BJP Future - 7

[Guest]

[url="http://www.hindustantimes.com/Expelled-Jaswant-Singh-rejoins-BJP-says-feels-good-to-be-back/H1-Article1-562420.aspx"]Jaswant Singh rejoins BJP, says good to be back[/url]

[Guest]

[quote name='ramana' date='22 June 2010 - 02:37 AM' timestamp='1277153955' post='107110']

What is happening in Bihar?

[/quote]

Nitish is very good in showing his mother-in-law tantrums.



Picture with Modi means he can lose Muslims/Bangladeshi votes.

[ramana]

Not likely....



Pioneer reports

Thursday, June 24, 2010





BJP, JD(U) bury hatchet



PNS | New Delhi



After nearly 10 days of brinkmanship, the BJP and Janata Dal(United) seemed ready to set aside their differences and make a new beginning in their relationship in the run-up to the Assembly polls six months from now.



With the BJP taking strong exception to news reports that JD(U) wants Narendra Modi and Varun Gandhi out of Bihar campaign, the JD(U) denied having set any such condition.



“We have not set any such condition for the alliance to continue. The reports are baseless.



Of course, Nitish is our leader and he would lead the campaign,” JD(U) general secretary-cum-spokesman Shivanand Tiwary told The Pioneer on Friday.



On its part, the BJP said it was “quite obvious” that Nitish would be the face of the campaign. “The Chief Minister of a State is obviously the face of the campaign in that part of the country. It is the case with Narendra Modi in Gujarat, Prakash Singh Badal in Punjab and Nitish Kumar in Bihar. There is no confusion about it,” BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar said.



“Sharad Yadav and Nitish Kumar have not said anything on who should campaign and who should not. And even if such a condition is laid down (by JD-U) we will not accept,” Javadekar said.



Sources claimed senior BJP leaders Arun Jaitley and M Venkaiah Naidu have conveyed to Nitish Kumar and JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav that such conditions were not acceptable to it and that the party would decide who its campaigners would be.



While even Bihar unit of BJP is not keen to rope in Modi in the campaign, it is upset with JD(U) for going overboard in taking an anti-Modi stand and putting the BJP in an awkward situation.



Besides, some BJP leaders feel the party had given a free run to Nitish in the last four-and-a-half years and there should be a “check and balance” system in place.



Suggestions to have a common minimum programme and a coordination committee to oversee the functioning of the alliance Government in the State was also made during the last night meeting between BJP president Nitin Gadkari and the core group of Bihar BJP. Though, there was a general consensus that alliance should continue in the interest of the State.



“Gadkari has conveyed to us that he would keep our sentiments in mind before taking a final call on this matter,” a senior leader from Bihar told The Pioneer. BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar said the party would come out with “a comprehensive and good reply” to all questions (about fate of the NDA in Bihar) in next 24 hours.



While the State unit of the party appeared keen on continuing alliance, it was “hurt” with Nitish’s decision to return Rs 5 crore of flood relief fund to Gujarat. This issue also figured during the last night meeting.



“The BJP and JD(U) are keen to run a good Government and serve the people. That unfortunate incident (involving the advertisement showing Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and Modi and the reaction of Kumar) was avoidable,” M Venkaiah Naidu told reporters here on Wednesday.



“We do not know the reason why Rs 5 crore was returned. The money does not belong to Narendra Modi and it was not given to Nitish Kumar.... We don’t know why it was returned. We are hurt by that,” Naidu said, adding the money belonged to the people of Gujarat and was given to Bihar for flood relief.



BJP spokesperson and former Union Minister Shahnawaz Hussain echoed similar views in saying, “We want to continue with the coalition for the development of Bihar but will not compromise on self-respect.”

[ramana]

INC attack dogs could manipulate the Karnataka Lok Ayukta resignation into a mini crisis.

[ramana]

[quote name='ramana' date='24 June 2010 - 09:15 PM' timestamp='1277413625' post='107169']

INC attack dogs could manipulate the Karnataka Lok Ayukta resignation into a mini crisis.

[/quote]





Didnt take too long!



