NorthWest V SouthEast

The BJP finally had some reasons to celebrate after the recent round of elections. PM Narendra Modi who went into a two-week hiding and silence after the Bengal, TN and other elections in 2021, came out last evening with another long speech about how BJP ended caste-politics in UP and other states. BJP had a clear win in UP and Uttarakhand and marginal wins in Goa and Manipur. Their defeat in Punjab was a thrashing but that wasn’t unexpected. Here are the standings at 4pm yesterday and though some numbers might change a bit here and there, the overall winners will not change:

These elections and the previous ones in 2021 have parted India’s political map clearly by regions and we shall see more of it in a bit. These elections also saw the biggest hypocrite and India’s worst abuser of caste and religion for votes and govt policies at his magnificient best. Modi’s policies, personal prejudices and behaviour have surely turned BJP into just another Sickular party. He has degenerated into the worst hypocrite in a desperation to not only win elections but to accuse others of division of society by caste. He uses the moth-eaten line of dynastic politics as a defence of his own casteism pretending no one will notice his stupid hypocrisies. This is what he said on March 2:

Of course, when other parties indulge in caste-abuse for votes, they are doing a “Tukde-Tukde” of society as Modi claims. But when he abuses caste and religion for votes he imagines it’s a form of “Hisab Chukta” or his vague sense of victimhood and justice for the imaginary crimes by ancestors of others. The BJP and Modi have come to believe that they are a well-oiled election-winning machine. That they are too smart for themselves would be obvious in the moronic statements their senior leaders regularly make. In Bengal, Amit Shah grandly claimed BJP will cross 200, so did many others. In UP, they grandly claimed they will cross 300 again. We can dismiss this as electoral rhetoric but the ruling party’s chest-thumping is now becoming repulsive to the voter. And they planned the OBC-appeasement right from July 2021 when the Cabinet reshuffle took place. Since then, a series of dance programs for the OBCs in UP and elsewhere:

To claim they didn’t appeal to caste makes Modi just an ordinary liar and nothing more. If BJP managed to retain UP, it is largely due to the performance of Yogi Adityanath and his strong leadership in the state. While Modi may have played a smaller role, the impact of Yogi’s performance in the state is overwhelming. The BJP numbers reduced by about 50 seats in UP but that is understandable as any ruling party would go through a certain level of anti-incumbency and there may be hidden reasons of disenchantment with Modi rather than Yogi. The SP gained seats from the BJP as a consequence and emerged as a stronger Opposition than before.

This caste-religion-game of Modi wasn’t lost on many observers but he and BJP still live in the LaLa Land of idiots who believe they are smarter than Swara. Then, throw this OBC slush into a blender along with Dalit, OBC, Muslim, Sikh (DOMS), grind the concoction to a pulp and you have the biggest abusers of caste and religion currently in India. As soon as the campaign re-started after a temporary ban for Covid by the EC, Modi quickly latched on to his darling “Muslim Behen-Betiyan” and Dalits. Modi has degenerated so much in his silly abuse of caste-religion that he cannot even see the hypocrisy in his statement in the image on the left. He first says his govt schemes are not based on caste or religion. He then goes on to say that his schemes have benefited Dalits and Muslim Behens the most. I believe if this hypocrite looks into Sagarika’s mirror, the mirror will crack out of sheer laughter at his hypocrisy.

While heading for a rally in Punjab, Modi’s convoy was stopped by protesting Sikhs and he had to turn back. All kinds of silly conspiracy theories were spun, including deeming this blockade as an “assassination attempt on Modi”. On his part, Modi ran to the President to play “Victim” (which comes quite naturally to him). He dressed up as a Sikh, holding hands with some Sikh religious leaders but all his crawling at Gurudwaras, crawling for farmers, invoking Guru Nanak, Guru Gobind Singh, Guru Tegh Bahadur, Kartarpur and his Raja Babu fancy dress runs didn’t pay in Punjab. In a later rally, using Ravidas Jayanti, Modi put up life-size posters of the Sant-poet at his rallies and claimed Ravidas inspired his govt’s policies and that Ravidas was anti-caste. Imagine, the biggest casteist politician in India quotes Ravidas as being anti-caste and therefore his inspiration. Modi’s hypocrisy touches new heights every election season:

While Modi accuses other parties of dynastic politics, his approach with the voters is not very different from how those dynasties have behaved in the past. All of them had a “Mai-Baap” approach with the voters, especially the poor ones. They behaved as if they are the Royals and were doling out their pathetic subjects in their miserable life. Others referring to GOI as ModiSarkar is one thing and not unusual but Modi himself refers to his govt as “Modi Sarkar”. There is a terrible streak of “Me, Myself, I” in this megalomaniac that no one in the party seems to point out to him. The height of such stupidity by Modi was exemplified by his moronic “Modi ka Namak” statement. Seriously, people are indebted to his “Personal Namak”?

