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October 2017 Edition of Power Politics is updated.  Happy Diwali to all our subscribers and Distributors       October 2017 Edition of Power Politics is updated.   Happy Diwali to all our subscribers and Distributors       
Issue:Sep' 2017

THEATRE OF POLITICS

Rahul show in far-off US

Malladi Rama Rao

The, Rahul show in the United States did not set the Hudson River on fire as the acolytes may have thought. But the choreographers are enjoying the adulation that is coming their way.
For two reasons. The NRIs appear impressed enough to loosen their purse strings just when the GOP war chest has lost its shine at home after a string of electoral flopshows. Rahul Gandhi has let the world know that he has reinvented himself. He has firmly declared that he is ready to shoulder the big responsibility that has been at his door-step for over five years.
His camp in the Congress has naturally heaved a sigh of relief. But will the Congress return to the drivers' seat as the natural ruler once Yuvaraj becomes the Maharaj of the party? Doubts persist. For valid reasons.
Dynasty is tasty as Indian politicians of all hues have proved but that alone does not offer electoral nirvana. Well, dynasty offers a wild card entry into the akhara, where survival depends on either ability to beat down or give a phantom bump to the opponent.
Appearing as a potential prime ministerial material is much easy and can be achieved by presenting oneself before a crowd collected by a friendly fund raiser. Jibes at the Prime Minister of the day may get some claps and not votes since, as a Pakistani commentator Shahzaib Khan notes, Rahul-speak was no more than "a prolonged and somewhat self-defeating lecture about Modinomics".

Arun Jaitley and Narendra Modi Nonetheless, it is difficult to disagree with Rahul Gandhi's prognosis of Moditva. After threeyears on the Raisina Hill, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has become a monumental disappointment. As a master magician, he offered dreams and slogans by the dozen to dazzle the voters and make them sing his paeans with his Gujarat Model as a peck in the sky. Modi-Jaitley's inflation-centric monetary policy may be good elsewhere but not in India where mismatch between supply and demand fuels price rise. Failure to anticipate such a mismatch or inability to bridge the gap in the shortest possible time frame compounds the miseries of farmer and consumer alike.
High interest regime ushered in by economists who have honed their skills in Brettonwoods is a welcome recipe for industrial sluggishness and consequently less jobs as the tryst with liberalisation has shown from the days of Rao Raj to Sonia days.

Rahul's show in the far away Eldorado does not let the impression that he has read the pulse of the nation correctly. Nor Lalus and Mamatas and Kejriwals for that matter. Only Mayawati seems to know her onions.

Good governance cannot come from the ramparts of the Red Fort as Narendra Modi is realising slowly but steadily.All text book prescriptions, like demonetisation cannot wish away blackmoney more so as India fights elections with black money. Solid homework and a fine tuned delivery mechanism are essential to make "Garibi Hatao". The party in power and the government must not only appear to be on the same page but also work at tandem. Not Swatch Bharat Photo-ops, nor waterless toilets that are ending as godowns by the dozen lead India to a new dawn.
This is the tragedy with Modi's India. He appears to wear two hats – one for the party and one for the others, who include non- BJP spectrum and dotting NRI and FDI pockets. He makes India sway when he takes the podium and speaks about Vivekananda and declares that not every one of us but the downtrodden safaikarmacharis have the right to say Vande Mataram.
Who can disagree with Modi championing the cause of Muslim women against triple talaq which has become their curse with the approval of the society? Delinking of the issue from polygamy has helped but it is neither here nor there because this very campaign has seen the Hindutva brigade help the talking shops to indulge in their TRP wars. Rahul-speak at Berkeley has sought to project Modi India as a land of intolerance, and Modi-raj as retrograde. Tolerance debate, despite the best efforts of the Congress and the Left as also the Socialist amoeba has not gone beyond the award wapsi show by a chosen few. It also did not focus on the Marxist backyard where intolerance of a new order is deepening.
If intolerance is bad in Faizabad or Moradabad, it should be equally bad in Kannanore, Kozhikode or Thiruvananthapuram.CPM-RSS clashes and the killing of as many as 80 RSS workers in Kerala deserve to be treated on the same page as the brutal murder of liberal thinker Gauri Lankesh.