Google cache on news stories

[Guest]

[url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/NDA-will-return-to-power-in-2014-Nitin-Gadkari/articleshow/6127058.cms"]NDA will return to power in 2014: Nitin Gadkari[/url]

[Capt M Kumar]

In comments that could stoke a controversy, Gadkari thundered at a BJP rally in Dehra Dun last night asking Congress leaders "Is Afzal Guru the son-in-law of Congress? Have you(Congress) given your daughter to him(Afzal). Why is he being given special treatment?"



Congress reacted with disdain to Gadkari's remarks saying he has lost his mind and scoffed at the BJP chief.



When asked by reporters today whether he would apologise for his controversial remarks, Gadkari said he stuck to his stand.



"I have said nothing wrong. I stick to my stand and so there is no need (to apologise)," Gadkari told reporters in Dehra Dun. http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/...ssindia%29

[Capt M Kumar]

'Punjab and Haryana are not regions new to floods, preventive mechanism is what is needed,' BJP national secretary Navjot Singh Sidhu, known for his one liners, told reporters, adding 'better prevent and prepare than repent and repair'.



Addressing the media, BJP national secretary Captain Abhimanyu said: 'This is not a natural disaster but a man made disaster and this is primarily because of the callous attitude of the government.' http://newshopper.sulekha.com/punjab-har...193685.htm

[ramana]

Op-ed Pioneer, 18 July 2010



Free media tars RSS with fiction



Read comments

AGENDA | Sunday, July 18, 2010 |





‘Free’ media tars RSS with fiction



Kanchan Gupta



Interviewing prospective students for a media school can be a useful experience. It provides you with an insight into how media is perceived among the young who shall inherit the world from us. I usually begin by asking the applicants whether they want to pursue a career in print journalism or in the audio-visual media. During one such interview recently, a young woman told me, “I want to join a news channel.” And do what? “I want to become an anchor.” Why? “I have many things to say and as an anchor I can say anything I want.” What makes you think so? “I watch television regularly. I know.” And why do you think you can actually say whatever you want? That left her slightly flustered. “But we have freedom of expression, right? And media is free in our country, right?” I seemed to have planted doubts in her mind and she wanted me to disabuse her of them. I asked her to tell me about her other interests in life.



I was reminded of that conversation on Friday evening when editors of television news channels, feigning great outrage, queued up to condemn the smashing of glass panes and upturning of potted palms in the lobby of Videocon Tower in Delhi, where the offices of Headlines Today, Aajtak and Mail Today are located, by a crowd of people protesting against the ongoing campaign of calumny against the RSS which is being accused of promoting ‘Hindu terrorism’. The violence was uncalled for, unfortunate and unacceptable. The protest could have been peaceful. Indeed, those leading the protesters should have ensured that no damage was caused on account of the demonstration. Having said that, let us look at what was said in condemnation by editors of other channels.



“This is an attack on freedom of expression. The media is being muzzled. Ideas must be combatted with ideas, not violence. It is despicable and deplorable,” said a news channel editor, virtually frothing at the mouth. Others pitched in with elaborate denunciation of “goons” and “hooligans” — the protesters did not look like either category of social malcontents — and condemned the attack. What was most amusing was to see Ms Ambika Soni, Minister for Information & Broadcasting, waxing eloquent on how the cherished values of our democracy are under assault. Ms Soni heads a Ministry which is a relic of our fake Socialist past when the Government controlled newspapers (there were no news channels then) and information flow by adopting strong-arm tactics — newspapers critical of the Government were denied newsprint quota — and by regulating the release of advertisements — obedience fetched you a greater share. More importantly, her entry into politics was through Sanjay Gandhi’s Youth Congress during the Emergency, when all freedoms and rights, including the right to life, were suspended and journalists who didn’t extol the virtues of the Great Leader were sent to jail. All that and more seems to have been forgotten.



However, we need not be distracted by what certain practitioners of the world’s second oldest profession have to say in defence of their emulating the practices of the world’s oldest profession. It’s a free country and people have the right to say whatever they want. But what is objectionable is the attempt to disguise biased writing and distortion of the truth as “freedom of expression”. The ongoing campaign of calumny to demonise the RSS and denigrate Hindus by painting the first as a sponsor of terrorism and the second as a community of terrorists is by no stretch of the imagination ‘freedom of expression’. Nor does media have the freedom to malign or defame individuals and then seek shelter in its presumed immunity from scrutiny.



