A leader as big as Meena stepping back doesn’t come as a surprise, as several other bigwigs of the Rajasthan BJP have met a similar fate in recent times.
Jaipur: Not many politicians in Rajasthan have a career in electoral politics that could remotely match that of Kirodi Lal Meena – one of the BJP’s tallest tribal leaders in the desert state.
Meena has the distinction of being a six-time MLA and a three-term MP from different constituencies of three districts in eastern Rajasthan – Dausa, Sawai Madhopur and Karauli – winning on a BJP ticket, as an independent and even as a candidate of the National People’s Party (NPP), which he once led in Rajasthan and helped it win four assembly seats in the largely bipolar state, where there is little space for a third force.
The 72-year-old Meena, who was minister for agriculture, horticulture and rural development in the Bhajanlal Sharma-led BJP government in Rajasthan, confirmed on Thursday (July 4) that he had resigned from the state cabinet.
“I have been working in ten to 12 districts, from where I was also once an independent MP, and I have strong influence. But I couldn’t make my party win even in those regions and this has soured my mind. I had announced before that if I was not able to help the party win the Lok Sabha seats, especially those of Sawai Madhopur, Karauli and Dausa, I would resign from the ministerial post,” Meena, who is an MLA from the Sawai Madhopur constituency, had told reporters on Thursday.
In the recently-concluded Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had performed poorly in eastern Rajasthan, losing the Bharatpur, Dausa, Karauli-Dholpur and Tonk-Sawai Madhopur seats.
He said he had resigned on May 5 and had met chief minister Sharma, who asked him not to resign.
“I am neither angry with the honourable chief minister nor the organisation. I don’t have any desire for any post. I resigned because I had already made the announcement and am just keeping my word,” said Meena.
Later on Friday (July 5), Meena met BJP president J.P. Nadda after the latter called him to Delhi. Meena told reporters he was asked to meet Nadda again after ten days.
While Meena maintained in the public that he held no grudges against his party leaders, for those who have followed the trajectory of the septuagenarian’s politics, the move doesn’t come as a surprise.
One of the most active leaders of the saffron party in the state who is known as a ‘street fighter’ for his knack of spearheading protests and dharnas, Meena was among the last leaders of the Rajasthan BJP with a spunk of his own to attract voters and a large support base that transcended regions.
Prior to his resignation, Meena was an oddity in the Rajasthan cabinet, where barring a handful, most members are first-time ministers, with none of them nearly as influential as him.
A leader as big as Meena stepping back doesn’t come as a surprise, as several other bigwigs of the Rajasthan BJP have met a similar fate in recent times, when the saffron party in the era of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah has systematically replaced leaders having a mass following with relatively unknown faces in several states.
Voice of opposition during Congress regime even without official post
In Rajasthan, which has a tribal population of 13.48%, Meena has been an asset to the BJP with his massive following among the community. The Meena community is the most dominant castes among scheduled tribes in Rajasthan and holds sway over multiple assembly and Lok Sabha seats.
One of the reasons why Meena is important for the BJP is that he is a staunch believer in the Hindutva ideology of the RSS and has always opposed the alternate view that tribals don’t come under the Hindu fold.
At a time when the Bharat Adivasi Party has emerged as a formidable force in southern Rajasthan, with the party’s leaders reiterating multiple times that Adivasis are not Hindu, Meena has been propagating exactly the opposite idea.
Known as ‘Baba’ among his followers, during the last five years of Congress rule in the state, Meena had emerged as the most vocal opposition leader, despite the fact that he didn’t hold any post in the BJP organisation and was a Rajya Sabha MP at the time.
His continuous protests and dharnas against issues such as question paper leaks and compensation for the families of soldiers killed in the Pulwama attack contributed in building a narrative against Congress.
However, after the BJP came to power, Meena ended up drifting away from the limelight. Even though he was made a cabinet minister, the fact that he was given the rural development portfolio while the panchayati raj department was entrusted with another minister, Madan Dilawar, had raised eyebrows.
Generally, the panchayati raj and rural development portfolios are held by one minister due to the related nature of the two departments.
Even though he is known for his outspoken nature, Meena refrained from speaking his mind in the press and would often be seen putting a finger on his lips and smiling in response to media questions.
Raje to Meena, shrinking space for mass leaders in Modi-Shah era
Two-time Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje and Meena are not known to see eye-to-eye. After serving as a minister in the first term of the Raje government between 2003 and 2008, Meena had left the BJP due to his growing differences with the then-chief minister.
Later, he contested and won elections, including the 2009 Lok Sabha elections from Dausa as an independent candidate. He also brought the little-known NPP founded by P.A. Sangma to Rajasthan, and owing to the groundswell of support for him, managed to make it win four seats in the state assembly.
Later in 2018, he was brought back to the BJP prior to the state elections, which the saffron party had lost to the Congress.
More than five years later, despite wielding immense influence over the state’s politics, both Meena and Raje are no longer in the forefront of the Rajasthan BJP in the Modi-Shah era.
The BJP central leadership didn’t consider Raje for the post of the chief minister and instead gave the post to first-time MLA Bhajanlal Sharma.
Many senior leaders who had previously served as ministers in past Raje governments were also replaced with fresh faces.
With Meena’s exit from the cabinet, the transition of the BJP in Rajasthan towards becoming a unit devoid of any mass leaders who could possibly present a contrarian opinion compared to that of the central leadership, is complete.
Going by public popularity, Vasundhara Raje Scindia should have been the logical choice for chief minister. But the much-less-known Sharma has a history that fits with the Sangh parivar’s agenda.
New Delhi: The 56-year-old Bhajanlal Sharma is the archetypical Sangh man – state general secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party for four terms yet so low-profile that journalists in Rajasthan were left scrambling to get more information on their new chief minister.
“Humble”, “a sangathan man”, a “Vidhyarthi man” (Sharma was a member of the ABVP) – the adjectives which are being used to describe Sharma are all of the kind favoured by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Descriptors that could not be more different than the ones used to define his predecessor, Vasundhara Raje Scindia, who has dominated the BJP’s politics in the state for the past 25 years.
Going by public popularity, Raje Scindia should have been the logical choice for chief minister. Every poll going into these elections put her ahead of all other BJP candidates for the post. But going by what was happening within the party, she was always unlikely to be made chief minister.
The story of the BJP in Rajasthan for over ten years has consisted of the top leadership of the BJP and the RSS trying to sideline her and finding it hard to do so. Her clout in the state and the support she enjoys from party workers was evident in the role she eventually played in the assembly elections.
After a fairly public alienation for a long period, the party was forced to mend fences and accommodate many of those she favoured for tickets. It also requested her to campaign, which she did, reasserting the hold she has among the public.
It was not as if the resistance within the party had had no impact on her. In the lead up to the elections, she was forced to accept the denial of a ticket to Yunus Khan, who was seen as close to her. Khan later won the Deedwana seat as an independent.
Dropping him from the list was the clearest signal of the hard line the new administration is likely to pursue. Many Muslim voters in the course of this campaign spoke about how, whatever be the perils of the BJP, they felt safe as long as Raje Scindia had been in charge.
Her second term as chief minister had already seen her making concessions to the RSS, giving way to many Sangh initiatives on issues such as changes in the textbooks and school curriculum.
These were, at best, attempts by her to go along with a party which had been making it amply clear that it wanted to move to a more overt RSS-Hindutva politics, one that Raje Scindia could only pretend to adhere to but one which Bhajanlal Sharma embodies.
A biographical note titled jeevan parichay (life introduction) doing the rounds lists Sharma’s achievements. It goes from his days in the Akhil Bharitya Vidyarthi Parishad to his initial forays into politics as a sarpanch of the gram panchayat Attari, in Nadbai, Bharatpur where he comes from. It’s a list which reinforces the image of Sharma as a disciplined party member who has slowly made his way to the top, without ever expecting to become chief minister.
In 2003, Sharma first contested the assembly elections on a ticket given by the Rashtriya Samajik Nyaya Manch (RSNM), a party formed shortly before the elections by Lokendra Singh Kalvi and Devi Singh Bhati. Sharma lost the elections, getting less than 6,000 votes.
The party that he along with a number of other RSS figures had joined represented two main planks. The first was to work for the economically backward sections of upper-caste communities like Brahmins and Rajputs. The second was a demand to split the OBC quota into two categories after the Jats had been given OBC status in Rajasthan.
Sharma’s affiliation to an overt upper-caste politics couched in terms of economic backwardness anticipated the BJP’s push for an Economically Weaker Section (EWS) quota. Through his past association with the RSNM, he was also connected to several figures who embodied one of the BJP’s main thrusts on the OBC quota, a separation of the ‘creamy layer’ from the rest.
In selecting a Gond ST chief minister in Chhattisgarh, an OBC Yadav in MP and a Brahmin candidate in Rajasthan who represents the economic idea of reservation and is linked to a demand to split the OBC quota, the BJP seems to have covered all its bases going into the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
In the 2023 Rajasthan elections, 20 years after his first foray, Sharma’s nomination from Sanganer, an assembly constituency which falls within the Jaipur Lok Sabha constituency, caused some consternation as he replaced Ashok Lahoty, the sitting MLA who had charges of corruption against him. Lahoty’s supporters protested the decision but Sharma won comfortably with 58.4% of the voteshare.
