time the first cold wind blows down from the Himalaya. 

So, the foot soldiers can enjoy their exultation. But the crowd on the street is being joined by Prime Minister and all, which should be taken for much needed relief after prolonged deprivation of electoral success. 

Not long ago, Rahul Gandhi and his mother, Sonia Gandhi, had gone to Gujrat during election campaign to register their presence. The same was done by Narendra Modi in Karnataka. For Manmohan Singh, the Karnatka verdict is "rejection of the BJP ideology", which was, however, not stated by Modi for the Congress.  

But, Karnataka verdict does call for soul searching even if claim of “rejection of ideology” amounts to Manmohan Singh aiming to hit the moon with his turban.

First and foremost is the harakiri of the RSS in installing the man who did not know the gas in him – Nitin Gadkari – as the BJP president. He came along as a petty trader and went off as a business man not knowing his art.

But all the while the fat man gave the BJP mortal blows with his dubious deals in Karnataka, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh. In the 2012 UP Assembly elections, a number of BJP stalwarts, some of whom are now general secretaries, were openly supporting the Samajwadi Party.

The RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had begun oxygen transfusion into the BJP with Nitin Gadkari. The BJP ended up with lung infection. The party is in a curative phase now. It has to take some hard pills. The RSS should first admit that it’s not a doctor specialising in lung infection. And, it should admit that with modest humility.

The doctor is neither the man in his eighties – Lal Krishna Advani. 

As of now there is only one who can cure the BJP of its defeatist ailment. He is from the land from where Advani had begun his Somnath to Ayodhya Rath Yatra, propelling him into the thick of Indian politics.  

Human life begins like sun rise and sets thereafter. Advani is walking into his sun set. The earlier he declares the sun rise for his deserving heir, the better it would be for the BJP to keep the dark cloud away.

The Congress can enjoy a little sleep till then.