Disquieting signals post-BJP
victory in North-East
Has Manik Sarkar-type honesty
no place in politics ?
Narendra Modi and Amit Shah waving to BJP workers after their North East triumph at party
headquarters in New Delhi
Hari Jaisingh
Manik Sarkar
After the BJP's triumph in three
North-Eastern States of Tripura,
Nagaland and Meghalaya, it has
suffered a big shock by losing two
parliamentary byelections –
Gorakhpur and Phulur – UP as
well as one in Araria, Bihar. These loses mean
a lot for the saffron party which is dependent
on a sweep of the north and West of India for
its success in 2019. This setback follows after
the BJP's humiliating by-poll defeats recently
not only in Ajmer and Alwar in Rajasthan but
Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati
The success of SP-BSP alliance
also in Madhya Pradesh and Punjab .
UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath
blames "overconfidence" for the poor
show. But, I would blame the growing
signs of arrogance among powerpuffed
BJP leaders, both at the Centre
and in the States. This is surely not a
happy sign as the party is getting
alienated from the masses and ground
realities.
Sunil Deodhar
Coming back to the North-East, I
shall single out for commendation the
way the BJP has managed to demolish
the Tripura citadel of the Left Front
government nurtured and nourished
by Manik Sarkar for over two decades.
It has a parallel in Mamata Banerjee's
feat in West Bengal where the
Trinamool Congress Chief put a full
stop to the Leftist record of running
the state for seven consecutive terms.
Manik Sarkar's Marxist establishment
was voted out after 25 years.
Himanta Biswa Sarma
How come Manik Sarkar lost
power despite his individual
reputation of being an honest Chief
Minister? Has honesty no place in
India's new money-flushed
electoral politics? Well, personal
honesty may or may not be an asset
in politics, but bad governance is
certainly not.
Having no house of his own (he
has taken shelter in the CPM party
office in Tripura) and a bank
balance of Rs 2,410 and cash
possession of Rs 1,520, Sarkar was
also known to be a tough task
master. He could manage to rid his
state of militancy. But his problems
began when his establishment was
confronted by corruption in the
form of Rose Valley chit fund scam.
Another charge that went against
him was his non-performance on
the development front despite the
state's rich natural resources like
gas, bamboo and rubber.
Madhave acknowleding the
greetings of BJP supporters.
And this is where Narendra Modi,
the BJP's Master Magician, struck a
chord. During his four rallies during
the poll campaign, he promised a
new dawn of parivartan (change)
by building highways, railways and
airways which could provide jobs to
thousands of jobless youngsters. I keep my fingers crossed on Prime
Minister Modi's promises and
action on the ground. Much will
depend on how new Chief Minister
Bipal Kumar Deb goes about his job.
The problem of unemployment
apart, one issue which tilted the scale
in the BJP's favour was its promise to
implement the 7th Pay Commission in
a state which still pays salaries to
government servants on the basis of
the 4th Pay Commission. This means if
a government servant gets Rs 20,000
under the 4th commission, it will
increase to at least Rs 35,000 under
the 7th commission. The BJP's Vision
Document for the state had
prominently highlighted this promise
which would benefit thousands of
government workers.
It must be said that the BJP
leadership was working intelligently
for the past two-three years in tune
with the RSS's long-term North-East
agenda to make the BJP politically and
strategically the most dominant force
in the region. The key person on this
job was Sunil Deodhar, former RSS
pracharak. I know of a number of
young RSS-BJP associates visiting the
North-Eastern states to work quietly at
the grassroots among the tribals and
general public. Deodhar himself has
worked as an RSS pracharak in the
North East for 11 years. Then, the
youthful state chief of the BJP, Biplab
Kumar Deb, picked up by Deodhar, has
been working for the party from 2016.
According to RSS insiders, over the
past two years, the Sangh work in
Tripura was considerably intensified.
From 60 shakhas around the 2014
elections, the RSS now runs 265
shakhas in the state and as many as
15,000 to 20,000 are said to be
attending the shakha events.
Another person who has played a
vital role in the BJP success was Ram
Madhav, the party's general secretary.
Yet another stalwart worth mentioning
for the BJP's penetration in the region
is Himanta Biswa Sarma, an ex-
Congress, who, as convener of the BJPled
North-East Democratic Alliance. He
had played a crucial role in the making
of BJP governments in Assam, Manipur
What is important for Prime
Minister Modi is to see the
problems in totality and muster
enough political will to deliver
on the ground what he and his
party have promised to the
people.
