The Bharatiya Janata Party is askance that the Congress does not play to its script.
Smriti Irani is crestfallen that her celebrity candidature has been insulted by being given a nondescript adversary.
It’s another matter that ground reports from Amethi suggest she may find her Congress opponent, Kishori Lal Sharma, more than a handful, as droves of young people can be heard to say openly that they plan to rectify the ‘mistake’ their fellow-constituents made the last time around.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
Modi, whose public articulation gets more and more filmy, is asking Rahul Gandhi why he has run away from Amethi and advising him not to be afraid.
The ever-loyal godi media has been assigned the job of making Gandhi’s decision not to stand from Amethi the mainstay of its programming.
As we watch our anchors imploding, those of us who still retain free spaces in the mind are asking the following of Modi and his party:
- Would you be willing to leave it to the opposition as to where your candidates ought to be fielded?
- Have you forgotten that many of the BJP’s stalwart leaders, past and present, have often shifted their constituencies in accordance with their best tactical lights? These include the late Atal Bihari Vajpeyi (6 times), the late Sushma Swaraj (3 times), Rajnath Singh (twice), to name but three in a long list.
- It may be said that Modi did not ‘run away’ from Gujarat to Varanasi but shifted seats as a means of strengthening the BJP’s hold in Uttar Pradesh. But given that never a day passes when the BJP does not tom-tom its unprecedented universal sway, how is it that the prime minister does not make credible his ‘pan-Indian’ status by standing for election in a constituency below the Vindhyas? Why does he run away from proving his mettle in those parts? Is he afraid?
- Have we not heard ad nauseam how the situation in Kashmir has transformed wholesale to the great glee and thankfulness of Kashmris after the abrogation of “special status”? Are we not told everyday how Kashmiris feel indebted to the nationalists for having brought such bounties to them which were wickedly withheld earlier by Kashmir’s regional outfits? How come then that the mighty BJP has thought it best to run away from the valley and leave the business of facing the odds to its proxies?
- Why is it that the world’s most popular and powerful executive head has been running away from answering the media in open interactions, as is customary in any genuine democracy?
- Why is it that Modi does not pick up the courage to go meet the Manipuris in Manipur, or the globally decorated women wrestlers in Haryana, or the young aspirants for military service cheated by the Agniveer fiasco, or the hundreds of thousands of other young aspirants whose careers have been ruined by frequent paper-leaks, or the farmers whose years-long ordeal at the gates of the Capital seems to deter him from displaying courageous leadership? He was missing in action during the lockdown when millions of workers and their families were left to fend for themselves, and the deadly Covid second wave which took the lives of lakhs.
And so on and on. Take a look back and forth, and you will find that Modi shows great alacrity of reach only where successes are to be counted, but always – not almost always – runs away from owning or confronting his failures.
How come Modi has still not shown the moral courage to apologise for having stood next to Prajwal Revanna to campaign for this merry man, given that a good samritan from his own party there had disclosed in writing to the BJP brass chapter and verse of Prajwal’s activities?
Why, unlike Rahul Gandhi, does Modi never rise to acknowledge his own errors and doubts?
Which leader seems more afraid of a critical audience or a tough question, Rahul Gandhi or Narendra Modi?
Speaking of fear, will even one media outlet that is fulminating over Rahul Gandhi’s so-called cop-out in Amethi agree to put some of these posers to Modi?
What might Modi, his party and his media say were Rahul Gandhi to win both Wayanad and Rae Bareli, and were Kishori Lal to do a Raj Narain in Amethi?
Be assured, these are likely things. Watch this space.
Badri Raina taught English at Delhi University.