Without going into the specifics of the campaign that has been launched to tar the RSS and label Hindus as terrorists, I would like to make three points. First, neither the stories published by some magazines and newspapers nor the reports that have been telecast by some news channels present even a shred of evidence. What we have read, seen and heard so far are aspersions, accusations and alleged admissions, all of it attributed to unnamed sources in the Intelligence Bureau and the Central Bureau of Investigation. These have been neither cross-checked nor corroborated with indisputable facts. Second, it is amazing that in a country which is supposed to be governed by the law of the land, there should be such organised trial by media which is really trial by insinuation. Years later, if nothing is proved in a court of law, media will conveniently choose to forget that they had already declared individuals guilty of horrible crimes. Third, since when has speaking to someone on the phone, irrespective of whether or not that person is guilty of having committed a crime, a crime in itself?



There is, of course, the other aspect about the IB and CBI leaking like sieves with a billion holes. If the alleged offence of planting bombs in Malegaon, Ajmer and Hyderabad is to be treated seriously, shouldn’t the agencies be conducting their investigations in absolute secrecy? If they must go public with titillating tid-bits, then IB and CBI offcials should formally brief the media on record. If they are planting stories, as they are doing, then this is no investigation but a political conspiracy: The RSS is being targeted to weaken the BJP. The conspiracy to defame and demonise Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has now been enlarged to hobble the BJP at the national level. There are no prizes for guessing who are the conspirators. Sadly, sections of the media have offered to play the role of co-conspirators. During Mrs Indira Gandhi’s Emergency regime, few editors stood up against the criminal abuse of power. Most of them chose to crawl when asked to bend. Tragically, many editors have kept up that tradition, offering space on the front page and time during prime-time news bulletins to the Establishment’s dirty tricks department.



This is not about ideology. Nor is it about political loyalties. To suggest so would be as bogus as those crying themselves hoarse that media’s freedom and freedom of expression are under attack. If anything is under attack, if anything is being questioned, is the peddling of fiction as fact under the garb of ‘investigative reporting’. Had it not been so, our ‘free’ media, a large section of which thrives on ‘paid news’, would have reported that the investigating agencies have failed to come up with any evidence to make their charges against Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and Colonel Srikant Prasad Purohit stick. That the courts have refused to let them be tried under MACOCA, saying there was nothing on record to justify such a trial. That it’s been two years since they were arrested and have been in jail without being prosecuted or formally charged.



Or shall we just burn them at the stake because ‘free’ media has pronounced them guilty?



-- Follow the writer on: http://twitter.com/KanchanGupta. Blog on this and other issues at http://kanchangupta.blogspot.com. Write to him at kanchangupta@rocketmail.com

[Guest]

Prasar Bharati is good tool of Congress to harass anyone, CBI, RAW etc are all Govt puppets. Total useless.

[Guest]

http://magadhstrategy.in/?p=29

[ramana]

[quote name='Muppalla' date='23 July 2010 - 03:49 PM' timestamp='1279899676' post='107589']

http://magadhstrategy.in/?p=29

[/quote]





Could you post the text to help those who cant access site from rozgar locations?

[Guest]

[quote name='ramana' date='23 July 2010 - 12:41 PM' timestamp='1279906417' post='107592']

Could you post the text to help those who cant access site from rozgar locations?

[/quote]



Is Congress forcing Nitish to be part of UPA?



Dalits-16% MBC(non-OBC)-30% OBC(Kurmi,Koeri, bania and Yadavs)-24% Forward Castes-13% Muslims-17%





The above is a rough breakdown of the groups in bihar and this of significance, because unlike other states in India, people in bihar vote mostly on caste/religious allegiance.



So lets look for the locked categories.