Lenin's statue destroyed in
Tripura after the BJP's victory
Vandalised Periyar statue in
Vellore |
I do not approve of the
razing of Lenin's statue in
Agartala by BJP
supporters celebrating
their assembly poll win
in Tripura. Equally
painful are the
vandalisation of the CPM
office in Bishalgarh near
Agartala and blackening
the statue of Shyama
Prasad Mukherjee in
Kolkata. In Tamil Nadu,
Periyar statue was
vandalized after a BJP
leader's Facebook post.
Protest against razing Lenin's statue in Tripura,
and Arunachal Pradesh. In Tripura, he
was able to stitch the BJP's tie-up with
the tribal outfit of the Indigenous
People's Front of Tripura (IPFT).
The BJP actually managed a
strategic balancing act to muster
tribal vote by tying up with the IPFT
while appeasing Bengali voters by
being non-committal about a
separate tribal state. The gamble
has paid off for the present. Who
cares for tomorrow?
Interestingly, Tripura is home to 19
tribes that constitute 31 per cent of the
population. Of the 59 constituencies,
the BJP and its tribal ally IPFT has
grabbed 43 seats. The BJP had secured
1.54 per cent votes in the 2013
assembly poll. This time it has got over
43 per cent of the votes in the 51 seats
it contested. The Congress has failed to
win even a single seat in Tripura and
Nagaland, thanks to its lackluster poll
campaigning and the casual approach
to politics by its new chief Rahul
Gandhi.
The BJP's performance in Nagaland
has been the best since it started contesting the poll in this state in 2013. It
has won 12 of 20 seats it contested this
time. It has severed its 15-year-old ties
with T R Zeliang's Naga People's Front
(NPF) and opted to go along with Neiphiu
Rio's Nationalist Democratic Progressive
Party (NDPP) which has bagged 17 seats in the 60-member Assembly. With 27
seats the NPF has, however, emerged as
the single largest party in the Assembly
polls. Nagaland has its own personalized
ambitions, tribal tilts and the Church
factor. In fact, Nagaland politics has never
followed a straight line.
Mercifully, the
Prime Minister
has expressed
strong disapproval
of "toppling of
statues". Let us
hope that better
sense would
prevail among the
BJP's members
who see their poll
victory in a
narrow Hindutva
perspective, and
not in a
democratic spirit
of tolerance,
mutual
understanding
and mutual
respect !.
Prime Minister Modi in Naga attire
In Meghalaya, the Congress has
managed to win 21 of 60 seats, conceding
19 to the National People's Party. Though
the BJP has won just two seats in the
state, it has greater manoeuvering
capability to put the State under its
umbrella in the changed political setting
in the North East.
Be that as it may. The North East
verdict gives the BJP a big boost for the
2019 elections. This will help the saffron
party to project itself as a party ready to
accommodate diverse communities
divided on ethnic identity lines for its
larger national agenda. This also dilutes
the criticism of the BJP as a Hindi
heartland party as it gets set to deepen its
presence in the South, especially in
Karnataka and Kerala.
Looking beyond, Prime Minister
Modi has now a historic opportunity
to make the North East a new gateway to the much-promised "Look East" to
"Act East". The region is rich in
resources, but low in density of
population. The area has, therefore,
attracted outsiders, including illegal
immigrants from Bangladesh. The
country has paid a heavy price for
poor housekeeping, the lack of vision
and political will.
A close look at history will show how
some leaders have betrayed the nation's
cause for their petty vote bank politics.
In fact, the drift in critical areas in the
region has been part of the politicized
non-governance and insensitivity to
burning issues facing the nation. As a
nation, we have to wake up to the overall
gravity of problems in the region.
What is important for Prime
Minister Modi is to see the problems
in totality and muster enough
political will to deliver on the ground
what he and his party have promised
to the people. Much will depend on
how the Prime Minister conducts
himself in managing North-East
affairs. He has to see the region in a
broad liberal perspective, and not in
narrow Hindutva angularities in the
name of cow protection or denial of
freedom to voices of dissent.
Viewed in this light, I do not approve
of the razing of Lenin's statue in Agartala
by BJP supporters celebrating their
assembly poll win in Tripura. Equally
painful are the vandalisation of the CPM
office in Bishalgarh near Agartala and
blackening the statue of Syama Prasad
Mukherjee in Kolkata. In Tamil Nadu,
Periyar statue was vandalized after a BJP
leader's facebook post.
This is not the way the BJP should
fight its ideological battles against
the Left and all shades of its political
opponents. Ideological differences
have to be viewed as a battle of ideas,
and not vandalism.
Mercifully, the Prime Minister has
expressed strong disapproval of
"toppling of statues". Let us hope that
better sense would prevail among the
BJP's members who see their poll victory
in a narrow Hindutva perspective, and
not in a democratic spirit of tolerance,
mutual understanding and mutual
respect !