Gujarat Elections: Resurgent Congress

• BJP's formidable election machinery and Prime Minister Narendra Modi would see them through. One of the farmers shot back: But he's not going to lead the Gujarat government. The rest of the group nodded their heads in silence. It is this silence that is worrying BJP.
• BJP's worry is reflected in Modi's eight trips to Gujarat in the past five months. Like an indulgent parent making up for his absence, Modi has been on a gifting spree. He has announced or inaugurated projects worth over Rs 20,000 crore, not counting the Rs 1.1 lakh crore Ahmedabad - Mumbai bullet train for which the foundation stone was laid on Sep 14. The Sardar Sarovar dam project dedicated to the nation and also the inauguration of the first phase of the Rs 615 crore roll-on, roll-off ferry service between Ghogha and Dahej.

• Calling Gujarat elections the mother of all battles for both the BJP and the Congress would not be a misnomer. 
• Anti-incumbency will play a part for BJP has been in power in the state for 22 years. 
• There is the discontent over the Centre's twin economic moves - demonetisation and the GST.
• Opinion Poll in all 182 constituencies of the state shows the BJP bagging 115 - 125 seats and Congress winning 57 - 65 seats. But on the ground, the mood is less upbeat. 
• Rahul Gandhi has seen impressive crowds at his rallies and has successfully tapped disenchantment with the big bang reforms. The BJP strategy has been to carpet-bomb the electorate with development rhetoric. This rhetoric will be lost on the nearly five million first-time voters born after 1995 who have no memory of a time when the Congress ruled the state.
• For the Congress, a fourth consecutive loss in Gujarat will only add to its declining fortunes. But winning could reinvigorate the party ahead of the multiple state elections due in 2018 and the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
• While the BJP has a 48% vote share and the Congress 38%. A 6% swing in the Congress's favour could upset the BJP applecart.
• Clearly the BJP isn't getting the state on a platter this time. This time, it looks like it has its back to the wall, says a political analyst.
• Congress offered tickets to the three young Turks - Patidar agitation leader Hardik Patel, emerging Dalit icon Jignesh Mevani and OBC leader Alpesh Thakore. Thakore had become a hero in his community by running an anti-liquor reform movement under the banner of the Gujarat Thakore Sena. 
• Rising prices and the problems caused by the GST are troubling the BJP in many pockets, with the party not doing enough to remove the doubts of the small businessmen. 
• BJP will have to drop at least a third of its 120 MLAs, particularly the Patel MLAs targeted by Hardik. Though Patels are only between 12-15% of the electorate, there are 44 BJP Patel MLAs and 10 Patel ministers. 
• On Oct 9, Rahul Gandhi delivered a moving speech which drew quite a favourable response. He spoke out against the BJP's highhandedness, manifested in slogans like 'Congress mukt Bharat'. Everyone has a right to be in politics. Why should anyone think of erasing others from politics? We in the Congress never think in such negative terms.
• The impressive turnout in Rahul Gandhi's meetings could be an indicator of the public mood, showing that the public disapproved of the politics of defection played by the BJP.
• Congress party even though lacks a strong state leader to counter the Modi aura sees a glimmer of hope of victory in the absence of Modi from the state and the growing discontent with the BJP.
• The Congress has also played up the tanashahi charge against the BJP. Hardik Patel was jailed in 2015 for 'waging war against the state' and banished from Gujarat. The case of a businessman and party ticket contender after being threatened skipped a meeting with Rahul Gandhi. Such high-handedness is only going to strengthen the resolve of the people to throw the BJP out. The state government is insensitive and high-handed.
• A combination of agrarian stress and the Hardik-led popular movement may dent the BJP's Patel vote bank that swept it to power in 1995. 
• Congress party's social media team racked up some impressive successes against the BJP - a Vikas Gando Thayo Chee (Vikas Gone Crazy) campaign lampooning the vikas plank.

• The real challenge for the Congress is to woo the urban voter. Issues like water, electricity, and the struggles of farmers or tribals don't exist in the cities. In 2012, the BJP managed a near-clean sweep, winning 42 of the 46 seats in 6 cities.

It would better for India, if Congress wins in Gujarat. Then at least Modi will regain senses and rule the nation democratically shedding his dictatorial tendencies. This guy is behaving like erstwhile Nizam of Hyderabad and is unacceptable in this 21st century. He must be dumped in 2019 elections into trash bin.

