Navneet Anand
Looking at the fierce and at times desperate barbs against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah, from what now appears remnants of the Opposition, one is reminded of English writer Terry Pratchett, who said, “Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.” Flummoxed by a barrage of desertions and unrelenting political turmoil that seem to dent their turf miserably, opposition parties, including the Congress, the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), have been hurtling weird accusations against Prime Minister Modi and Shah. They have been blaming them for their own travails.
And why not, given the frenetic pace of political developments that has unleashed this past week. Politics has played out rather queerly in the western and eastern political theaters of India. While the Janata Dal(United) (JDU) slipped out quietly, pragmatically, and yet again embraced its old ally BJP in Bihar, leaving the RJD and the entire Opposition red-faced, Members of the Legislative Council from SP and BSP too jumped out of their crumbling ships in Uttar Pradesh. A series of resignations from Congress MLAs in Gujarat has left the party hankering for cover, and it is uncertain about the fate of one of its tall leaders, Ahmad Patel, whose Rajya Sabha seat lies between a razor-thin possibility of yes and no.
Rather than introspecting and doing course corrections, the Opposition has been busy building narratives which have ranged from feeble to faint. So while SP president Akhilesh Yadav accused the BJP of “political corruption” for the deeds of his own men, BSP chief said that the BJP’s “hunger for power” had now transformed in to a “lust”. For political parties not known for best credentials on corruption and power chasing, these vitriolic attacks attract guffaws. On Monday, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad and his men sharpened their attack on Nitish Kumar by digging out a purported murder case from archives of the police.
To those well-versed in the cow belt politics – that is often regressive and at times repulsive – such boringly repetitive accusations would not have come as a surprise. Even as BJP leaders are busy flaunting their work from the fields and aggressively building new-age narratives of progress and prosperity, regional parties have continued to rhyme the lullaby of the 1990s, of the Mandal and Masjid era. This was an era when politics was retrograde and so were the discourses around it; and when caste and callousness thrived in Indian
politics.
What’s worse, the Congress too is getting often drawn into such archaic conversational constructs. Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi blamed the BJP of fomenting “conflict and troubles” in every State, while its general secretary in-charge of Gujarat accused the BJP of indulging in “low tactics” and acting in a “brazen manner.” At a time when an unprecedented intolerance and political violence is becoming rampant in Kerala and West Bengal, and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) workers being killed mercilessly, Rahul Gandhi’s barbs against the BJP defy logic and common sense. BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi termed the Communist Party of India (Marxist) as “the mini-Taliban of India” given the way “they torture and kill political opponents.” Similar killings have been reported from West Bengal too and these incidents demolish opposition
construct of the BJP, triggering unrest.
What’s clear is that the BJP has left the Opposition miles behind when it comes to political strategising and setting the agenda of political discourse. It has smart strategies under its sleeves under the stewardship of new-age chanakya of Indian politics Shah, and has much smarter vision driven by the Gargantuan appetite for progress of Modi. Somehow, despite repeated reverses, the remnants of Opposition have failed to put its house back in order and do course corrections, be it in their strategies or vision.
Albert Einstein had once said, “I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” Modi and Shah are truly drawing freely upon their imagination by breaking out of the conventional wisdom – of poor political knowledge and fallacious strategic paradigms. The Opposition needs to rejig their imagination massively, if they were to come anywhere closer to encircling the world!