Yet, no one had thought of him as even a participant in the race to become chief minister. In the intense speculation which preceded the announcement, he was on no one’s list of frontrunners. But as the chief ministers of MP and Chhattisgarh were announced, it became increasingly clear that the party was looking to change the old guard. Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s exit in Madhya Pradesh was read as clear signal that the chief minister’s role was unlikely to go to Vasundhra Raje Scindia.
The party, though, still needed her assent. Over the past few days, Hindi channels ran headlines about MLAs thronging Raje Scindia’s residence, clamouring for her to be made chief minister. J.P. Nadda, the BJP president, was sent to negotiate and try and accommodate some of her demands on who she could and could not endorse.
In the same carefully orchestrated optics that saw Chouhan announce his successor’s name, it was finally Raje Scindia who was made to propose the name of Sharma as the chief minister.
If Sharma’s name was a surprise the choice of the two deputy chief ministers is more predictable – Diya Kumari, 52, from the erstwhile royal family of Jaipur, and 54-year-old Prem Chand Bairwa, the sitting MLA and a seasoned politician from Dudu, which falls in the Ajmer Lok Sabha seat.
Diya Kumari’s rise in the BJP is now seen as an attempt to project a more pliable alternative to Raje Scindia. Both women from “royal” lineages, the two once shared a mentor-protégé relationship but are now pitted against each other. The odds are now stacked in favour of Diya, who is close to the central leadership and as deputy chief minister is within striking distance of the top job in the state. For Raje Scindia, on the other hand, the BJP’s comfortable win in 2023, without projecting her or anyone else as the chief ministerial face, signals a shift away from the era of her dominance
The strongest evidence of the party high command’s support to Diya Kumari came when she replaced Narpat Singh Rajvi, sitting MLA and son-in-law of three-time Rajasthan chief minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, from his traditional seat of Vidhyadhar Nagar. Rajvi was sent to contest from Chittor where he suffered a crushing defeat.
The other deputy chief minister, Prem Chand, from the Bairwa Dalit community is seen as the counter balance to a Brahmin chief minister and a Rajput deputy chief minister. While both these upper caste communities have electorally consolidated behind the BJP, the party has not enjoyed the same dominance among Dalit voters. The Lokniti-CSDS post-poll survey conducted after the election results shows that 48% of the Dalit vote went to the Congress as opposed to 33% to the BJP.
There is another choice that may go unremarked upon but is a crucial indicator of the direction in which the post-Raje Scindia government is headed. Vasudev Devnani, a Sindhi, has been appointed to the post of speaker. In the previous Vasundhra Raje Scindia government, he held the post of education minister, and was instrumental in the saffronisation of education.
Several Vasundhara Raje loyalists, feeling sidelined, have threatened to fight as independents. Protests continue in several seats after the BJP’s first list of 41 candidates was issued.
New Delhi: Reports sugges that rebellion in the BJP’s ranks in Rajasthan is bubbling over after the first list of candidates to contest the state election was released last week.
Rajasthan goes to the polls on November 25. The date was shifted from the 23rd after the announcement.
IANS reports that many of former chief minister Vasundhara Raje’s loyalists have been “sidelined” in the first list and protests in their favour have erupted across the state. Daily protests are taking place at party offices. Supporters of leaders feeling sidelined claim that they have “worked hard for the party but have been denied tickets due to political divisions.”
There are reports of protests from the Vidhyadhar Nagar constituency where the BJP has announced the candidature of Rajsamand MP Diya Kumari instead of Narpat Singh Rajvi, the son-in law of former chief minister, vice president of India and BJP stalwart, the late Bhairon Singh Shekhawat.
The BJP’s defeat in Karnataka came despite – or because of – its confidence in the ‘central’ push, setting aside local leaders and factors. The loss in Himachal Pradesh’s assembly polls, despite being party president J.P. Nadda’s home state, also would be looming large on its calculations.
MPs as MLA candidates
The BJP has announced MP Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore as its candidate for Jhotwara assembly seat. In this seat, supporters of former minister Rajpal Singh Shekhawat are said to have shown black flags to Rathore on Sunday.
India Today reckons that the BJP’s first list of 41 (of a total of 200 seats in Rajasthan) has 19 such seats where the BJP faces the prospect of potential rebels, many of whom may contest as independents. Some have already said they will.
According to India Today, in Tijara, the ticket has gone to Alwar MP Baba Balak Nath. Maman Singh Yadav, who was expecting to be nominated, has said that he would run as an independent candidate. The Hindu reports that Baba Balak Nath uses the tagline “Rajasthan Ka Yogi” for himself.
In Nagar, where Anita Singh Gurjar, another Vasundhara loyalist who was elected as an MLA twice in the past, has been dropped and the BJP gave the ticket to Jawahar Singh Bedham. Anita Singh Gurjar on Facebook last week, made no bones about why she thinks she has was dropped: “The BJP has not given me a ticket due to my proximity to Vasundharaji. Instead, they gave the ticket to someone who lost in another constituency by 50,000 votes. Here, he will forfeit his deposit as well.”
She announced her intention to run as an independent candidate.
Vasundhara versus Gehlot contest?
Instead of having a CM-face and pushing for collective leadership and projecting “the lotus as the face”, the BJP central leadership has made its intention of a future where Vasundhara Raje is not central to the party in Rajasthan. There have been reports of Raje being asked to contest against chief minister Ashok Gehlot in Jodhpur’s Sardarpura, but reports also say she is clear that she wants to be declared as the party’s CM candidate in return.
Vasundhara Raje is currently an MLA from Jhalarapatan and has been for four consecutive tenues. Ashok Gehlot has been the Sardarpura MLA since 1998.
Former head of the curriculum committee says key stanza was censored from Rajasthan textbooks on the orders of the former BJP chief minister, who is from the Scindia family.
Jaipur: The latest compulsory Hindi language textbook Shritij for class 10 under the Board of Secondary Education, Rajasthan (BSER) has a paragraph missing from Subhadra Kumari Chauhan’s popular poem, Jhansi ki Rani, that stated that the then Maharaja of Gwalior Jayajirao Scindia supported the British.
This paragraph was, in fact, deleted by the previous Vasundhara Raje-led BJP government, as part of the decision of the curriculum committee appointed by the board. However, the Congress government, despite revising the curriculum in 2019, didn’t rectify the politically-motivated amendment in the poem.
Raje is a part of the Scindia dynasty that ruled the erstwhile princely state of Gwalior. In a bid to expand itself, the East India Company wanted to put an end to the rule of kings in India. The then Maharaja of Gwalior Jayajirao Scindia is said to have supported the British by accepting its defeat.
Poem on Jhansi ki Rani in the Hindi textbook for class 10.
The East India Company had introduced the Doctrine of Lapse that denied the right of adoption to rulers and subsequently, helped them annex their state on the grounds that it had no heir.
Following its policy, the British rejected the adopted child of Rani Lakshmi Bai, the queen of Jhansi, after her husband’s death but she refused to surrender her kingdom to the British and fought back. During the battle, Lakshmi Bai fled to Kalpi, near Gwalior, along with her forces and those of Tantya Tope. They defeated the army of Jayajirao Scindia and occupied his fort.
It is believed that Scindia betrayed Lakshmi Bai by intentionally providing her with a weak horse to escape. She was badly injured during this battle with the British.
“Rani badhi Kalpi aayee, kar sau meel nirantar paar, Ghoda thak kar gira bhoomi par, gaya swarg tatkaal sidhaar, Yamuna tat par angrezon ne phir khayee Rani se haar, Vijayee Rani aage chal di, kiya Gwalior par adhikar, Angrezon ke mitra Scindia ne chhodi rajdhani thee, Bundeley Harbolon ke munh hamne suni kahani thi, Khoob ladi mardani woh to Jhansi wali Rani thi.
(Rani preceded further and reached Kalpi after taking a journey of hundreds of miles,
The horse got exhausted and fell on the ground, and died immediately,
On the banks of Yamuna, the Britshers were defeated by Rani once again,
The victorious Rani proceeded further and took Gawalior under her control,
‘Friend of British’ Scindia left the capital,
From the mouths of the Bundelas and the Harbolas (singers of Bundelkhand), we heard the tale of the courage of the Queen of Jhansi, who gallantly fought like a man against the British intruders).”
The deleted paragraph from the poem Jhansi ki Rani.
Based upon the inputs of this committee, a textbook production committee consisting of writers accordingly selects various compositions to be included in the textbook.
Soon after coming to power in December 2018, the Congress government had directed the curriculum committee to revise the syllabus, a standard procedure through which the new government reverses changes undertaken by the previous government.
However, the committee didn’t act on the changes made in the poem on Queen of Jhansi.
Speaking to The Wire, K.S. Gupta, the former convenor of the curriculum committee for the subject of history said, “It is very well known that Raje belongs to the Scindia family and the lines from the poem criticising her lineage were removed on her orders.”
The former committee, that was appointed during Raje’s tenure, refused to accept any responsibility for changes made in the poem. “We only formulate the syllabus, weightage of each portion like the grammar and literature. It’s up to the textbook production committee to finalise which composition would be taken,” Ashish Sisodia, convenor of the curriculum committee, told The Wire.