Modi's thinking big has style and no substance.

• For Modi, “thinking big” is essentially about showcasing “our strengths” [like bullet train] and not necessarily bringing any benefit to the people.
• Modi's another big idea is building a Statue of Unity to commemorate Sardar Patel, India’s first Deputy Prime Minister, and fixing its height at 186 metres, twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty (United States), exposing fascination for spectacle that the politician, termed widely “as the most powerful after Indira Gandhi”, nourishes within his political self.
• Modi’s penchant for thinking big has a chilling similarity with Mussolini’s Fascist Italy is that in the Mussolini regime, politics starts to be less concerned with the act of governing people in an efficient way, for instance, in solving their economic problems. Instead, it is focused more on the spectacle of power, on the visual and impressive display of symbols, myths and rituals. In terms of everyday life this anesthetization of political power takes the shape of a domination of form of visual appearance, effects over the content. It also means that politics ceases to be measured by political criteria. Politics itself assumes the form of an artistic act; to govern means to Mussolini to create a new Nation and a new Empire and Mussolini views himself as the creative soul of the nation, the propeller of new ways of living. 
• Modi and other leaders of the BJP had repeatedly promised, through the 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign and even after the formation of the government, that the farmers’ income across the country would be doubled by 2022. Three years into that promise, while FM Jaitley said it was for State governments to initiate measures to double the farmers’ income, Modi has exhorted cooperative societies to come up with their own facilitation.
• Modi regime has been repeatedly claiming that India’s economic situation is good and that it has the potential to improve despite global recession. But Jaitley had to admit that the economy had decelerated to the slowest pace in three years and that there was a need for more concentrated and specific efforts to revive growth. The demonetisation by Modi in Nov 2016 which aggravated economic deceleration, was strongly denied by government but were eventually forced to admit it.
• RSS has taken note of the repeated reverses suffered by the Modi government.The RSS leadership warned the BJP to be wary of a repeat of the 2004 electoral defeat suffered by AB Vajpayee who faced the 2004 elections with  “India Shining” campaign only to be humbled by a practically leaderless but united opposition. The BJP leadership, including party president and Modi’s close associate Amit Shah, has taken the RSS warning seriously.
• First, they would fall back on their time tested ploy of communalising society and polarising communities in the name of religion. Now that Modi and his Ministry are increasingly displaying their inability to live up to their development vision, they would revive the Ayodhya Ram Mandir agitation for this. 
• The second response would be by appropriating gains made by other governments as their own through clever propaganda and media management. Even as Chief Minister, Modi had shown his mastery over this stratagem when he took credit for the Amul dairy, set up originally in 1946, and nurtured under several regimes, including the Congress but then Modi’s propaganda and media management is what prevailed in the end.
• Arun Shourie terms the Modi Ministry essentially as an event management company where everything is turned into a spectacle for one individual and a clutch of political courtiers.
• The opinion that the ruling BJP in Gujarat needs a booster to face elections in 2018 and that is why Modi inaugurated the Sardar Sarovar dam and initiated the work on the bullet train. But field reports suggest that the BJP continues to be on a strong wicket in the State because of the absence of a cohesive opposition and a popular leader in the Congress.
• New spectacles on display in Sep 2017 are aimed at reinforcing the omnipotence of the big leader. That task is of utmost importance given the warnings emanating from different quarters of the country and the RSS.

Essentially Modi's propaganda machine produced results in 2014 based on anti-incumbency factor faced by Congress/UPA. But in 2019 elections Modi's propaganda machine without any other support might not be able to repeat 2014. On the contrary, one more mistake by Modi, similar to failed demonetization or badly implemented mangled GST and some improvement by Rahul Gandhi & Congress could spell doom for BJP & Modi. Another 18 months to go, Modi leader of a dud team, will surely do one or two or even more blunders because one can't expect Modi doing nothing as he gets wonderful ideas on and often. Modi won't realize that he will do least harm to BJP and himself, if does nothing till 2019 elections.

Sadar Sarovar Dam: Incomplete but Modi inaugurates!

Amid protests and allegations of little work done on it, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, spent his 67th birthday on Sep 17, 2017, in his native Gujarat and dedicated the Sardar Sarovar Dam to the nation. Rehabilitation of the submergence-affected population is about 80% incomplete, but the Prime Minister declared the project complete! 

