Gujarat elections 2017 - facts & future

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is India’s most successful politician of the 21st century did not have a challenger, either from within the party or outside it. Barring the few stubborn states he had smashed the opposition in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Apart from hiccups in Delhi and Bihar, the prime minister was on a one-man charm offensive as he stormed state after state. The most stunning were the victories in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Assam, in the first half of 2017. Now, he has retained Gujarat and won Himachal Pradesh, taking the NDA kitty to 19 states.

• In Gujarat, Modi has been challenged by Rahul Gandhi, the politician whom the BJP ridiculed most.
• In narrow defeat, Rahul has become the principal challenger to Modi. It is a challenge which will be repeated in different parts of the country through the next 18 months - the two parties face off in eight states, culminating in 2019 General Elections.
• In Gujarat, Rahul took on the Modi magic, exploiting the frustrations and grievances. While Modi sweated in over 40 campaigns and 90 road shows, Rahul, in the company of 3 young turks, was at ease engaging people and pointing out Modi's all round failures. Rural Saurashtra responded.
• In Gujarat, BJP won 99/80 against Congress with 3 others. Total 182.
  (BJP 115, Congress 61, Others 6 in the outgoing Assembly)
• It is neither a victory for BJP, nor is a defeat for the Congress. While tense Modi stands diminished, confident Rahul stood taller.
• Congress party’s vote percentage when compared with the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 increased from 33.5% to 41.5%, whereas that of the BJP dropped from 60% to 49%.
• In 16 seats, the Congress lost by a margin of less than 3,000 votes. 
• If the four major cities of Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot are kept out, Congress won 71 seats against the BJP’s 53.
• BJP was completely wiped out in 5 of 33 districts in Gujarat.
• It was a huge gambit for Rahul as he took on Modi directly in Gujarat, where the prime minister has a cult following.
• Even in defeat, Rahul Gandhi has got an enhanced stature, and the Congress has got a morale booster as it prepares to take on the BJP in a direct contest in the upcoming assembly elections.
• Now the BJP has to stop dreaming about a Congress-mukt Bharat.
• Gujarat is a reminder to Rahul Gandhi of the main problem facing the Congress - a weak organisation and an uninspiring state leadership. 
• Modi has a credibility problem. What ever he says, his forces, his organisation repeats that. But the country is not listening to it - said Rahul Gandhi, in his first comments on the poll verdict.
• BJP trolls in social media has become much weaker with Modi's autocratic tendencies and failures whereas Congress became much stronger and aggressive.
• “The tide is turning for the prime minister and the BJP. Modiji’s home state has made this clear. The anger and dissatisfaction on the ground was so palpable,” said Mahila Congress president Sushmita Dev, MP.

Modi saddled with cosmetic successes and all round failures - demonetisation's bad effects still lingering, badly rolled out GST unlikely to produce any worthwhile success in next 18 months, agrarian distress, unemployment, inflation, oil prices rising, economic indices worse than 2014, sinking PSU banks, CBI court acquitting UPA in 2G scam completely and so on effecting all sections of population and his magic fast fading out, winning 8 state elections in 2018 and general elections 2019 won't be easy for him, especially with Rahul Gandhi shaping up well while Modi's authoritarian & arrogant tendencies becoming a point of discontentment. BJP insiders including cabinet ministers wished victory for Congress in Gujarat so that Modi will start learning walking on the ground.The budget 2018 and 2019 will surely be welfare & rural oriented but without much money available these might not get him desired results.