As of now, the yadavs will only vote for Lalu Yadav. The kurmi’s will vote for JD(U). The MBC’s (30%) used to be evenly split between JD(U) and RJD, since they never vote for congress or BJP or any other party. But since Nitish is in ruling now and due to some visible progress on the ground, the scribe has enough reason to believe that the MBC vote will be split 20-10 in favour of Nitish. The obc’s other than yadav and kurmi will be evenly split across BJP, JD(U) and RJD.



So we based on the above calculations, we have so far



RJD (Locked): 11 (yadav) + 10 (mbc) + 1 (other OBC) = 22%



JD(U) (Locked): 5 (kurmi) + 20 (mbc) + 3 (other OBC) = 28%



BJP (Locked): 4 (other OBC) = 4%



This covers 54% of the population.



Dalits (16%), Muslims (17%) and Fwd Caste (13%) are the swingers now.



As of now, the fwd caste perceives that BJP is their best bet, due to 2 reasons. The BJP has put the right candidates to support their interests and also because Fwd caste is a power hungry sections that likes to dominate. So they feel that since Nitish is on a winning wicket, and since BJP is in alliance they can cling on to power by voting for BJP. They prefer voting for a nitish ally to cling on to power, because they cannot even imagine voting to a BC caste leader like Nitish directly.



So that settles the fwd caste equation, they will vote for a nitish ally, more specifically they can vote for congress or bjp whoever allies with Nitish. This is nothing new for them, since they have voted for decaded in favor of congress. Since BJP has locked them partially, it may result that, if nitish congress alliance takes place, fwd caste will be split between bjp and congress.



The muslims are in a big dilemna as to whom they shd vote for? Nitish thinks that they vote for him, but they dont. They are also very smart in that way, their leaders tell nitish that muslims will vote for him, so that he does not do anything anti-muslim in alliance with BJP, but they only vote for RJD or Congress. They used to vote for RJD, since congress was a zero in Bihar. But again if congress goes for alliance with Nitish, they will swing en-masse to Nitish congress alliance.



Dalits in bihar see paswan as their leader, they may well continue to think the same, but traditionally in India, dalits have sided with congress except in bihar and UP. So if they see congress coming to power they may side with congress, but it is the same like fwd caste here, paswan may have locked them a little bit too much. So if congress allys with nitish dalit vote might split.



So in essence if Nitish goes with BJP



NItish + BJP = 28 % (Nitish Locked) + 4% (BJP locked) + 13 % (Fwd caste for BJP, if they ally with NItish) = 45%.



But Nitish does not feel comfortable with BJP on many occasions and feels that he can be a ruler of Bihar by himself, so for now, he feels he can get muslims in his kitty by going with congress and then maybe get rid of congress also.



Nitish + Cong = 28% (Nitish Locked) + 17% (Muslims) + lets say (5% fwd caste becos of congress ) + 5% (Dalit vote) = 55 %.



This is what is driving his calculation and congress is desperate to get a foothold in bihar and they are using their power at the center to make a repeat of orissa in bihar. They used all agencies to make naveen split with bjp in orissa and now see the sequence of events in Bihar/Gujarat.



(1) During 2009 elections there was an expectation to bring Nitish into INC fold. The reason is Laloo will never jump to BJP because Ino-Pak stlye fight between forward castes and Yadavs there.

(2) Nitish is trying to get a piece of Mullas so that he can have a better leaverage

(3) BJP poured cold water by sending Modi and indirectly conveying that, if you try to desert us, will make you look anti-muslim.

(4) Nitish thought it is better to stick to BJP or did he fool them and will he ditch them at the last moment.

(5) INC is very irritated at the change of fortunes

(6) It brought out CBI cases against Nisth to blakmail him (stick)

(7) It progressed on Modi using CBI ( carrot to Nitish) and now troubling him like no end to it. At the same time, INC in bihar is campaigning with nitish modi posters together and putting pressure on him to get out of NDA.



If INC does not ally with Nitish, but keep putting gujarat govt under pressure thereby trying to improve their image among muslims, then eventually muslims of bihar will be confused as to whom to vote for, laloo or congress. Muslims feel for other muslims across the globe, so punishing modi delights them wherever they are, but if INC does not ally with nitish they will be confused and in the end their vote will be split and NDA will win handsomely in Bihar.

