Amit Kushari (IAS Retd)
Ever since Narendra Modi was elevated as the campaign chief of BJP the Govt. of India appears to be worried and nervous. They are trying to take every conceivable step to corner this undisputed leader of Gujarat who aspires to be the leader of the entire Indian nation. He is dynamic, youthful and is full of new innovative ideas. Gujarat has progressed immensely under his leadership and he simply cannot be defeated electorally in Gujarat. Whether his magic will work in the whole of India or not is yet to be seen. He acquired a communal tag in 2002 after the Gujarat riots and the Congress will not let India forget it for years to come so that Muslims do not vote for him. In Gujarat, however, the Muslims have started voting for him again because they have also benefitted so immensely from his development agenda.Congress, however has been highlighting that development in the Muslim areas of Gujarat is far less comparatively.
Now a police encounter of 2004 is being highlighted in which four young persons were killed by the Gujarat police for being terrorists — operatives and ‘fidayeens’ of the Lashkar-e-Toiba of Pakistan. The CBI which is known as a ‘caged parrot’ of the Govt. of India is carrying out an enquiry in this matter and they have found that all four of them were actually killed in cold blood.The Director of CBI has said that even if they were terrorists, they should not have been killed without going through the legal procedures in court. Now reports are pouring in from many quarters that all four of them were dreaded terrorists and if they had not been eliminated summarily, a huge catastrophe could have happened leading to the loss of many lives as had happened in 2008 in Mumbai. If our police officers are always threatened with prosecution and punishment, how will they fight with terrorists in a war like situation? If the Govt. of India had not given a free hand to the security forces and the police in Punjab, Manipur and J&K, what would have happened to these states? Would they have still been a part of the Indian union today? A vast majority of Indians are of the firm view that the terrorists have to be tackled in the most strong and merciless way. If the CBI can prove that all the four young men and women were innocent and the killings were done at the behest of Narendra Modi then Modi’s carefully built up image would take a huge ‘beating’ and he could even be tried for murder. However, if it is found that all the four were indeed terrorists then Modi’s image may get a further boost and Congress’s efforts to harass him through CBI may boomerang on the Congress
To face the 2014 elections the Congress should do something innovative rather than harassing its political opponents. The Food Security ordinance is a step in the right direction and may get Congress a few more votes from the poor rural areas. However, Congress must remember that rural Indians are not so poor nowadays that they will hanker for a few kgs of coarse grains. They expect more electricity and water, better education and medical facilities. If that could be done Congress would surely come back to power and the people of Indiamay forgive them for all the loot and plunder that they have indulged in for 10 years. Then Congress need not be afraid of Narendra Modi. However, some high ups in the Congress perhaps believe that most Indians are so terribly poor that if you throw a few coins or food bags at them they will fall at your feet with votes. That reminds me of an old song,”Garibon ka suno, woh tumhara sunega, tum ek paisa dogey , woh dus laakh (votes?) dega”.
I wonder when we Indians will become more politically mature. When shall we stop blindly finding fault with our political opponents? When shall we concentrate all our efforts for doing something concrete for the people? When shall we stop calling our opponents by derogatory names (like, ‘night chowkidar’ or ‘maut ka saudagar’) ? The word night chowkidar was used by Narendra Modi for Manmohan Singh and the word ‘maut ka saudagar was used by Sonia Gandhi for Narendra Modi.
(The author is former Financial Commissioner, J&K and Feedback to the author at 09748635185 or amitkus @hotmail.com)
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