Modi is so much vulnerable today

 

Read the source article 

Akhilesh Yadav was first to discover that Modi's winning spree is in fact is defeat of other parties divided. Ahead of Gorakhpur and Phulpur bypolls he reached out to his arch rival BSP Supremo Mayawati for exploring national interest in defeating Modi rather than fighting among themselves. And BJP's 2014 victory of Gorakhpur & Phulpur by over few lakh votes got inverted into defeat in 2018, by few lakh votes in the hands of SP+BSP. Just double digit winning of Gujarat elections and falling short of majority in Karnataka elections and subsequent unethical adventures by BJP, Modi & Co that compelled BJP new CM Yedurappa resign with in 55 hours, left Modi & BJP so much vulnerable they stand top of non performance, corruption, subversion of institutions, economy in shambles, ever rising crude oil prices threatening economic disasters and fiscal deficits makes winning 2019 general elections with just under 31% popular vote share an impossible task, with opposition getting united with a single objective of defeating BJP, everywhere. 

It is worry some for the BJP that the Karnataka setback has shown that the extra effort put in by Narendra Modi by raising the number of his rallies to 21 in the state did not pay dividends. BJP might have fared worse if Modi had stuck to his original plan to address 15 public meetings. In hindsight, it might have been better for the BJP if it had conceded defeat when it saw that it had fallen short of the target of 112 in the 224-member House. Instead, by opting for a floor test, Modi & Amit Shah combine provoked all the avoidable controversies about horse-trading and corruption and to cover up resorted to innumerable lies and lost credibility. Congress party releasing audio clips of BS Yedurappa, his son Vijayendra, BJP leaders Muralidhar Rao and Sriramulu had sealed the BJP’s fate. The potential turncoats in the Congress-JD(S) coalition were doubly convinced that siding with the BJP was a bad idea. With Modi losing his cutting edge as the party's only star campaigner and any hint that he can no longer enable the party to cross the winning line is a major concern when the BJP faces crucial assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in next few months' time. The burden he already carries as the spearhead of the BJP's campaign will become heavier after the Karnataka outcome.

VIP hate speeches rise 500%, under Modi

 

The use of hateful and divisive language by high-ranking politicians has increased almost 500% in the past four years, an NDTV data collection exercise has found.

• A day, or a week doesn't go without some senior politician - a member of Parliament, minister, MLA or even Chief Minister making a hateful comment, be it in the language of bigotry or calling for violence. The rise in use of social media by politicians has only amplified this disturbing trend.
• NDTV collated the data from public record, internet, as well as using their reporters, scanning nearly 1,300 articles and going through 1,000 most-recent tweets of top politicians and public figures. NDTV says that this is not a perfect record, and doesn't claim to be comprehensive. 
• From May 2014 to the present, there have been 124 instances of VIP hate speech by 45 politicians, compared to 21 instances under UPA 2, an increase of 490%. 90% of hateful comments made during the NDA's current terms are by BJP politicians. 
• During UPA-2, 21 political leaders made hateful comments, of which 3 instances (14 %) were from the Congress, which anchored the coalition. Politicians from the BJP took the lead, recording 7 instances of hate speech.
• Of the 45 leaders responsible for hate speech since the Modi government came to power, in only find six cases (only 5% of all instances) of evidence of a politician being reprimanded or cautioned, or issuing a public apology. 95% of the time, the 'VIP hater' faced no consequence.
• In at least two cases, hate speech appears to have paid off. 

1. Yogi Adityanath, the current CM of UP, was a MP from UP when, in Nov 2015, he said "There is no difference between the language of Shah Rukh Khan and that of Hafiz Saeed". In Sep 2014, he ascribed the rise in riots in Western UP to the population growth of a minority community. "In places where there are 10 to 20% minorities, stray communal incidents take place," he said. "Where there are 20 to 35% of them, serious communal riots take place and where they are more than 35%, there is no place for non-Muslims." In all, there are 6 instances of hate speech by the UP CM. All were made before he was promoted to his current office.
2. Anant Kumar Hegde was a BJP MP from Karnataka when, in Mar 2016, he said, "As long as we have Islam in the world, there will be no end to terrorism. If we are unable to end Islam, we won't be able to end terrorism." In Sep 2017, he was promoted as Union Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. Since 2014, Mr Hegde has made seven such hate speeches. Three months after being made union minister, in Dec 2017, Mr Hegde declared that the party would remove the term "secular" from the Constitution, saying "These people who call themselves secularists are like people without parentage or who don't know their bloodline."

• Mr Hegde is one of three serial 'VIP haters' in poll-bound Karnataka. Shobha Karandlaje, a  MP from Karnataka and the general secretary of the Karnataka BJP, has posted at least nine hateful tweets since June last year. Pratap Simha, another MP from Karnataka, has also posted four hateful tweets since September last year. 
• In further proof that hate has no consequence on the careers of political leaders, at least 21 political leaders (or 48%) had recorded more than one instance of hate speech. They were not reprimanded for their hateful comments, nor did they issue apologies. Prominent amongst them is T Raja Singh, a BJP MLA from Telangana, who has repeatedly made public speeches inciting violence. In Nov 2017, he threatened to burn down theatres screening "Padmavat." Since Dec 2015, Mr Singh has made at least ten hateful comments.
• BJP MP Subramanian Swamy has written hateful tweets against Muslims, posting at least 17 of these since Sep 2017.
• The reluctance of BJP to crack down on its hate speech 'offenders' is due to the fact that the its top leadership does not seem averse to playing the communal card, albeit using veiled language. Prominent amongst such instances are speeches by BJP party president Amit Shah, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself.