• The foundation stone of the Sardar Sarovar Dam was laid by former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on April 5, 1961.The Planning Commission finally approved the project in 1988. The construction on the project began 26 years later in 1987, when his grandson Rajiv Gandhi was the Prime Minister. Sardar Sarovar Dam is the most controversial development project of the nation. 
• Sardar Sarovar Dam (1.2 km long dam is 163 metres deep) is the biggest dam in the world after the Grand Coulee Dam in the United States. The project aims to benefit about 10 lakh farmers.
• The Sardar Sarovar Dam has two power houses - river bed power house and canal head powerhouse. The two powerhouses have the installed capacity of 1,200 MW and 250 MW respectively. Power generated from the Sardar Sarovar Dam will be shared among Maharashtra 57%, Madhya Pradesh 27% and Gujarat 16%. The dam has so far produced 4,141 crore units of electricity, so far.
• Sardar Sarovar project was estimated to cost Rs.6,400 crores in 1988. The construction was backed by funds from the World Bank. Revised estimates in 1996-97 was Rs 13,000 crore. The present project cost is around Rs. 60,000 crore. 
• There is no credible assessment of the costs, benefits and impact of the project. Whether the project was boon or bane - reviews conducted once by World Bank and another by Govt of India and in both cases, the outcome was the project in its current form should not go ahead. That answer was available about 25 years ago.
• Sardar Sarovar Project is expected to supply drinking water to 29 million inhabitants across 131 towns and 9,633 villages in the state of Gujarat.
• The project is still incomplete with over 43,000 km of canals (out of total 70,000 km of canals) yet to be completed despite the BJP ruling the state for the last 22 years. All the incomplete canal network of the project are in the drought-prone areas of Kutch, Saurashtra and north Gujarat. The SSP’s basic objective is far from achieved. State government is guilty of criminal negligence for unilaterally reducing canals length from 90,000 kms to 70,000 kms without consulting Narmada Control Authority and truncating the benefits to state.
• Experts opined that if water tables were improved and electricity tariffs reduced, there was no need to build such a large dam. There were other options available. Neither Central Gujarat nor Ahmedabad were a priority for the Sardar Sarovar Project. Planned priority work is not happening.
• The celebrations for the completion of the dam are merely a poll plank. The CAG and Planning Commission had earlier pointed out that due to incomplete canal network, farmers are losing about Rs.1,800 crore every season.
• The Narmada Bachao Andolan led by activist Medha Patkar has claimed that after raising the height of the Sardar Sarovar Dam, about 40,000 families in 192 villages in Madhya Pradesh will be displaced. The government has put the number of displaced families at 18,386 in Madhya Pradesh. 
• According to an estimate, more than 5 lakh families are battling displacement problems.
• The consistent struggle by social activists spearheaded by Medha Patkar on environment and rehabilitation issues to dismantle the project built a huge amount of pressure on the World Bank forced to review the project. On concluding the fact that inadequate assessment had been made by the Indian government, the World Bank cancelled the loan in 1993.
• The 150-km stretch of the Narmada downstream from the dam is now dry most of the year and the claim of 600 cusecs being released is not supported by any clinching evidence. The livelihood of at least 10,000 families depending on the Narmada estuary stands destroyed. 
• In the next assembly elections run up in 2018, BJP will have to answer several tough questions like reduction in canal length, incomplete canals in North Gujarat, Kutch & Saurashtra, illegal diversion of waters in canals, no additional acreage brought into cultivation during the past five years, delays resulting in huge cost over runs with no additional benefits and most importantly incomplete rehabilitation issues etc. 

Modi is expert in chest thumping few positive achievements and never touching any negative things or wrongdoings and manages media to sing to his tune. So far he was successful with his rhetoric, oratory skills and charisma. But he can't fool all the people all the times. He is bound to face music for his lies and misdeeds in Gujarat itself in 2018 and price nation has paid by then is enormous. While selective truth hammering is any politician's trait, but people expect absolute truth from Prime Minister's mouth and truth is the last thing Modi speaks. At the sight of telling lies to public, Prime Minister, Chief Minister & all Ministers must be disqualified from their positions, the rule book should be amended.