November 27, 2019
India’s ruling Bhartiya Janta Party’s Image Is Sinking
Syed Rifaquat Ali
The people of India gave a massive mandate to Bhartiya Janta Party in the general election, held in mid-2019, and the Party returned to power at the Centre for the second successive time.
In 2014 general election, BJP overran the formidable Congress Party which had ruled the country since India became Independent.
The first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, ruled for seventeen long years. His daughter then wore the mantle of premiership for sixteen long years after Lal Bahadur Shastri, who took over from Jawaharlal Nehru, died in mysterious circumstances in Tashkant.
During the course of my interview with Shastri's wife, Lalita Shastri, I had raked up the issue of Shastri's death in Tashkant. Lalita Shastri told me that "Shastriji's death is a mystery till date."
When Indira Gandhi was assassinated by Beant Singh at her residence due to her wayward policy of invading the Golden Temple in Amritsar through Bluestar Operation, her son Rajeev Gandhi, a pilot, was hoisted as the prime minister by the president of India, Giani Zail Singh.
Rajeev Gandhi too was assassinated in South India for his involvement in Lankan politics. So the Congress Party had a marathon inning in ruling the country and people desperately wanted a change.
Narendra Modi, India's Maverick prime minister, who was the mastermind behind the killings of over two thousand Muslims in Gujarat, took advantage of Congress Party's sulking image, and through his communal overtones won triumphantly in the 2014 general election to attain the crown of premiership, albeit his sullied image in Gujarat coaxed BJP stalwart Atal Behari Vajpayee to despatch Lal Krishan Advani, BJP veteran, to Gujarat to compel Narendra Modi to step down as chief minister of Gujarat for his evil deed in the massacre of Muslims.
Modi's image had taken such a beating that he was hated internationally too, which is evident from the fact that USA had banned his entry in America for ten years.
Knowing that his image was at a low key due to Gujarat riots, he played the communal card by way of assuring the Hindus of construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya and his belligerent and hostile policy towards the adversary country Pakistan, if he came to power at the Centre.
The gullible voters in both urban and rural areas fell in Modi's trap and a Modi wave swept the North India in the 2014 general election.
How foolish are the Indian people that in the words of former Justice of Supreme Court of India, Markanday Katju, "they worship Ram who was just a prince of Ayodhya and not a god."
Modi's focus has been only on playing with the sentiments of millions of uneducated rustic Indians and not on developing the economy through trade and agrarian reforms and creating jobs and so forth.
His policy smacks of cockeyed planning as evident from the fact that he has signed an agreement for a bullet train in India with Japan, and is not bothered about the outdated equipment in the railways as BBC has reported, resulting in frequent train accidents.
Similarly, on the one hand the youth of India are struggling for jobs, the BJP government is spending billions of rupees in building statues and mandirs.
The Sardar Patel statue, one of the highest in the world, built recently in Gujarat near river Narmada, cost the government Rs.3000 crores.
And now the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya will come up through the courtesy of Supreme Court which toes the government line involving billions of rupees.
The biased Supreme Court 5-member bench gave the verdict in Ram janambhomi-Babri Masjid case in favour of the Hindus on the basis of faith and not facts which has enraged the Muslim as also non-Muslim communities.
After the verdict was announced early this week, India's legal luminary Rajeev Dhawan, representing the Sunni Waqf Board said that the verdict is based on faith and not on facts and the judges posed all questions only to the Sunni Waqf Board and no questions to the opposite side.
People in India are sore that democracy in India is fading rapidly at the behest of Modi government. Anyone asking a question or countering the government on national and international issues is dubbed as anti- national.
BJP's poor show in Maharashtra and Haryana assembly elections recently is an indication that BJP's image is sinking. Congress relegated BJP to second place last year in the state assembly election in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhatisgarh.
And now the Congress is playing a key role in Maharashtra along with the Nationalist Congress Party and Shiv Sena which indicates that BJP's image is sinking for sure. The Modi Magic is no more working and the future of BJP looks bleak.
Syed Rifaquat Ali is Sydney-based journalist.
The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
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