(8) Nitish may do like Naveen of orissa exactly after elections are declared ( he is already doing by asking about 170 seats)

(9) INC and Nitish will form a grand Secular alliance and get all Mullah votes. it will be Mullah+Kurmis+some OBC to Nitish+INC. INC will get more seats freely eventhough they are bankurpt. Dalits will swing too as Paswan is weak

10) Yadavs + some OBCs + few dalits to Paswan and Laloo

11) Forward castes may swing to INC as well sensing the loss of power. This is the typical behavior in Ganga kinarewale. BJP becomes semi-nanaga.



This strategy is the best for INC to force through the state using Nitish. However time will tell if Nitish wants to fall for this and exit into oblivion later like all those who touched INC as a coalition partner.

[Guest]

Many a times foreign based arm chair analysis for BJP have missed the mark.



After the Gujarat-Bihar tussle(basically Modi repulsion by JD(U)), the BJP has come out stronger. Idea that Nitish is now running out of NDA is not correct. There is a leader in Bihar BJP who opposes the coalition with JD(U). Actually Nitish wants to do joint campaigning with that person.



The prabharis appointed for Bihar (Ananth Kumar & Dharmendra Pradhan) have taken good inputs from others. There have been good surveys. The local Bihar BJP unit has actually liked the help of Delhi team (Usually local units in every party hate the central team for interference on electoral decisions). All these are happening for the last 6 months or so.





The party can also become a big player in Bihar like completely replacing RJD & Congress as principle opposition. The so called "locked" percentage is not the reality.

===========================================================



Few points of some suppoters:



It has almost become a habit of NRIs sitting in foreign lands who are supporters of RSS, BJP etc to give armchair analysis and reports in various party forums & organizations. These kinds of reports/analysis are very much further away from real data or ground situation. This is one of the reasons why central leadership in Delhi doesn't take these organizations/forums seriously.



Some NRIs think that now I have read all about geopolitics & strategy in the internet, read news reports on a hourly basis, has some friends/acquaintance in RSS/BJP circles, I understand Indian politics & BJP in particular. They haven't done a single hour of work in election campaigning or work in party office. Neither they undersand what is the structure of RSS/BJP, its decision making process, nor its weakness/strengths etc.



Also they "worship" false "gods" in the structure. Now they feel a pollster with a South Indian sounding name associated with the party promoted in English media by a Bengali journalist who in turn is a advisor/chamcha of a Punjabi last name BJP leader is very efficient & accurate. They don't know how much mistakes or locha are there.



Another interesting point is that they post bravado in internet and hide in real world (they won't come for a single party work or even for a meeting). They will give the most amazing theories that US government is controlling every bit of Indian politics and US spying apparatus will focus on very single NRI who helps BJP/nationalism. So their jobs will be targetted or their companies will be under tax scanner etc. They attach so much importance to themselves that they should be followed and spied by US Government intelligence apparatus 24/7 basis.



We can actually show their fears are unfounded and show some real examples. Like what happened during California case or a particular NY issue etc. But many have internalised so much negative attitude, its difficult to make them see reason.



Another side point: Rumor mongering & conspiracy theories can take you to some extant in the internet world. Actually it irritates/throws out even the persons whom you are trying to help.



P.S: I don't disrespect these individuals. They have a great love for the country, the ideology which will help it etc. They would have definitely contributed for the nation in many ways. I am only critiquing one of their methodologies.

[Capt M Kumar]

Though I don't agree with Muppalla's write up like you yet I don't agree with your as well. here is the reason: BJP does not have any leader of stature in Bihar. Modi was challenged and survived but that bespeaks of his survival instinct only. Here I agree with you that my viewpoint may not reflect ground realities.

On the other hand, let us move out of Bihar and look at Mayawati who used BJP and today is leader on her own but I don't see any1 in Bihar capable of doing Maya whereas by the same logic Nitish has used BJP and has emerged numero1 in Bihar.

I shall love to have your feedback.

[Guest]

Note: the above post(per ramana's request) and the views are copied/pasted from the blog link above. Right or wrong the anology was not wrong.