Even, the convenor of the textbook production committee Shashi Prakash Chaudhary, under whom this book was finalised, had raised objections to the changes made in the poem. “I had not approved of any deletion in the poem. I’ve no idea how it happened. I wrote to the Textbook board expressing my objection and they replied that they cannot tell me about why they have done it,” Chaudhary told Dainik Bhaskar.
News article in the local daily Dainik Bhaskar with a statement from the textbook production committee convenor Shashi Prakash Chaudhary
The Wire has reached out to Raje for a response and the story will be updated when she replies.
Previous attempts to tweak history
Under the Vasundhara Raje-led BJP government in Rajasthan, the history department of Rajasthan University included a book titled Rashtra Ratna Maharana Pratap by Chandra Shekhar Sharma which had declared Pratap the winner of the 1576 Battle of Haldighati against Akbar, in the list of recommended readings for the subject.
The class X and XII textbooks of the Rajasthan Board of Secondary Education were revised to glorify the Modi government and propagate the Bhartiya Janta Party’s Hindutva ideology.
The textbooks were revised to sideline Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi and lay greater emphasis on Savarkar. The role of Congress in the freedom struggle was also shown in poor light claiming “elite Congressmen wanted to prolong British rule in India”. Years ago, the state education department had also eliminated the suffix ‘Great’ from Akbar’s name.
Singh, the son of former BJP union minister Jaswant Singh, had resigned from the saffron party late last month, citing differences with the central leadership.
New Delhi: In a setback to the Bharatiya Janata Party in Rajasthan, rebel leader Manvendra Singh, son of former BJP union minister Jaswant Singh, joined the Congress on Wednesday. Manvendra had resigned from the saffron party late last month, citing differences with the leadership. He had then said, “Kamal ka phool, hamaari bhool (the lotus was my mistake)”.
He has since then indicated to the Congress that he would be open to joining the party. However, the Congress remained tight-lipped about his induction while weighing the pros and cons.
A sitting MLA from the Sheo constituency in the state assembly, Manvendra was suspended from the party after he decided to support his father in the 2014 general elections. Jaswant Singh had unsuccessfully contested as an independent candidate from Barmer-Jaisalmer Lok Sabha constituency after he was denied a BJP ticket. His rebellion had gathered a lot of attention and ever since, the Singh family has not been in good terms with the saffron party’s leadership, especially the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo and Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi welcomes Manvendra Singh as he joins the Congress, in New Delhi, October 17, 2018. Credit: PTI
Manvendra’s induction could help the Congress consolidate the dominant Rajput votes, a group which is extremely influential in electoral politics despite not being one of the most populous communities in Rajasthan (they comprise between 6-7% of the state’s population).
After Manvendra declared that he was open about joining the Congress, the state leadership of the party mulled over whether espousing Manvendra, a Rajput leader, would send a wrong message to the rival Jat community in the state. Insiders say that the Congress leadership resolved the Jat community’s insecurities before bringing Manvendra into its fold.
The Barmer-Jaisalmer region, from where Manvendra contests, is a Jat stronghold, and has historically supported the Congress. The Rajputs have veered towards the BJP traditionally. The Congress now hopes to gain the confidence of Rajputs, who are supposedly angry with BJP’s state leadership, in the region ahead of the upcoming assembly polls. NDTV reported that Rajputs impact about 50 of the state’s 200 seats and hold 26 of them.
When Jaswant Singh contested as an independent candidate in 2014, he had been able to garner a major chunk of votes from smaller OBC communities. Although he lost, his son Manvendra believes that he still has the support of communities like the Rajpurohits, Charans, and Prajapats, along with a substantial section of Muslim votes living in the Barmer-Jaisalmer area.
While joining the Congress, the rebel BJP leader told the NDTV, “No one knows the chief minister better and I will not attack her because it is not my culture. Her (Scindia’s) defeat is pre-ordained.”
In a bid to contain the Rajput anger, BJP president Amit Shah tried to appoint central minister and Rajput leader Gajendra Singh Shekhawat as the state BJP unit’s president, but Scindia apparently shot down the idea, causing further anger among Rajputs. After much deliberations, Madan Lal Saini, an OBC leader, became the consensus candidate and he was appointed as the party’s state president.
The party, however, thought that Manvendra’s exit would have no impact on the BJP. “It will have no effect in Barmer-Jaisalmer belt.“The Congress is helpless. Therefore it is adopting sidelined BJP leaders. It is his personal decision but this is a politically wrong decision. He is not going to get anything with this,” PTI had quoted Rathore as saying.
However, Rajasthan Congress president Sachin Pilot hit back at the BJP, “There is a long list of leaders quitting the BJP and the party should introspect why this is happening,” he said, adding that his party will launch him as one of the star campaigners for the assembly polls.
In an exclusive interview to The Wire, the Congress leader attacks Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje for trying to shield the corrupt, and insists his party is on course to come to power in the two states under Rahul Gandhi’s leadership.
The following is the full transcript of Sachin Pilot’s interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, recorded in New Delhi on October 27, 2017.
Karan Thapar: Hello and welcome to a very special interview with the president of the Congress party in Rajasthan, Sachin Pilot, for The Wire.
Three days ago, the Vasundhara Raje Scindia government in Rajasthan was forced to refer the criminal law amendment bill to a select committee in the Vidhan Sabha for a comprehensive review and many people believe that this has effectively killed the bill. So does the credit go to the Congress party? Is the party now in a position to defeat Vasundhara Raje Scindia in the elections due next year? And what about Rahul Gandhi? Does he have the wind in his sails or is this just a moment of euphoric exaggeration. With me to answer those questions is Sachin Pilot himself.
On the Rajasthan government’s recent move to gag the media
Let’s start with Rajasthan. After extensive protests by politicians, journalists and activists, Vasundhara Raje Scindia has been forced to refer her bill to a select committee and many people believe there the criminal law amendment bill will effectively die or be put in cold storage. Do you believe that will be the case or do you think this is still only a half measure?
Sachin Pilot: I think its a half measure because what she has done now is face saving – because of this huge universal opposition to this bill, and we aggressively fought for the values that we believed in. There are two parts to this bill, Karan, and I think we must shed light on that. One is that this is giving legal protection to all the netas and babus for all the corruption that they may have done and it also is applicable to ex-babus, so you could have been in a position, so you get legal security and frameworked security for a long time.
Thapar: So once you are a babu, whether serving or retired, you are protected, because you need sanction.
Pilot: Protected to the point that you need government sanction [to investigate] and government can wait up to six months before giving the sanction.
Thapar: And the second thing is that the media is gagged and it can’t report and it cant name them.
Pilot: The second part is even more controversial because it says that you can’t name a person, put his or her photograph in any media – social media, electronic media, print media. So it’s pretty much that the government will decide who can be chargesheeted, who can be called corrupt or not called corrupt. So this is effectively, basically, really, I think hitting at the basic tenets of our democracy, which we protested against and I am happy that they have actually referred it. But to my mind, referring it is not enough, they must withdraw the bill in totality because that’s what we require to be done.
Thapar: Let me pick you up on that point, because you are not just saying that the bill must be withdrawn. In effect what this means, is you want Vasundhara Raje Scindia, the chief minister, to stand up and admit she’s made a mistake. Now given that she has an over three-fourths majority in the Vidhan Sabha, she’s not going to do that. So you’re asking for something which is perhaps exaggerated because she won’t humiliate herself.
Pilot: Karan, it’s not about personal humiliation. This is a state, it’s run through democratic norms. You get a majority not to write laws that are going to protect the corrupt politicians. The government is there to make laws for the benefit of the people. And by the way, there is an ordinance in place, which in effect, today, in the state of Rajasthan, the same gag order is applicable.
Thapar: But that ordinance will lapse in 40 days because the bill is now being referred and if the bill doesn’t get passed, the ordinance lapses.
Pilot: Correct. So today.
Thapar: It’s a matter of 40 days only.
Pilot: But yeah, today in that state the same law is applicable, the same rule is applicable. So one must not forget that it’s not about committing a mistake, it’s about rectifying it effectively and admitting ‘yes its a problem’ and we’ll sort it out. The fact that the chief minister, first of all, why does she have the urgency to make such a law? She must explain to the people of Rajasthan.
Thapar: Beyond wanting the bill withdrawn, you’ve taken a second step. You also gone, as president of the Congress party, to the Rajasthan high court.
Thapar: Now before you did that, there were already two PILs, and a writ petition. Why did you feel a need to add to that? Why is that not sufficient? Why go to court as well?
Pilot: We went to court because the government was being very stubborn. They agreed to refer the bill to the select committee, but they did not withdraw the ordinance. Because the ordinance is illegal. Article 14, article 19 of our constitution are against what the bill stands for. So I think it’s illegal, it’s inappropriate, immoral and unconstitutional. We’ve gone to court.
Thapar: So you’ve gone to court.
Pilot: We didn’t go the court because of the bill. See the bill is the property of the house but the ordinance was passed by the cabinet and we have told the court that the ordinance itself is illegal and the court must strike it down and the court today itself has actually issued notices to the government, regarding this ordinance.