The only big gainers in the current round of elections were AAP and Arvind Kejriwal. They made a smashing debut in Punjab with 90+ seats and left others picking up crumbs. While we generally pooh-pooh Kejri, he is perhaps the most dramatically changed and sophisticated politician since his agitational days of 2015-17. He has become a smooth-talker, buys media loyalty with hefty bribes in the form of ads and generally shuns caste-religion dialogues in his campaigns. However, AAP’s win in Punjab is not entirely surprising or unexpected. The profile of voters in Delhi and Punjab is quite similar. Made up of a good number of Sikhs who are disenchanted with both BJP and Congress, a sense of “victimhood” with growing Khalistani sentiments or even Khalistani supporters aided by abundant Doledinging. Kejri seems to cleverly imitate Modi in his doledinging methods. Still, it is unlikely AAP will go much farther as the results in Goa showed they are still stuck. Gujarat will be their next target but I doubt Gujjus will buy Kejri’s snake-oil.

Amidst all this, what is emerging is a political map of India that had the country divided in half by regions. One part which used to accept the Congress as the default party of choice has replaced it with the BJP. In other states where Congress has long been dumped, the regional parties continue to dominate. The BJP holds a few smaller states in the North-East but just one in the South. They got back Karnataka through the backdoor as they did MP. Congress is wiped out from the whole country save Chhattisgarh. As a country we should be happy at the exit of Congress and the corrupt family of Chinese Gandhis. These fake Gandhis have nothing to offer India and one hopes they are driven out of the party for its own survival. There isn’t much change in the political-power map of India after the current round of elections. Except for Punjab, the other states remain BJP-ruled and other parts have regional parties still dominating:

The political battle has become somewhat of a NorthWest Vs SouthEast. The current round of UP and other state elections is not a “Semi-Final” to 2024 as many media morons would have you believe. We have Gujarat coming up towards the end of 2022 and then we have big states like Karnataka, Rajasthan, MP coming up in 2023. Consequently, Karnataka and MP will become the most critical states for numbers in LS2024 if other positions of parties in the states remain unaltered. Only one thing is certain, neither BJP nor any other combination is going to have an easy run to 2024. The BJP is unlikely to choose another leader in place of Modi and I estimate that will probably be their biggest undoing.

For the present, Yogi Adityanath is the star of this election season. The BJP has every cause to celebrate as does as AAP. Though BJP also won Uttarakhand with a good margin, their CM Pushkar Dhami lost. They will have to wonder why because Dhami didn’t really commit any crimes and, in fact, was instrumental in undoing the temple-take over. The other good thing to celebrate is that cockroach-level operators like Asad Owaisi have again been shown their place. The UP elections also show that Muslim votes alone cannot win elections. However, given the appeaser that Modi is, he won’t learn that lesson. One hopes other leaders in BJP and other political parties learn that Muslim-appeasement is not going to pay anymore.

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Unruffled Shuffle

There is nothing a politician won’t do for a make-over when the going is tough. It provides a temporary reprieve from scrutiny of all other issues and makes the make-over the focus and a topic of “new beginnings”. The “Cabinet Reshuffle” is the latest make-over although I wonder why it’s called a “reshuffle” when it is actually the first shuffle in ModiSarkar. There have been some ministers in ModiSarkar who never deserved their jobs in the first place. That they managed 7 years in office despite their incompetence is quite a surprise. One could say better late than never but the whole exercise needs a closer look. At the very start, Modi announced a new ministry for “Cooperation”. This is meant to give a huge impetus to the cooperative movement in the country. Although, other than some commodities (like milk or fertilizer) and housing industry, the cooperative business hasn’t gone very far. Cooperative banks, in particular, have charted a poor record. Thus, this is not the most exciting idea as claimed:

The bigger tragedy of this cooperation ministry is that it has been given to the most incompetent failure in ModiSarkar – Amit Shah. Obviously, this Biskoot has been added to his profile to dissipate the harsh criticism that Shah has been facing all around over his failures. Let’s leave that aside for a moment. According to reports, 43 new ministers have been added to the govt while 12 have been dropped. This means a net addition that takes the total to a maximum permissible limit of around 78. This means that all the pulls and pressures of political and electoral compulsions have been accommodated, especially with the UP elections coming up. Stats suggest there are 20 SC/ST ministers and 27 OBC ministers, so the caste factor has been attended to. There are 7 ministers from UP and 11 women. So, it’s quite a “Rainbow” formation of Modi’s “Garib, Vanchit, Pichdit” class. Take a look at the “dirty dozen” that were dropped to bring in 43 new ministers:

I am sure some of us didn’t even know that many of the names were ministers. Among big ministries, Pokhriyal is stated to have quit because of his failing health. Javdekar should have never been an MP in the first place. Why were RS Prasad and Dr. Harshvardhan dropped? Prasad didn’t do anything wrong but his protracted exchanges with Twitter, foolish police raids and all of it ending with nothing repeatedly damaged the image of the govt and Modi. Constant barking without the will to bite shows the govt as a wimp and though Prasad is gone, ModiSarkar remains a wimp. Twitter has finally told GOI in Delhi HC that it can act if there is some violation and need not go to court.