Advani's Hindutva was designed to help BJP shed its untouchable status. That goal was achieved when Atal Behari Vajpayee realised that his comment to The Illustrated Weekly of India that he had wasted his life in the Parivar was a misplaced lament.

Amit Shah It may appear as blasphemy to equate the assassination of Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, MM Kalburgi and now Gauri Lankesh with the blood bath in God's own country but in the land of Gandhi and Buddha, where religion is deemed to be a personal matter and a way of life, a killing is a killing, by whatever name it is called, and it should be treated as such. There is no other way if India believes in and continues to subscribe to values that have made it survive for thousands of years. Advani's Hindutva was designed to help BJP shed its untouchable status. That goal was achieved when Atal Behari Vajpayee realised that his comment to The Illustrated Weekly of India that he had wasted his life in the parivar was a misplaced lament.
Advani's status in the BJP shows that the party has moved ahead to a new avatar. The party is today at the centre stage of power politics in the country. Anti-Congressism is dead. Anti- BJPism is the wakeup call. That is why the Congress has shed its hangovers, and cultivated for few electoral crumbs the likes of Lalus, who with their corruption stink should have earned the tag of political discards.
Narendra Modi and his Sancho Panza, Amit Shah are political animals. Their plan is to see BJP as a truly national party which stands on its feet everywhere to avoid the calamity that had befallen Vajpayee despite India Shining. How are they going about the task? Well, it defies logic.
The Modi-Shah combine has not cared to rein in the Hindutva brigade which in its exuberance is creating a social mayhem particularly in the politically crucial cow belt, Patel turf and Maratha land.
To say that there appears a tacit understanding between the leadership at the top and the leaders at the ground level is to say the most obvious. And to remark that the unfolding cow vigilantism, love jihad and antibeef drive are all according to a well-crafted script is no more than reading the writing on the wall.

Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav Well, the game has yielded the expected dividends – the liberal press giving front page and edit page treatment to the new chorus. The saturation coverage has diverted attention from the Modi failures. Talk of the town is not job loss due to demonetisation nor no jobs even after upgrading skills. This is what the Modi managers had set about to achieve. And succeeded. What helped them in the way? It is pseudo secularism, an expression coined by Advani et al in the wake of Shahbano case.

Mamata Banerjee and Sonia Gandhi Gandhis pursued minority appeasement politics that were designed to help them at the hustings. According to one school, the credit for ushering in this practice goes to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the tallest leader of Indian Republic. There are still some others who trace the malady to Mahatma Gandhi and his championing of the Khilafat movement.

Lalu Prasad Yadav History will be a better judge on Nehru and Gandhi. Also on today's politicians.The fact, however, remains that the Modi- Shah combine with able support from the parivaar has cashed in on the ground level mood to hijack a public discourse for their survival.
Rahul's show in the far away Eldorado does not let the impression that he has read the pulse of the nation correctly. Nor Lalus and Mamatas and Kejriwals for that matter. Only Mayawati seems to know her onions. Whether it was after the UP ballot or after the tolerance debate, the BSP supremo has set

History will be a better judge on Nehru and Gandhi. Also on today's politicians.The fact, however, remains that the Modi-Shah combine with able support from the Parivaar has cashed in on the ground level mood to hijack a public discourse for their survival.

the tone for a new debate. And made others to follow her lead in denouncing the Modi Raj. Surprisingly, Rahul Gandhi's Congress did not follow her for long and settled for the time tested talking shops called Opposition Conclaves. The inability of the anti-BJP camp to encash the openings is something incredible. To the glee of the Modi camp. And it is going about to put its act together. Will it succeed? Time for astrological pandits to return to their charts and stars.