Thapar: In the meantime, one of the very interesting things, and perhaps this is a bit perplexing about the ordinance, is that it was actually signed by Governor Kalyan Singh on the 6th of September. But the world only found out about it on the 21st of October, when the Indian Express revealed its existence on the front page. Which means that for roughly six weeks, no one knew about the existence of this order.
Pilot: I think they’ve done a tricky game with this. So the ordinance was signed and it says ‘public servant’ but when they defined public servant in the bill that is put in the assembly, then they included everybody from sarpanch to MLAs, MPs ministers, politicians, babus, so the definition –
Thapar: So they widened it…
Pilot: Exactly, and that was the tricky part because public servant refers usually to you know, government officers above a certain rank. But when you define public servants and include politicians, MLAs, MPs and ministers, it shows that their intent is to give a legal safeguard to politicians who are doing corruption.
Thapar: What about your other point? When the bill happened as a replacement of the ordinance, they also at that point, add in, former, retired civil servants and public servants?
Pilot: Yes, they’ve expanded the definition of a public servant to include almost anybody.
Thapar: Very interesting, but come back to the ordinance. The point I am making about the ordinance is that it was signed by the governor on the 6th of September, but only revealed when the Indian Express revealed it to the world on the 21st of October, which means for 6 weeks, we didn’t know that the ordinance existed. Does that suggest to you that in fact there was an attempt by the BJP government to keep it under wraps, perhaps even to hide it from the public?
Pilot: Could be, I think they have operated with stealth on many occasions. So I wouldn’t be surprised if this was done in the same context.
Thapar: Now, this fiasco, and I am using that word deliberately, is a great setback for the BJP, and conversely, it is a gain for the opponents of the BJP. But the question is, who does the credit go to? To Congress, to the opposition, to journalists because they revealed something that no one knew about, or to activists because they actually staged protests and put the government under pressure?
Pilot: I think the victory is of the democratic forces. When you violate the rights of citizens, as a state doing it, we have to oppose it. So it is a victory of the democratic forces. We are a political party, we have the right, resources, responsibility to act against such actions. We acted against the government in the assembly, I think, the pressure mounted, finally the chief minister relented, but, half heartedly. I think their stubbornness is still left in that position.
Thapar: You are calling it victory, but at the same time, you’re saying that she only relented half heartedly and now I want to pick you up on that point. You are now demanding a full withdrawal. She’s the one who has referred it to a select committee. People are saying that the referral amounts to the bill being put in cold storage. She doesn’t fully withdraw. After all, as I said, she has a three-fourths majority. She can withstand any degree of opposition on the floor of the Vidhan Sabha. What then, if she doesn’t fully withdraw, what happens?
Pilot: Karan, the state and the country are run not just merely on numbers, but also some ethos and some functionality that has to be legal. Now, we’ve approached the courts for getting justice against this ordinance.
Thapar: But that’s not the ordinance.
Pilot: Yes, but if the bill, that’s why I said, the chief minister should have actually withdrawn the bill as opposed to referring it, I think it is a face-saving exercise, because she didn’t want to seem like she has made a grave mistake.
Thapar: But that face saving is not sufficient for you.
Pilot: Not at all.
Thapar: You’re insisting that she withdraw and demanding that she withdraw, also insisting that she humiliate herself and I am asking you, what if she refuses?
Pilot: It’s not about… We will go to any length, to make sure that such a law does not take place in Rajasthan.
Thapar: What do you, But, but you’ve gone to the court, that I understand.
Pilot: We’ve gone to the court, yes,
Thapar: To what length will you go within the Vidhan Sabha to ensure a complete withdrawal as opposed to a referral to the select committee?
Pilot: You see, I think you are making it individual based, which is not what i want to do. Or the chief minister–
Thapar: No, not you. I am making..
Pilot: Exactly, so we are a political party. We’re fighting tooth and nail, politically, legally, at every step we will challenge her intent to make alive this bill one more time
Thapar: But can you challenge her?
Pilot: We can challenge her, trust me.
Thapar: But you’ve got 21 seats versus 163.
Pilot: You know, it doesn’t matter. 21, 24 MLAs of our assembly have forced her to withdraw the bill. By the way, within the assembly, there’s no activists, there are no NGO’s, there is no media, it is the MLA’s who stand there and forced the government to withdraw.
Thapar: So the real credit you are saying goes to the Congress MLAs–
Pilot: I am not here to take credit, all I am saying is that it is the political opposition, as the principal opposition party we made sure that the ruling dispensation does not do as it wants. There is a sense of arrogance in the ruling party, today, in the BJP, and I think the chief minister finally took that step because the Congress party vociferously acted against that law, in parliament, on the street, and we left no stone unturned. I was arrested, i was taken to the police station because we have been protesting. So I think it’s not about taking credit, but we must fight for what is right.
On the state of governance in Vasundhara’s Rajasthan
Thapar: Alright, let’s not say it’s a question of taking credit, but it’s a question of accepting the fact that it was on the floor of the assembly that the government was forced to have to refer the matter, and on the floor of the assembly, there are no activists as you said, it is only the Congress and other opposition MLAs. Let’s build on that point then. You’ve scored the significant victory, even though it’s not the full withdrawal yet. But it’s a significant victory. Can you now from this position, actually unseat Vasundhara, defeat the BJP in the elections which are now, just a year away? Or is that one step too far?
Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje. Credit: Reuters
Pilot: Well, I don’t want to sound… Overconfident. But I can tell you with all my experience in the last four years, working in the state as the party president, it’s not just about this really, really awful bill that she wanted to make into a law, it’s about the governance. If you look at the data, Karan, in all of India, Rajasthan ranks number 1 for crimes against Scheduled Tribes, we are number 2 in atrocities against Dalits, we are number 3 for the number of rapes that happen in all of India. And these numbers are not mine, these are the home ministry, Government of India’s numbers. And being a woman chief minister and having third highest numbers of rapes in Rajasthan, shows you the lack of governance.
Thapar: These are issues that you are going to exploit, to make sure you defeat her next year.
Pilot: It’s not about exploiting, but letting people know what the facts are. It’s okay to have propaganda, to have lots of resources, to build on media, you know, campaigns. But on the ground, farmers are committing suicide, joblessness is at its peak, people are…
Thapar: She does have a farmer loan waiver proposal, it may not have been implemented, but she has announced it, and that could ameliorate many of the distresses that farmers feel. That could win them over.
Pilot: I have heard this for the past two years. We’ve had farmers rallies all across. I did a padyatra, 100 km for getting a farmer loan waiver. My point is if the chief minister of UP and the CM of Maharashtra can give farm loan waivers, what crimes have the farmers of Rajasthan done to not get that farm waiver?
Thapar: In other words, announcing a farm waiver is not sufficient, she has to act on it, and because she hasn’t acted on it, you believe you can swing farmers vote behind you.
Pilot: Oh she’s made some committees, she’s studying other states, how they’ve done it, I think it’s all eyewash. We forced her in this assembly, our MLAs sat for two days and two nights on the floor of the house to demand that farm loan waiver announcement.
Thapar: What about the fact that yesterday, that is to say on Thursday, Vasundhara Raje passed another bill, increasing reservations for OBCs and a result, total reservations are now over 50%. The bill maybe challenged in court, arguably it could be chucked out. But that’s another matter. The bill has given a very clear message to the Gujjars who have been demanding reservations now for over 10 years. That Vasundhara Raje is going out of her way to help them.
Pilot: By the way, this is the second or third attempt she’s made. People are not going to take these false messages, we all want every community to get adequate space and, and representation, the fact is that when you do the same law that was passed by the assembly, three times it’s been struck down. Three times! Forget about what I am saying, it is the BJP MLAs saying this.
Thapar: But look at her persistence, she has now done it for a fourth time
Pilot: But do it right! Why keep doing it the wrong way, just to give a message but not actually have it on the ground? If you really want to benefit those communities, you find a legal solution which will not be challenged in court
Thapar: But she believes that she has actually done it right. Because previously, when the bill was struck down, it was struck down on the basis that there was no scientific argument for expanding the reservations for the Gujjars and other OBCs. Now, she’s had a commission go into it, the commission report has recommended it. She believes, this will now go through.
Pilot: Let me tell you, first of all. Karan ji, the entire assembly is 200 members. Every single member has supported each time the bill has come to the floor of the house. It is not a political issue at all now. The point is that if the government has the intent, they will find a legal solution to do this because we all know the writing on the wall.
Thapar: And you’re saying that she hasn’t made an effort to find it, or you’re saying that there is no–
Pilot: If you read the bill, the BJP MLAs themselves are saying this is eyewash. Forget about what I am saying.
Thapar: In other words, this bill is not a proper bill because it hasn’t made that extra effort, to find a proper legal solution. You’re saying, you’re saying that there is a legal solution but she hasn’t found it.
Pilot: I think, Karan, I am hopeful that it will pass through legal scrutiny. But past experiences have shown us that it’ll probably won’t be, and that, I think, is a problem, not just for her and our government, but for the state. Because time and again you’re raising expectations, passing infructuous bills that get struck down by the court.
Thapar: Let–
Pilot: For the fourth time it’s been challenged.