Harshvardhan’s case is a lot more complex. He too had not really done anything extremely wrong but made foolish statements frequently. He also took battle with Ayurveda which is in conflict with the govt’s own position on Ayurveda. The second wave of Covid caused a lot of damage to Modi’s image. He looked lost – half caught in election campaigns and half caught in ignorance of what was going on. As soon as the campaign stopped, because of a thrashing by the Madras HC, Modi was firefighting for oxygen and other medicines. Coupled with this was the worldwide bad press Modi was getting which the Maida Lump Javdekar was incompetent to combat. Modi had gone into a hiding in a hole for a few weeks and came out only when he was able to announce a new vaccine supply program from June 21. Getting rid of Harshvardhan partly washes the sins of mishandling of the Covid second wave and the vaccine bungling. In short, other than these 3 ministers the other names were not even being discussed by the public.

The 43 new entrants/upgrades come from a variety of domains and experience. 13 Lawyers, 6 Doctors, 5 Engineers, 7 Former Civil Servants and 12 others. Some big changes include shifting of Railways from Piyush Goyal and MSME from Nitin Gadkari. Both of them are considered “performing” ministers so that change is somewhat inexplicable. The other major shift is of Civil Aviation from Hardeep Singh Puri to JM Scindia. Although, a minister dedicated to Civil Aviation is not a bad idea. Following are the major changes with new entrants to ministries that have been re-allocated. While we must wish them well, do not expect great dramatic changes in performance as the top management of the govt and BJP as a party remains unaltered:

TOI reports 42% of ministers have declared criminal cases against them. This now seems to be a standard feature of any govt in India. No govt can be formed without a minimum number of those with criminal cases. There are, of course, caste calculations with 20 SC/ST and 27 OBCs included in what is now a giant ministry with 78 ministers in total. There are also 11 women in the ministry. But a closer look reveals that all the key ministries remain with the old hands barring a few here and there. The new ones are mostly allocated ministries of lesser lipstick or flamboyance. The two most incompetent ministers in ModiSarkar continue to retain their jobs and in one case a new ministry has been added as a reward for the incompetence – Amit Shah and Nirmal Sitharaman.

Amit Shah is easily the most incompetent and most dispensable of the ministers in the Cabinet. His performance is shameful and law and order in the country has gone to dogs under him. The only reason he survives is by hanging on to the kurta-tail of Modi otherwise Shah causes the most damage to ModiSarkar with his incompetence. The most pathetic of Shah’s conduct is eating with the ones he claims to stand with and then dumping them when they are under attack in Bengal. I hold him directly responsible for allowing the continuous murder of Hindus in Bengal (along with Modi). This man doesn’t deserve to be anywhere near power:

India also deserves a better Finance Minister instead of the clerical worker that Nirmala Sitharaman is. NS has neither the qualification nor the experience that could help her be a successful FM. While that could be overlooked at the start, time has proved her a miserable failure and she exists in the post only as a leftover junk of Arun Jaitley. Someone with a better understanding of finance and economy like Gadkari or Goyal would have been more suited to the role. But those two would obviously not wholeheartedly agree to the “Dole culture” of Modi and Modi also doesn’t want ministers who appear to be smarter than he is. Indian economy is not going to recover for quite a few years despite all the lipstick being applied. With these two non-performers still in place, the country’s overall atmosphere of gloom continues and there is no sense of well-being. Thus, the entire exercise of reshuffle is more a political mix of caste, numbers and whitewash than anything else.

Far from Modi’s grand idea of “New India” the whole economy is now a “Dole economy”. Both NS and Modi grandly claim they are feeding free rations to 80cr people. This only means that many people have been driven into poverty due to the Covid pandemic and Indian population doesn’t have the slightest resilience to a setback. This is in addition to Muslim and Sikh doles, farmer doles etc. With the size of our population, India will never get out of the evil of doles, appeasement and Reservation. The Cabinet reshuffle is nothing but a reflection of this dole and appeasement culture. Nehru still rules India in the body of Modi:

While one hopes the new ministers will create a good impact, there is no reason to believe they will be any different than the others. The problem is not so much the ministers but Modi’s agenda. The RSS talks nonsense and Modi executes it. When that agenda remains, the ministers can hardly bring any dramatic change. Lastly, the Bengal-battering has deeply impacted Modi and the BJP. Their top leaders have been stupidly stunned although they try hard to hide it and their Bhajan Mandli tries to cover up. Within 2 months of that battering, there is a Cabinet reshuffle. This is not driven by great goals but the fear of losing UP, Uttarakhand and Himachal. Thus, the whole exercise of Cabinet reshuffle is one of FEAR. Retaining incompetent ministers like Shah and Sitharaman explains that fear. The reshuffle may be big in size but it lacks in courage.

 

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