Mayawati in UP, Naveen in Orissa, CBN in AP actually won because of post-kargil's BJP wave. These are not some theories but facts.



As long as Nitish makes a sensible calculation, BJP may be safe but see again BJP is not dependent on its strenght but dependent on how BJP succeeds/fails in forcing Nitish to stick and not otherway round.



Naveen in Orissa kicked the BJP's butt exactly few days before nominations day. The game is running sameway so far except that BJP in Bihar is very strong as compared to the one in orissa but on its own they will not win more 40 out of 240.

[Guest]

http://www.dailypioneer.com/271568/Amit-...ys-JC.html





See the last line and compare to magadhnagrik artcle and it is on dot. Timing of Gujarat CBI, Bihar CBI cases are all for stealing Nitish from BJP. That's the game.

[Capt M Kumar]

There is difference between Nitish and Maya vs Navin. Navin is entirely parochial leader; nobody knows him outside of Orissa whereas Maya has declared from rooftop that her ambition is to be PM. Nitish on the other hand may be cherishing similar ambitions which is not at all possible in Congress and there may be outside chance in NDA. The struggle between Modi of Gujrat and Nitish may be around this. Plus there are always unknown factors in any equation(dark horses).

[Guest]

Here is an article from a Bihar's "inde-genious" person. I think it is on the dot.



[url="http://expressbuzz.com/opinion/columnists/rahul-vs-namo-in-bihar/192324.html"]Rahul Vs NaMo[/url]



Aditya Sinha



Express News Service



Every sixth Bihari is a Muslim. (On the other hand, every eighth Indian is a Muslim according to the 2001 census, though some in the community argue that it is closer to every seventh Indian. In any case, ten per cent of India’s Muslims are in Bihar.) The Bihar Assembly polls will take place in around three months, and as always, whoever has the best caste/community combination will win. Incumbent Chief Minister Nitish Kumar tried to split the Muslim vote by attacking his Gujarat counterpart Narendra Modi over a minor matter of newspaper ads during the BJP meet in Patna last month. It apparently backfired. The Muslims are now doubly suspicious of Nitish despite his not-inconsiderable achievements of fast-tracking development and improving security; and the upper castes do not look as if they will transfer their votes from the BJP to the JD(U) in constituencies where the latter will fight. Lalu Prasad has gained. After a year of silently suffering the cavalier treatment by his senior UPA partner, he can afford himself a smile. He now has the edge in Bihar.



This has not gone unnoticed by the Congress party which, like Rip Van Winkle, hopes to electorally wake up in Bihar after 20 long years. It is repeatedly said that the Congress cannot ever hope for a parliamentary majority unless it gets substantial numbers of MPs from the Hindi heartland states of UP (80 Lok Sabha seats) and Bihar (40). Bihar, due to Lalu’s dominance for most of the past two decades, seemed a much tougher nut to crack than UP. Rahul Gandhi’s surprising performance in UP in last year’s Lok Sabha elections appears to have given the Congress a ray of hope.



Given the Muslim voter’s importance in the Congress’ traditional electoral strategy, the party not surprisingly last month appointed a relatively young, fresh face as its party chief: Mehboob Ali Kaiser. And then, seeing how Nitish fell flat on his face trying to confuse Muslims by demonising their enemy no. 1, Narendra Modi, the Congress has decided to do one better, and this is perhaps why it aggressively moved the Central Bureau of Investigation against his close associate and Gujarat minister of state for home, Amit Shah. If the CBI summoned Shah, do not assume this is a logical consequence of the investigation of the encounter killing of gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh, which has already led to the arrest of an IPS officer (Gujarat claims Sohrabuddin had terrorist links, much like Dawood Ibrahim). If the CBI acted methodically, Ottavio Quattrocchi would be singing arias in Tihar jail. And saying the investigation was ordered by the Supreme Court is besides the fact; the ruling party can turn up or lower the pressure in CBI cases whenever it chooses. The summons is simply intended to show Bihar’s Muslims that the Congress is their enemy’s enemy; so the Congress deserves their votes.