On the Congress’s poll prospects in Rajasthan
Thapar: Let me come back to the question we began this with. Do you believe, you are in a position to defeat Vasundhara Raje in the elections, which are now just a year away? You’ve pointed to distress, you’ve pointed to false promises, you’ve pointed to farmers’ waivers that have been announced but not implemented. You’ve pointed to bad governance. Therefore, you have, you believe, many reasons why people will turn against her. These are reasons that Congress will make people aware of.
Pilot: No, I am making two points, one is the point that you listed. I will go, my party is going to go to the people of Rajasthan, not with the faults of the ruling dispensation. But I am going to go to the people of Rajasthan with the vision the Congress party has for Rajasthan and we will give a very broad and very specific ideas of what we will deliver for the government. It’s not about a negative campaign.
Thapar: You want to do an optimistic campaign, you will also be talking about what you will be promising.
Sachin Pilot at a rally in Jaipur.
Pilot: The Congress party’s vision of Rajasthan. And I think a better governance alternative is what the Congress party will offer.
Thapar: But let me tell you the problem, and the problem is a very simple mathematical one. In 2013, she won 163 seats, which is over 80% of the Vidhan Sabha. Your party won 21, which is just marginally over 10%. For you to now get a majority from that base, you have to win practically five times more seats. That’s an enormous demand. No matter how unpopular she may be, no matter how brilliantly you may campaign, no matter what promises she’s left unfulfilled, for Congress to increase its tally by almost 500% is so difficult, it’s almost impossible, that’s why I say to you, can you really win, next year?
Pilot: I don’t think the numbers intimidate me as much as they intimidate you. Because I have worked there for four years, and not just me, all our leaders in Rajasthan are singularly focussed on reviving the Congress party. I’ll give you a data point, because you are talking about statistics now. In 2014, when the BJP and the Congress fought the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP polled 56% votes, Congress Party pulled 30%. The difference was 26%. A year later, we had the panchayat elections, the Congress party was up 45%, the BJP down to 46%, so the gap was 1%. There have been been five bye-elections in Rajasthan so far, we have won three, they have won two. They have the brute majority of the Government of India, of the Rajasthan government and all the resources and yet, we keep winning by-elections, municipal elections, and, to my mind it’s not just the numbers that you feel are so impossible to achieve, it’s the sentiment, the public mood and the acceptance of the Congress party in the hearts and minds of our voters. I am absolutely confident in 12 months time, when you and I talk again, we will have a Congress government in Rajasthan.
On the various contenders for Congress president in Rajasthan
Thapar: Okay, you may be right. Time alone will tell. But let me reach the second problem, that the Congress Party in Rajasthan will face, and this time, it’s to do with your own continuation, as president of the party in Rajasthan. People in Delhi are saying that when the Alwar or Ajmer by-election is held, Sachin Pilot will be a candidate, undoubtedly, he’ll win and he’ll be moved to Delhi. So the question is, will you be there, next year, to fight the elections, in the state, as president of the Congress Party?
Pilot: I have been now in the Congress and politics for 17 years, Karan, and every time a party has given me a task, I have performed it with full, you know, diligence.
Thapar: I am not questioning your diligence, I am questioning whether the party will take away the task just before the elections. Will they appoint someone else? Because that’s the speculation which you know about
Pilot: You see Karan, we all work within the party structure, and whatever job we’ve been given, i have been doing it to the best of my capacities. That is, i believe, we have 12 months left for the elections, we are working as a team, whatever position, I maybe or may not be, the Congress party stands to win, and it is my responsibility today as Congress president, to see us go through that line. Now, you are making assumptions, about who’s going to fight, about who’ll be party president, I don’t. We don’t really worry all much about that. The Congress party is one strong entity, I am one worker of it, right, and there are hundreds like me, perhaps thousands.
Thapar: That is a very astute answer and I grant you that there is probably none other that you can give me. But let me put it like this, Alwar and Ajmer by-elections will be announced, probably in weeks, maybe at the most in a month or so. If you end up as a candidate for one of those seats, does that mean, that you will cease to be the Rajasthan Congress president. Is that first sign that they are going to replace you and bring someone else?
Pilot: Why must you have such a negative attitude? We have a by-election that is important for us to win, whether the Congress party puts me as a candidate or somebody else, we have to win that seat, and thats a singular focus in my mind today, to win those by-elections.
Thapar: Can you be an MP in the Lok Sabha and Congress president in Rajasthan at the same time?
Pilot: There have been many instances, but like I said, who’ll be the candidate finally, will be decided by the All India Congress Committee, and not by somebody in Rajasthan.
Thapar: I’ll tell you why I am pursuing this point and I don’t mean to be hurtful, but I am being blunt. Because again, you know this better than me, your party in Delhi has been debating, not today, but for several weeks and months, whether you are the right face against Vasundhara in the elections next year, or whether it should be Ashok Gehlot. You are young, you are energetic, you are close to Rahul, but he’s a two-time [CM], he’s very experienced, at the moment he seems to be making all the right moves in Gujarat. What can you say or do to convince the party that the mood is with you, you represent youth, you represent the future. Gehlot is the past.
Pilot: Karan, my job is to convince the voters of Rajasthan–
Thapar: If you won’t convince your party, you won’t be in a position to convince the voters.
Pilot: It doesn’t matter, I think all of us have a collective objective, to defeat the BJP and I think any leader in Rajasthan will agree with this. When elections happen, and we win those elections, the MLAs in the Congress Party will decide who will head the party at that point. It is not important. I have got enough from the party, so has Mr Gehlot, Mr C.P. Joshi.
Thapar: But it is very strange, that if you aren’t president when the elections happen, that the MLAs will still choose you as chief minister. Because that’s like bringing you back through a different route.
Pilot: It doesn’t matter who they choose, we must get a majority. Thats everyones attention and focus today and that’s what the Congress leaders in Rajasthan are wanting and working towards.
Thapar: One last question on this before I change subjects and come to Rahul Gandhi. This speculation that Ashok Gehlot could replace you just before the elections is peculiar, if not perplexing, for two reasons. At the moment, all over the world, young leaders are coming into the forefront, its happened in Canada, its happened in France, it’s happened in Ireland. Right, it’s happened in Austria, where a 31 year old has taken over. Your party is toying, perhaps more than just toying, with bringing Rahul Gandhi to the forefront. He’s a new generation of leader, and yet if they bring Ashok Gehlot to replace you in Rajasthan, what message will they be sending? Suddenly, whilst you are going younger and younger and younger, in Rajasthan, you are going backwards in age!
Pilot: Why are you keen on forecasting about what the party might do?
Thapar: Because everyone’s talking about it. Your party is talking about it.
Pilot: Let’s see what decision the party makes, we have organisation elections going right now, and within a month, we’ll have a new president in almost all the states and we’ll have a new president for the AICC. So let’s see how the party decides to put people in different positions, and I can tell you, whether it’s me, or Mr C.P. Joshi, or Mr Ashok Gehlot ji, everyone is being given a task..
Thapar: C.P. Joshi is another possible candidate.
Pilot: Yes, we’ve all been given tasks to do. By the way, I think the party is strong today, Karan, not just because of me, because everyone has made collective efforts to make the party strong and that’s why we are here today and a better alternative to the BJP. Not because of one, or 4-5 leaders, but everybody has worked together.
Thapar: My last question on this subject.: Are you confident that you will be the president of Congress in Rajasthan, when the state elections are held next year?
Pilot: I am confident the Congress party will win those elections next year.
On the delay in Rahul Gandhi taking over the Congress
Thapar: Very clever answer, but not an answer to my question, but a very clever answer. Okay, let’s come at this point to Rahul Gandhi. Has a date been set, when Rahul Gandhi will take over as Congress president? Or is the best answer you can give me, ‘It’ll happen soon, but no date is known.’
Pilot: Because I think, it’s a very simple thing, it’s not that complicated. We have to finish the elections of our party, before the month of December. The elections of the delegates in the states has already happened, we’ve all passed resolutions, we have to now just figure out the election scheduling for the post of president of the Congress Party which the CWC will decide. I think in a matter of days we’ll have a schedule. And then, you know, people will file nominations and we’ll have a new president.
Thapar: In a matter of days, we’ll have a schedule but literally, 27 days ago, speaking to PTI on the 1st of October, you said and I am quoting you, “The new president could take over shortly after Diwali.” Now 8-9 days have virtually gone by after Diwali, We have got no idea when the new president will take over. Suddenly, your failure to set a concrete date is creating doubt in people’s minds.
Rahul Gandhi waves to party supporters. Credit: PTI
Pilot: Not at all, there is no doubt and please don’t create any. The election schedule has already been announced. The election of the president is a matter of days about you know, you file a nomination, when you withdraw, its an exercise of the Congress party in-house. It’s not some external exercise.
Thapar: I tell you why.
Pilot: I think the time is going to be, I said Diwali because somebody asked me, “is it before or after Diwali”. I said after Diwali because that’s what the schedule said. So we’ll see now in a few days time. So just have patience about the announcements, it’s going to happen very soon.
Thapar: I’ll tell you why people are doubtful, it’s because last year, roughly at this time, there was a lot of excitement, speculation and talk that Rahul Gandhi was going to take over. No date was set and the whole matter fizzled out. Now a year later, we seem to be back in the same position. Congress is talking about Rahul taking over, Rahul no doubt is performing a little better, but again no date is set, and people ask, will it once again fizzle out.