BJP wins Gujarat & HP without shine & bragging rights

 

  

• BJP winning (1) Gujarat six times in a row and (2) winning Himachal Pradesh, ousting Congress, with a 2/3 majority is by no means a small achievement for Modi but what is lacking is its shine and bragging rights.
• With 49.1% of the vote, the BJP lost 10 percentage points from its 2014 Lok Sabha tally.
• NOTA grabbed over 5.5 lakh votes, or just under 2% of the votes polled.
• Gujarat voters have handed the BJP its sixth straight victory, but tempered the win by reducing its majority to 99 – its lowest tally since 1995.
• The ruling BJP won 36 of the total 40 seats spread in six major cities and that saved the day for the BJP in the tight contest between PM Modi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi.
• CM Vijay Rupani and DyCM Nitin Patel won their seats while five serving Ministers and Assembly Speaker Ramanlal Vora were defeated.
• The PM Modi’s 20-minute speech reflected his worries and the party’s vulnerabilities despite the victories.
• Though BJP has won despite the anti-incumbency factor, the State polls turned into a photo finish unlike the landslide and much below the BJP’s target of winning 150 seats. Saurashtra, the BJP’s stronghold since 1995, dealt the party a big blow, as the Congress won 30 out of 54 seats in the region.
• In Saurashtra's 11 districts, the BJP got nearly wiped out in 5 districts.
• Most of Modi's speeches at rallies focussed on divisive themes. Mandir-Masjid, Mughals, Pakistan, Ahmed Patel, Salman Nizami, etc., he practised classic dog-whistle politics that might have stoked passions among some sections of the electorate.
• Whatever the BJP leaders may say, the victory by an extremely slim majority and well short of its aim of 150+ seats is a setback.
• With the kind of spirited fight provided by Congress, BJP's proclaimed goal of a “Congress-mukth Bharat” suffers severe set back.
• In Himachal Pradesh, despite the big win, the BJP faced the ignominy of seeing its chief ministerial candidate, Prem Kumar Dhumal, lose to his Congress rival.
• BJP may be tempted to believe that neither demonetisation nor the flawed roll-out of the GST regime has dented its support among traders and the middle class. But the heart-stopper in Gujarat has given enough reason for it to rethink, do a reality check and reconnect with the remoter parts of India.

Notwithstanding the fact that BJP won Gujarat elections 99/80 defeating Congress, the truth is that Modi has addressed 34 rallies & 97 road shows campaigned like a CM not as a PM, never mentioning any of his development schemes but relied entirely on divisive & religious polarisation, Pakistan, Mughals, Muslims, Mandir-Masjid, abusing Congress leaders and arousing passions etc. Modi did everything like a street politician to win elections forgetting that he is holding office of PM and is oath bound to uphold its dignity and sweated like never before. On other hand Rahul Gandhi, in the company of 3 young turks, was at ease engaging people questioning ruling party of its failures, visiting temples, raising concerns of agrarian distress, unemployment, failed demonetisation and GST etc. While Modi was assisted by his entire central cabinet & several other BJP leaders from other states Rahul Gandhi was virtually alone. Modi put Gujarat above nation by postponing parliament's winter session and condensing its duration so that he could campaign more in Gujarat. Modi subverted EC by influencing it in delaying announcing poll schedule to enable his announcing sops to Gujarat. The kind of money spent for BJP's campaigning and liquor flowing in this dry state has dented his claim as crusader against corruption and black money. Modi's spectacular show in riding the sea plane (specially flown from Karachi for this show) a day before campaign ended is in violation of his own security protocol. Modi’s penchant for style and no substance has a chilling similarity with Mussolini’s Fascist Italy with less concerns for efficient governing of people in solving their economic problems but focused more on the spectacle of power, on the visual and impressive display of symbols, myths and rituals. With BJP winning 99/80 against Congress Modi diminished himself while Rahul Gandhi stood taller posing as a challenger for 2019 general election while his dream of  “Congress-mukth Bharat” stands buried. Like any other programmable computers, tampering EVMs is neither easy nor very difficult and its alleged tampering by BJP will never be known. The talk of the town is that many Modi's cabinet colleagues silently wished defeat of BJP in Gujarat so that he starts learning to walk on the ground. In order to preserve our democracy it is necessary to have a narrow & rigid election campaigning code and also prohibit constitutional office bearers taking up any assignment for a period of two years after retirement.

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.