You may wonder whether this strategy is any good, and the best clue is in how Lalu behaves. His core combination of the Yadavs and Muslims in Bihar has been impregnable; you could argue that hubris is what defeated him in the last Assembly elections. His voter-coalition has survived longer than Mulayam Singh’s in UP because unlike Mulayam, Lalu never betrayed his voters by getting into bed with Kalyan Singh, the man who oversaw the 1992 demolition in Ayodhya. If he feels even slightly unsettled by other politicians’ outreach to Muslims, he will react. The fact that he has not and that after a long year in sulk he finally allows himself an occasional smile should tell you how good the Congress’ strategy is.



There are also rumours that the Congress may try to woo back its traditional Dalit voters by announcing that its chief ministerial candidate will be Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar. (She can safely be a candidate because the likelihood of the Congress taking the lead in forming a government is remote.) Though she is the late Jagjivan Ram’s daughter and also India’s first woman Speaker, these are credentials that impress only middle-class newspaper readers, not rural Dalits. More importantly, Ram Vilas Paswan is well-entrenched as Bihar’s Dalit leader. This rumour will thus remain a fanciful notion.



The only sure hope for the Congress party is Rahul Gandhi. Indeed, with Nitish scoring a self-goal by bickering with his alliance partner, and with Lalu not participating in the central government (a source of patronage for party workers and constituents), you would think this is the best window of opportunity that Rahul and his party have in Bihar. Strangely, the princeling has of late kept a low profile.



Perhaps it has to do with his 40th birthday last month, when the youth icon holidayed abroad to celebrate his metamorphosis into a middle-aged man. Around that time, The Economist wrote a damaging piece about Rahul and the fact that no one knew about this future prime minister’s policy on anything (although many have guessed that Rahul believes Union home minister P Chidambaram to be “intellectually arrogant”, as Digvijay Singh put it). Rahul’s beliefs are so secret that you would need Leonardo DiCaprio in the film Inception to enter his dream and dig them out. And since then, Rahul has not stirred from Delhi, preferring to meet party colleagues from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu at his home. (It is not known if he accompanied his brother-in-law Robert Vadra to South Africa to watch the World Cup final that was won by Spain, a country that apparently has emotional significance for Rahul.)



Rahul has promised to visit Bihar in late August; his mother will be addressing a rally at Patna’s Gandhi Maidan a month from now. Somehow that does not seem to measure up to the kind of effort he put into UP where he did the occasional sleep-over at Dalit homes. This is a chance for Rahul to show that his party is on the comeback trail; selecting fresh candidates will help pick up a bunch of seats; and the time to do so is now. If Rahul is just going to attend a couple of functions here and there, the equally returns will be equally meagre.



And if that’s the case, then the contest will be simply Nitish versus Lalu. With three months to go, Nitish has enough time to make up lost ground. In which case, the results will show that Bihar was not just Nitish’s win, but Rahul’s loss. Rahul may try and chalk it up as one of those losses like Gujarat and UP in 2007 that did not matter in the long run. But if the voters see it differently, then the princeling’s plan to become prime minister (and one unfettered by coalition allies) will, to refer back to Inception, remain a dream-within-a-dream.

[Guest]

Elections are nothing but with playing with human emotions, like striking the iron when it is hot. All pandering of constituents is like feeding the bhakra for the eventual bali.



Dealing with emotions boils down to shaping fears, desires & honor of humans.



Targeting NRIs with the accusation that they are far removed from the ground reality is nothing but arm-chair critiquing. It does not take a rocket-scientist or a brain-surgeon to figure out NRIs by virtue of being outside India are indeed removed from the reality. But that gives them another angle or perspective.



Ideologies are developed by groups and forced upon the grass-root level. Hazaar ideas will be developed and attempted, not everything will click.



Elections are about calculations and miscalculations, no party ever gets it right all the time. BJP needs good vision and plumbing work to get the message through its system, energize people at the grass root levels. What does energizing mean? It means creating more activists who will stand up for it and speak for the party. Who will come out in droves and vote.



And I doubt if all BJP supporters think BJP will be the cure for all the problems of Desh, a prominent member in another forum pointed out that NRIs could be trapped in such a fallacy. The member has hoary reputation, but still ends up at generalization.