Pilot: There is no fizzling out, and let me explain it to you, the Congress party postponed its election by a year, it’s not about Mr Gandhi himself, the entire machinery was postponed by a year because we wanted more time, and the election is an internal exercise and Mr Gandhi’s elevation to the president’s post must happen through an election, that’s what he wants, as opposed to just being announced by the working committee, which is a fair point. So when the elections get postponed by a year, it’s not just the AICC President
Thapar: But why can’t the elections be held immediately, why are you delaying?
Pilot: They have been conducted, we started in August.
Thapar: But you had a whole year to prepare for it.
Pilot: It’s not that simple, you don’t know the exercise. It’s a humongous undertaking, we started in August and it takes at least 5-6 months to finish elections in 30 states, you know block, district, panchayats, states. It goes on and on. But I think now the culmination of that election process is, is almost done and we’ll have announcements to the election of the president very very soon.
On Rahul Gandhi’s ability to take on Modi
Thapar: Alright, let’s assume that Rahul Gandhi will be the new president of the Congress party, whether that happens in a month, a week or a year. The key question, and it’s one that hangs like a sword of Damocles over his head, is his image, I accept, that after his visit to Berkeley, I accept that after his recent trips to Gujarat, I accept after his rather witty tweets that have attracted attention, his profile is higher, but many if not the majority of India still think of him as a pappu. A pappu is not his case a term of endearment, in his case pappu is a clear sign, that they don’t think he’s got the qualities to be prime minister. People don’t elect pappu’s as Prime Ministers.
Pilot: Please don’t demean the people of our country, by saying that they use those words. That word is being particularly used by the BJP and its hired hacks who sit on computers all day long.
Pilot: It’s something that’s being propagated by the BJP and we believe in the politics of decorum and decency, we’ve never called people names and that’s not what we do as, as the Congress party. Idea is to talk about principles, issues, and our politics and governance, not about individual character assassination which the BJP has perfected the art of. And I believe today, let the BJP answer on core issues, of the economy, the GST, and the money ban, as opposed to talking about individual leaders and trying to allege things onto them.
Thapar: I accept that the term pappu was created by the BJP, but it has now spread across not just the social media, it’s become a part of common people’s parlance and talk. But leave that aside, what the term pappu denotes is the concern about three things, that a) this young gentleman may not have the talent to be a successful politician, he hasn’t shown it so far, number 2) He’s not a great public speaker, public speaking is an essential quality in a serious politician, number 3) he’s not dedicated, he’s not persistent, he often takes a break and disappears. Now, how are you going to change those qualities, that image. Because unless that image changes, people are going to be reluctant, no matter how witty, no matter how clever his SMSs and tweets maybe, unless people are convinced he’s got what it takes to be PM, they won’t vote for him.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi. Credit: Reuters
Pilot: So Karan, you can be as critical as you want to be, but the people of India decide and look at leadership, what kind of ideas you bring to the table and what your philosophy in life is. What your stand on political issues is. One can always aspire for different things in different leaderships, but I think what Mr Gandhi is doing is opening up the systems of our Congress party, and making sure that we are able to be a fighting force. And I can tell you today, the national party that can challenge the BJP pan India, remains the Congress. So every like minded party may come along, but to challenge the BJP in 2019, the Congress party has to lead from the front, and you’ve seen the kind of support Mr Gandhi’s got not just in Gujarat, but in other parts of India, but you see, when people will vote and they will deliver, uh, what we expect them to deliver, you will change those attitudes also.
Thapar: If I understand your answer correctly, not just this, but the earlier one as well. You’re hoping, in fact banking on the fact that the election in 2019 will be about issues and policies.
Pilot: As it should be.
Thapar: The election in 2014 was a personality clash between Modi versus Rahul Gandhi, and everyone says Modi won it hands down. How are you going to ensure, that that doesn’t replicate itself in 2019. In 2019, it is about policies, it is about GST, it is about demonetisation, it is about farmers loan waivers and all the other promises that Mr Modi hasn’t fulfilled. Like the creation of jobs. How will you ensure because Mr Modi might do again what he did in 2014 and make it a personality fight?
Pilot: You see in 2014, Dr Manmohan Singh was the PM of India and the election was fought on false promises. Four years, three and a half years down, today, people are asking those same questions. I don’t think it is that simple for Mr Modi in 2019, to get up and say well, “vote for me one more time because I am going to promise you X, Y and Z.” He has to answer and has to be accountable to the promises he made in 2014. Big ideas, lot of promises, jobs, you know, corruption, inflation, black money, so on so forth, the delivery has been absolutely abysmal…
Thapar: So you’re confident…
Pilot: I am absolutely confident
Thapar: You’re confident 2019 will be on policies, on Modi’s performance, not about personalities
Pilot: It has to be, the economy is in a mess, jobs aren’t being created, every fundamental economic indicator is not looking healthy as it should be, so to my mind questions will be asked. And I think, I think, the people of India are smart enough to realise that slogans and propaganda is just not enough. They’ve got to see delivery.
On whether the Congress can win Gujarat
Thapar: The first test, that the policy issues you intend to raise in 2019 will be effected, is going to be in fact the outcome of the elections in Himachal and Gujarat. Let’s take Himachal first, the polls suggest that BJP could win, something like 47 seats out of 68, which is a two-thirds majority. Congress could slip, to just 21. If that extreme prediction turns out to be correct, you’re finished. That will clearly show, that the policies, the issues, the economy, the joblessness isn’t working.
Pilot: Every state has a different narrative, and Himachal Pradesh, I think the opinion polls today, to base our judgement on what one media report has said about opinion polls is actually incorrect. Let the election happen. In Gujarat, no matter what opinion polls suggest, the groundswell of opposition against the BJP is now historic. It’s never been like this before. Different social groups are getting together to ease out the BJP…
Thapar: The problem with those different social groups is that they have clashes with each other as well. Alpesh Thakore is a rival of Hardik Patel, my apologies. They are not, they are not, necessary collaborators, they are rivals. You’re trying to bring together people, who have different constituencies, different interests, different appeals, and they make clash rather than cohere.
Pilot: No, I think you’re being, uh, read the signs very clearly. The difference anyone may have, maybe marginal, but the main objective is to de-throne the BJP from Gujarat. And that’s the collective objective of everybody who is in the opposition. And those anti-BJP forces are coming together like never before. I can tell you, that the Congress being so robust and active on the ground, and these forces coming together, the BJP will have to work very hard, to get anywhere close to the half mark majority. And I am confident that the Congress Party will form the government there.
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi meeting the supporters during his visit to Gujarat. Credit: PTI
Thapar: Well, let me try and puncture that confidence. Because you began by saying that these forces are coming together, that the BJP will be de-throned and the forces you are talking about are, Alpesh Thakore and you’re hoping that people like Hardik Patel and Jignesh Mewani will also support you in some sense. But once again, look at two polls and not just ones that have come out in the last 36-48 hours, they give BJP a majority greater than it got in 2012, and secondly, and perhaps from your point of view more worrying, look at the vote share. According to India Today, there’s a 10% gap between BJP and Congress. According to Times Now, there’s a 15% gap, those are huge gaps.
Pilot: Listen, first of all, right now, the candidates haven’t been declared. We don’t know what the social configurations will be in these constituencies. And to have an opinion poll, 45 days before polling day, I don’t think people make up their minds that early, in time. So, like I said, time will tell. Let’s not jump to conclusions but from what I’ve seen, what I’ve heard in Gujarat, the reports that we get from the ground on Gujarat, is that the Congress party is in a very strong position to form a government there.
Thapar: Well, time always will tell but it’s that strong position that you claim Congress is in that I am questioning. A) Mr Modi will be campaigning in Gujarat as never before, he’s just not the sitting Prime Minister, he’s probably the most popular electro-campaigner in the country today. B) Amit Shah is regarded as perhaps, the cleverest, most astute election strategist, he’ll be virtually camping in Gujarat. In contrast, your party doesn’t even have a Gujarati face to put up.
Pilot: Did Mr Shah and Mr Modi not campaign in Bihar? They did not do the astute strategising in Delhi? So to say that BJP can’t be defeated is such an exaggeration.
Thapar: But it was a maha gath-bandhan in Bihar that defeated the BJP. Where’s that gath bandhan in Gujarat?
Pilot: There are, there are many gath-bandhans happening at many levels in Gujarat, you’ll see the anti-BJP forces
Thapar: Shankar Singh Vaghela has just walked away from your party, he’s taken MLAs with him, instead of forming a gath-bandhan, you are splintering.
Pilot: Not at all, I think someone who has done this needs to answer for himself. But I am telling you at many levels, the force is against the BJP coming together and that’s why. You see the election
Thapar: Sachin, can I point out
Pilot: No Karan, listen, the nervousness
Thapar: You don’t even have a Gujarati face in Gujarat to line up behind
Pilot: We have three or five or six top leaders in Gujarat who are working together as a team, it’s not about individuals anymore. Look at in Gujarat, how nervous the BJP is, they are announcing projects and showering thousand of crores of rupees one week before the election. That shows that they are not as confident as they want to be seem to be. And, and I think that if the BJP in Gujarat was so confident, they would have had the elections together no, for Himachal and Gujarat and now to put the blame on EC is unfair. And, the Prime Minister and ministers are going there, announcing today, where were they 20 years. Announcing a 1000 crore project today on the eve of the polls is an eye wash. Because you’ve been there for 20 years, what is the need for announcing projects, one week before the poll date?