"If there is a cemetery in the village, there should be a crematorium as well; If there is electricity on Ramzan, it should be there on Diwali as well; there shouldn't be any discrimination," Mr Modi had said in Feb 2017, during an election rally in Fatehpur, UP, in the run-up to the assembly elections that his party swept. 

• During the same campaign, Amit Shah sparked controversy with this comment: "If by any mistake, BJP loses, the victory and defeat may be in Bihar but fire crackers will go off in Pakistan."
• Read the source article for complete list of hate speeches by BJP and UPA leaders.

Read the source article

Hate speeches are the hall mark of BJP's propaganda, especially during elections and during parliamentary debates. Modi goes way beyond others with deep desire to eliminate all national parties and establish monopoly of Hindutva forces paving the way for Hindu Rashtra. He fails to understand federal cooperation with states, diversity of the nation and the need to have balanced approach for unity & integrity of the nation. His facial expressions and body language evidently expresses his thoughts, intentions and actions. With his intolerance, arrogance coupled with lack of skills required for administering a large nation, and India was so much divided today like never before. For the first time since liberalisation in 1992, Indian economic outlook was so much distressed. Modi must be credited with shooting at the Tyres of the racing car (Indian Economy) without having an iota of what he was doing with his hare brained demonetisation and senselessly designed & hurried roll out of mangled GST.

CBI raids NDTV

CBI raids the residences and offices of Radhika and Prannoy Roy on June 5, 2017,
whose channel, NDTV, has been openly critical of PM Narendra Modi.

• According to CBI, it was responding to a complaint regarding an alleged loss to ICICI Bank on the repayment of an old loan to the Roys. Both ICICI Bank and NDTV are private entities.
• NDTV swiftly published a letter from ICICI Bank, dated from 2009, which stated that the loan had been repaid in full.
• The relevant complaint did not come from the allegedly wronged party.
• NDTV has been an critic of PM Modi’s politics and his brand of Hindu nationalism.
• The CBI raid is an act of intimidation against NDTV, as well as against all media outlets that remain critical of Hindu-nationalist politics and the government’s policies.
• The takeover of NTV has, 17 years since that throttled all independent media in Putin’s Russia. CNN, described it as: Pass laws that constrict the space available for independent media. Set legal traps, citing anti-terrorist legislation. Send the tax police to carry out endless inspections of a recalcitrant broadcaster or their business associates, denying that political views have anything to do with the investigation. Don’t kill them, just maim them. Try to squeeze them into irrelevance.
• Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, has followed a similar recipe. Over his 14 years in power, numerous independent media organisations have either been shut down or coercively passed into pro-Erdogan hands. In one case, in 2007, government authorities seized the independent daily Sabah, citing an omission in the documents for a previous change of ownership several years ago. The paper was then sold to a consortium led by Erdogan’s son-in-law. Today, it is an unofficial government mouthpiece. Erdogan's crackdown on independent media, has weakened them to the point where now he has an alarmingly free hand.
• Modi has cosied up to both Putin and Erdogan. The similarities are the outspoken nationalism, the centralisation of power within their respective parties and governments, the abhorrence of independent scrutiny. Where India departs from present-day Russia and Turkey is in the relative strength and independence of its democratic institutions, which serve to check the government’s autocratic impulses. 
• India risks following the Turkish trajectory where media is being controlled by owners ready to bend to government pressure, whether by inclination or compulsion. 
• Proprietors of many major media organisations have significant interests in other sectors like real estate or resource extraction, where official support is essential. The government’s leverage is also bolstered by its share of media advertising revenues from the public sector. BJP-led governments intimidating media outlets by the tax authorities or security and investigative agencies have become prominent.
• In 2001, under the government of AB Vajpayee, tax officials targeted financial backers of Tehelka that  published videos of officials and politicians taking bribes from reporters posing as salesmen of defence equipment. At least two investors and a journalist were jailed. 
• The tax officials also went after Outlook, following a report from the magazine about the undue influence of powerful private companies on the Vajpayee administration’s economic policies. More raids occurred over the next six months. 
• So far, India has been resilient in protecting press freedom because whenever governments have attempted to exert control, there has been a strong collective response from the media, civil society, judiciary and political opposition. 
• But the devolution of press freedom in Russia and Turkey, where strong leaders have rallied support in the name of nationalism, should warn us of early signs to intimidate and eventually control media. The present targeting of NDTV is no less of a provocation and deserves a strong reaction.

My View:

Even if the ICICI bank suffered a loss while closing NDTV loan account settlement in 2009, they never wrote a letter to CBI. But CBI, the country’s premier investigative agency attempting to probe a credit issue between two private parties, now with the heavy-handedness is height of misuse of agencies by BJP. In the past, every government used tax officials and investigative agencies to tame down opposition and opposing media, but present day BJP's scale of misuse is unprecedented. Media houses are experiencing 'Emergency' like atmosphere. And our democracy is in peril!