If this election campaign is to be remembered like a suspense drama, it must have a surprise end.
What a roller coaster it has been since June 2013 when all senior BJP leaders assembled in Goa to strategize for the coming elections. Instead of discussing the roadmap with senior leaders, Narendra Modi and his cohorts imposed on them a fait accompali: Modi will be the head of the party’s election campaign.
There was much consternation and beating of breasts until something was whispered in their ears. They fell in line – but only to regroup in LK Advani’s Prithviraj Road bungalow in New Delhi. “We do not agree, we do not agree” went the chant. Two days later RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat arrived from Nagpur. He put his finger on his lips. A hush fell on the congregation. They fell in line again.
This time they marched in step, only occasionally remembering the seniority they had surrendered. On one such instance they asked for their preferred constituencies. No, they were told. You go to Gandhinagar and you to Kanpur and so on and so forth.
[quote]Modi embraced the Method school of acting and became the Prime Minister[/quote]
Surrounded by brilliant directors and choreographers, Modi embraced the Method school of acting and became the Prime Minister, parallel to the one in Race Course Road.
On August 15, India’s Independence Day, while Manmohan Singh looked pale, weak and quite out of place at the Red Fort, Modi looked like an ad for vitality capsules as he stood in his designer kurta at the Lalan College in Bhuj. It was a wondrous show. A split TV screen had two Prime Ministers, Manmohan Singh and the presumptive Prime Minister.
That was in August. Modi has since been offering performances at the rate of two every day without a break for the past nine months. In the old days even a circus never stayed in town for more than a month. To expect a nation to be riveted on a one-man show for months without a break, belied scant understanding of the Indians’ sense of fun. This is a country of fairs, nautankis (village theatre), folk songs, chutkulas (jokes), kahavats (sayings). It is unbelievable that a yearlong campaign yielded not a joke, a quip, a pun. Viewers had a surfeit of an aggressive, taunting, vicious, menacing Modi. There was no humour, no gentle touch. This, in a nation of the pastoral lyric. If the nation is not all cock-a-hoop with Modi, something must have palled. He was in our living rooms all the time for a full year. The blame will have to be placed somewhere here if the world’s most expensive election campaign does not deliver him the Prime Ministership.
What was conceived by TV script writers as a Modi versus Rahul Gandhi serial dialogue, lost considerable audience appeal when Rahul refused to come on stage. Even until December, when Arnab Goswami trapped Rahul for his solitary interview, there was hope that he would be persuaded to duel Modi. Arnab asked him eighteen times in the course of the interview to agree to a debate with Modi. But Rahul was fixated on one theme: he was devoting himself to a system of primaries for selection of candidates. This reporter had written years ago that Rahul’s eyes were set not on 2014 but more on 2024 when he would be only 53 years old and possibly more willing.
After a disastrous UPA-II, the Congress had reconciled itself to sitting in the opposition. But panic gripped the family when reports trickled in of the party dipping to double digits. Hence, the frenetic action by the Gandhi family in Rae Bareli and Amethi. The thinking around Congress President Sonia Gandhi is that a tally of 110 plus will enable the party to give outside support to a grouping and somehow keep Modi out.
But Rahul is singing a different tune. He would like to sit in the opposition and reconstruct the party according to his lights.
What a roller coaster it has been since June 2013 when all senior BJP leaders assembled in Goa to strategize for the coming elections. Instead of discussing the roadmap with senior leaders, Narendra Modi and his cohorts imposed on them a fait accompali: Modi will be the head of the party’s election campaign.
There was much consternation and beating of breasts until something was whispered in their ears. They fell in line – but only to regroup in LK Advani’s Prithviraj Road bungalow in New Delhi. “We do not agree, we do not agree” went the chant. Two days later RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat arrived from Nagpur. He put his finger on his lips. A hush fell on the congregation. They fell in line again.
This time they marched in step, only occasionally remembering the seniority they had surrendered. On one such instance they asked for their preferred constituencies. No, they were told. You go to Gandhinagar and you to Kanpur and so on and so forth.
[quote]Modi embraced the Method school of acting and became the Prime Minister[/quote]
Surrounded by brilliant directors and choreographers, Modi embraced the Method school of acting and became the Prime Minister, parallel to the one in Race Course Road.
On August 15, India’s Independence Day, while Manmohan Singh looked pale, weak and quite out of place at the Red Fort, Modi looked like an ad for vitality capsules as he stood in his designer kurta at the Lalan College in Bhuj. It was a wondrous show. A split TV screen had two Prime Ministers, Manmohan Singh and the presumptive Prime Minister.
That was in August. Modi has since been offering performances at the rate of two every day without a break for the past nine months. In the old days even a circus never stayed in town for more than a month. To expect a nation to be riveted on a one-man show for months without a break, belied scant understanding of the Indians’ sense of fun. This is a country of fairs, nautankis (village theatre), folk songs, chutkulas (jokes), kahavats (sayings). It is unbelievable that a yearlong campaign yielded not a joke, a quip, a pun. Viewers had a surfeit of an aggressive, taunting, vicious, menacing Modi. There was no humour, no gentle touch. This, in a nation of the pastoral lyric. If the nation is not all cock-a-hoop with Modi, something must have palled. He was in our living rooms all the time for a full year. The blame will have to be placed somewhere here if the world’s most expensive election campaign does not deliver him the Prime Ministership.
What was conceived by TV script writers as a Modi versus Rahul Gandhi serial dialogue, lost considerable audience appeal when Rahul refused to come on stage. Even until December, when Arnab Goswami trapped Rahul for his solitary interview, there was hope that he would be persuaded to duel Modi. Arnab asked him eighteen times in the course of the interview to agree to a debate with Modi. But Rahul was fixated on one theme: he was devoting himself to a system of primaries for selection of candidates. This reporter had written years ago that Rahul’s eyes were set not on 2014 but more on 2024 when he would be only 53 years old and possibly more willing.
After a disastrous UPA-II, the Congress had reconciled itself to sitting in the opposition. But panic gripped the family when reports trickled in of the party dipping to double digits. Hence, the frenetic action by the Gandhi family in Rae Bareli and Amethi. The thinking around Congress President Sonia Gandhi is that a tally of 110 plus will enable the party to give outside support to a grouping and somehow keep Modi out.
But Rahul is singing a different tune. He would like to sit in the opposition and reconstruct the party according to his lights.