Thapar: Let me put it like this, you’re extremely confident, that you’re going to win Gujarat, you didn’t share that confidence when you were talking about Himachal. Himachal you said was a state, that you perhaps…
Pilot: You, you focussed on Himachal for 30 seconds and for 5 minutes talked about Gujarat.
Thapar: But let me put it this way..
Pilot: I am, I am confident about both states, and I think we can win both Himachal and Gujarat.
On the selective use of investigative agencies in Himachal and Madhya Pradesh
Thapar: Even though in Himachal you have a chief minister who faces, and perhaps even now even has charges of corruption against him
Pilot: If you see in the last few years Karan, is there any opposition leader who has not been served notice by the Income tax, the ED, the CBI, you pick a non BJP leader who is of any substance, he or she has been hounded by the central government agencies for some reason or the other. I think it’s become, you know, an everyday occurrence. That anybody who is not in the BJP. Let me ask you a question. That, let me ask you a question. Vyapam scam happened in Madhya Pradesh, has the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh been asked one question by any agency? The Lalit Modi scandal happened in Rajasthan, has the ED or CBI asked the chief minister of Rajasthan any question. So they’re working with a bias.
Thapar: I accept that as a politician, that this is an answer that will convince you, I am not going to do what anchors do, which is to repeat the number of scams and scandals the Congress governments have faced, whether the centre or the state, because this is not a question of whataboutery. I want to put something
Pilot: Should the law not be the same for everybody?
Thapar: It should be, and I am not talking about that. I am talking about what would happen, if you should end up losing both Himachal and Gujarat. You’d then be left with, just 5 states: Punjab, Karnataka, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Pondicherry. Pondicherry is not even a full state. On top of that you have barely, 44, 45 MPs in the Lok Sabha. On top of that you have a leader, which maybe, unfairly, but is still considered pappu. It would take a miracle, a miracle for Congress to win the elections in 2019.
On the BJP’s use of the word ‘pappu’ to describe Rahul Gandhi
Pilot: Can I say something, Karan? I am taking exception to the fact that you keep referring to Rahul Gandhi as the word that you used. If that’s the word you want to describe him with, then you tell him all the reasons that you personally believe in it. Either you quote someone who is saying it, or you say that I’ve heard it from someone, but you knew, as an interviewer, to keep referring to Rahul Gandhi with that name, I take objection to that. First of all, there are many names that I can say for BJP leaders.
Thapar: I am referring to him by that name for two reasons, for two reasons, social media calls him pappu frequently.
Pilot: Then, then say that.
Thapar: But, why do I need to say it, you know it, and I know it.
Pilot: Does Karan Thapar think like that? I can think of five names that people talk about Mr Modi, Mr Shah and I have never used those words because that’s not what we do. But if you want to do it on a personal level then you say that, “that’s what I think,” or else you quote some leader who has said it.
Thapar: But I said so, I said quite clearly, the country calls him pappu.
Pilot: Which country?
Thapar: Not the entire country, but vast majority of the country.
Pilot: Do you want to do a referendum of the whole country then?
Thapar: But tell me something, you are bristling at this.
Pilot: Because I think it’s unfair.
Thapar: Is it because it’s touching a nerve?
Pilot: You’re falling into a trap. Not at all, I take offence because I think you are falling into the same trap that..
Thapar: Come back to my question..
Pilot: You should not be falling into that because that’s what Mr Gandhi said, the BJP has hired an army of people who create WhatsApp messages, who do something on social media to create a very and very negative..
Thapar: And the task that is so difficult, is to change the negative media–
Pilot: Believe me, last six months. Social media, by the way is, is a sword with two edges, it cuts both ways.
Thapar: At the moment, you’re absolutely right that Rahul is using humour effectively. I have written about this in the Business Standard and he’s doing it effectively. The problem is if he can do it for long enough and effectively enough to change an image that has been around now for 5-6 years. But leave that aside, my key question was this, if you end up losing Himachal and Gujarat, with just 44 seats, and the leader about whom there are enormous questions, is it not a miracle that you need to win the national election in 2019?
Pilot: Let me ask you, what if we win Gujarat? What happens then? What kind of miracle do you expect the BJP to do? Never should one believe that they will win for all time.
Thapar: So Gujarat is critical to 2019, without Gujarat under your belt, 2019 is not a reality.
Pilot: You can’t write off and you can’t say someone will win forever. I am confident because the BJP has not performed in Gujarat, their propaganda is now falling apart. We have a very strong base, we have worked very hard, and Rahul Gandhi is getting huge traction in Gujarat. And it’s the home state of both the BJP president and the prime minister.
Thapar: My last question.
Pilot: Clearly it has significance, both for Congress and BJP.
Thapar: My last question. Any good politician in your position is bound to sound confident if he’s going to win Gujarat. Are you really confident, or is this something you just have to say?
Pilot: You see, the last four elections Karan, the Congress party has polled above 40% votes. So it’s not that the Congress party, we are in bad shape, in let’s say Bihar and UP, which I accept, but in Gujarat, there is a huge Congress vote bank. And today, the anti-BJP votes are getting consolidated. It’s simple arithmetic, I don’t care about opinion polls.
Thapar: Ahmed Patel won the Rajya Sabha by the skin of his teeth and only because two other people had to be ruled out.
Pilot: But MLAs don’t represent people, right? They’ve been elected to the assembly.
Thapar: But the people are with you?
Pilot: I think the voters are with us and they’ve seen through the false promises of the BJP and they’ll vote for the congress this time.
The introduction of a cow surcharge in Rajasthan means that anyone who makes a lease agreement, loans money or rents property, will have to pay an additional surcharge of 10% on stamp duty.
The introduction of a cow surcharge in Rajasthan means that anyone who makes a lease agreement, loans money or rents property, will have to pay an additional surcharge of 10% on stamp duty.
The Rajasthan government has introduced a cow surcharge on stamp duty. Credit: Reuters/Files
The BJP-led Rajasthan government, in an unprecedented step, introduced a surcharge for cow protection on all non-judicial instruments last week. This effectively means that anyone who makes a lease agreement, or loans money or rents property, will have to pay an additional surcharge of 10% on stamp duty from now on.
The finance department’s decision to introduce this new surcharge draws from chief minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia’s proposal, presented in her budget speech last year, that a surcharge for providing basic facilities for cows will be introduced. She had, however, exempted judicial stamps, revenue and insurance tickets from the proposed order.
Since an additional 10% will be levied on stamp duty, it is being called a surcharge instead of a cess, which is charged by the government separately for a specific purpose.
“In exercise of the powers conferred of the Rajasthan Stamp Act, 1998 and in supersession of this department’s notification, state government hereby order surcharge at the rate of 10 per cent on stamp duty payable on all instruments for the purposes of conservation and propagation of cow and its progeny,” stated the March 31 order.
Interestingly, Rajasthan is the only Indian state to have a dedicated ministry for cow welfare, headed by minister Otaram Devasi. Devasi, who belongs to the traditionally livestock-dependent Rabari community, addresses himself as “Gaupalan Mantri (cow-welfare minister)”.
Yet, one of the biggest incidents of cattle deaths, caused by starvation and lack of care, in recent times has been reported from Rajasthan. Last year, when the media highlighted the poor plight of cattle in the state’s biggest cow shelter, the Hingonia Gaushala, the Rajasthan government was forced to admit that over 8,000 cows had died between January 2016 to July 2016 and that over 1,000 cows died every month during this period.
Although the ministry gets around 11% of the entire land registrations revenue, the state government last year announced that it needed between Rs 200 crore and Rs 500 crore for the more than 5 lakh cattle in Rajasthan, the Indian Expressreported.
Last year, Punjab, under the former Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal)-BJP government, had introduced a cow cess and Rajasthan is the second to follow suit.
The issue of cow protection is being aggressively pursued by saffron groups in north India – recently leading to the murder of a cattle rearer Pehlu Khan in Alwar. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat went on to demand a pan-Indian law for it and the Gujarat government went to the extent of amending the state animal preservation law to include life imprisonment as punishment for cow slaughter.
However, the imposition of cesses and surcharges for it have come into question. Several experts and politicians view this as the BJP government’s backdoor means to advance its age-old Hindutva agenda, and also as a way to indirectly burden people with economically-unsound taxes.
While the BJP leaders have justified this measure as one leap towards implementing the Directive Principles of State Policy, which advocates cow protection, the opposition is not convinced.
A Rashtriya Janata Dal spokesperson saw this as BJP’s way to distract people from actual issues of social justice. “If anything has to be protected, it is the lives of Dalits and Muslims. The government should immediately have two cesses – one that is used to revamp security machinery to protect innocent lives from rogue gau rakshaks (cow vigilantes) and the other to protect constitutional values. As a nation, we are forgetting our past,” he said.
Senior CPI (M) leader Mohammed Salim also criticised the move. “First, they manufactured the hype on gau raksha and then imposed this burden on people. Traditionally, people have been rearing, breeding, protecting and feeding cows without having to pay any surcharge and tax. Now the new brand of gau raksha has actually become a cash cow for the government and many non-state actors. They are only interested in milking the cow.”
While a large part of the criticisms came from the opposition and may be natural, economists, too, have panned the move.
Noted economist and an expert on black money, Arun Kumar, saw the move as flawed. “Putting surcharge on stamp duty does not seem like a good idea. As it is, there is a high level of black income in realty sector. By putting a surcharge on stamp duty, you are actually incentivising undervaluation of property – a huge problem in the real estate market,” he told The Wire.
“There could have been some kind of tax for cow protection. But why did the state government levy a surcharge? That to me is the most important question. I think the state government did this because it no longer controls Value-Added-Tax (VAT). VAT is out of states’ control now. Power of states have gone down in terms of raising additional taxes and fixing tax rates,” he added.
Indeed, the Centre has kept the realty sector out of the forthcoming GST regime. Perhaps, that additional surcharge on non-judicial instruments like lease agreements may prove to be helpful for the state treasury.
Kumar said that instead of levying different taxes, the issue of cow protection should have been dealt at the social rather than government level. “If one raises awareness instead of imposing it on people, many individual organisations may voluntarily contribute towards raising capital for cattle protection,” he said.
A tense neighbourhood and China’s growing security presence in the Indian Ocean have given India and Malaysia much to discuss.
A tense neighbourhood and China’s growing security presence in the Indian Ocean have given India and Malaysia much to discuss.
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak (L) reads a joint statement as his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi watches at Hyderabad House in New Delhi, April 1, 2017. Credit: Adnan Abidi/Reuters
On March 30, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak arrived in Chennai for an official visit following an invitation from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This was Razak’s third official visit as prime minister and an important one at that, given the number of agreements that were signed. Razak next visited the capital, New Delhi, on March 31, proceeding to Jaipur on April 2 following an invitation by Rajasthan’s chief minister, Vasundhara Raje Scindia.
The Malaysian delegation’s six-day official visit to India focused on the close political and economic ties between the two nations. Razak had written exclusively for the Hindustan Times, the purpose of his visit and how the two nations share similar trade, economic and personal or cultural affinities over the decades. But what is really behind Malaysia’s official visit to India?
Areas of cooperation
Razak clicking a selfie with Tamil superstar Rajinikanth at his home in Chennai indicates Malaysia’s conscious attempt to bring ‘the people’ of both countries to a certain level of understanding – that the two nations share close cultural ties, besides trade and economic ties. It was also seen as a move to appease the Tamil community in Malaysia, to suggest that the friendly and familiar relationship between the Tamil communities in both India and Malaysia remain strong. For Modi, too, the appeasement of the Tamil community is a positive political move in the direction of winning over more adverse political opinions, which have historically gravitated to the Communist left (Marxist) in south India.
Jaideep Mazumdar, joint secretary in charge of Malaysia-India diplomatic relations at the external affairs ministry, confirmed that the two countries discussed $5 billion-worth two-way investment during Razak’s visit, in a bid to boost economic linkages between Asia’s third largest economy (India) and one of the fastest growing economies in Southeast Asia (Malaysia). This shows that India is keen on building stronger political, economic and strategic ties with Malaysia, seen as a moderate Muslim nation with a population of approximately 28 million. It also shows that Indian firms have moved to Malaysia in a big way, making it a base to do business with other ASEAN nations. Malaysia has invested about $6 billion for projects in India, and Indian investment in Malaysia amounts to about $2.5 billion. In the defence and security arena, Indian pilots operating Sukhoi-30 frontline fighter aircraft trained in Malaysia between 2008 and 2010. The two countries held their first military exercises in 2012 and their first naval exercises in 2016.
India and Malaysia signed a memorandum of understanding on defence cooperation in 1993 and a Malaysia-India Defence Cooperation Meeting (MIDCOM) was established under its framework. Several MIDCOM meetings and reciprocal visits of high level defense personnel have taken place since. India’s ‘defence diplomacy’ towards Malaysia focuses on developing an integral defence relationship through joint military exercises, training defence personnel and trade in military equipment. India has offered to train Malaysian defence personnel on Sukhoi fighter planes and Scorpene submarines and two Indian naval ships, INS Delhi and INS Kora. India had also participated in the Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace Exhibition in Malaysia. India and Malaysia are also participating in the MILAN naval exercises along with Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand. Defence cooperation with Malaysia is in India’s strategic and economic interest.
Besides a seller-buyer relationship with respect to military hardware, India and Malaysia also cooperate to secure the Malacca Straits. The two countries have discussed the issue of compulsorily piloting the Malacca Straits at the latest Shangri La security dialogue held in Singapore. India’s expertise in maritime security can be useful for protecting the Malacca Straits from emerging non-traditional security threats in Southeast Asia.
Compared to Malaysia’s relations with India during the administration of Prime Minister Tun Mahathir Mohamed, Razak sees a new and improved relationship, with a new ‘high’ in the areas of infrastructure development, student exchange and the like. The two nations also agreed to revitalise the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA), as well as to be more proactive in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
Stressing the need for freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea, Razak and Modi reiterated their resolve to fight the scourge of terrorism afflicting the world and the two countries in particular. The joint statement issued by the two sides recognised that terrorism in all forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to peace and stability in the region. The joint statement further said that there should be no glorification of terrorists as martyrs, in a clear signal to Pakistan, which has previously praised Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani.
Overall, the two leaders unanimously declared that bilateral relations are at an all-time high. Using the 60th anniversary of Indo-Malay relations as a strong focal point, Razak vowed that Malaysia would continue to work closely and enhance cooperation with India to ensure that both nations, and the region, would remain peaceful.
What remained unsaid
However, like most official dignitary-level visits and meetings, what is reported of the diplomatic exchange between the leaders barely scratches the surface. There is more to Razak’s visit to India.
Domestically, the repercussions are enormous. During this somewhat volatile political situation in Malaysia, there is a need to apply a holistic approach to governance. A large chunk of this governance involves placating and seeing to the needs of the different races within Malaysia – including the very influential and visible Indians, most of whom are Tamil, linguistically, religiously and culturally. Furthermore, this holistic approach to diplomacy takes into consideration two other important aspects of strategic thinking: first, Razak’s decision to visit India is closely tied to the geopolitical competition between India and China in the Indian Ocean Region; second, Malaysia’s stance as a small power juxtaposed with the major powers of India and China. Both Razak and Modi realise the threat of an encroaching China into the Indian Ocean – but this point was not mentioned during talks between the two leaders.
The Indian Ocean region provides critical sea trade routes that connect the Middle East, Africa and South Asia with the broader Asian continent to the east and Europe to the west. A number of the world’s most important strategic checkpoints, including the Straits of Hormuz and Malacca, through which 32.2 millions of barrels of crude oil and petroleum are transported per day — more than 50% of the world’s maritime oil trade — are found in the Indian Ocean region, which itself is believed to be rich with energy reserves. It is no surprise that Razak’s recent visit focused discussions on defence issues as well. Beijing’s regional vision, backed by $40 billion of pledged investment, outlines its One Belt, One Road (OBOR) plan — combining the revitalisation of ancient land-based trade routes, the Silk Road Economic Belt, with a Maritime Silk Road.
China’s ties with regional states have deepened, including the influx of Chinese capital into construction projects in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Since counter-piracy operations were launched in 2009, Beijing has become increasingly active in the region. China has also undertaken efforts to modernise its military, particularly its naval deployment capabilities to protect overseas interests like personnel, property and investments. Experts also argue that Beijing’s forays into what is at times described as India’s neighborhood are driven by China’s excess capacity challenges — incentivising Chinese firms out of domestic markets to compete in and open new markets abroad.
Furthermore, China-India relations are fraught, coloured by historical disputes and the threat India perceives from China’s rise. Tensions have persisted despite overtures by Chinese President Xi Jinping and Modi. Much of the friction stems from a longstanding dispute along a 2,400-mile border in India’s Arunachal Pradesh and China’s Tibet, and the legacy of the 1962 Sino-Indian War along the Himalayan border.
The expansion of a Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean has heightened India’s concerns. Beijing says its activities are commercially motivated and intended to better protect its interests and people abroad. However, Brahma Chellaney of the Center for Policy Research argues that the Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean and elsewhere is consistent with Xi’s intention of making maritime power central to achieving Chinese dominance in Asia. In order to assure its own survival as a state, Malaysia as a small power, needs to further engage with India in the larger strategic context, to balance China’s growing security presence in the Indian Ocean.
To sum up, Razak’s visit to India was clearly more than the signing of MOUs worth billions of dollars. Both nations reiterated the importance of fighting terrorism, betraying a smoke screen for a deeper undeclared ‘war’ against China’s strategic encroachment into the Indian Ocean region. Both India and Malaysia made it a point to say that they should identify, hold accountable and take strong measures against states that encourage, support and finance terrorism. The message was meant for Pakistan, although it was not explicitly named. Indirectly, China is also implicated as a major power which strategically supports Pakistan and other littoral states in the Indian Ocean, such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar.
Sharifah Munirah Alatas is a senior lecturer, Strategic Studies and International Relations Cluster, National University of Malaysia.
