Amit Shah In UP: Is All Well?

There are leaders and organizers like Arun Jaitley who look good on TV and win sometimes. Then you have people like Sanjay Joshi with (allegedly) a lot of organizational capability but with precious little to show for. In fact Joshi was shoved down the gullet of the BJP workers trying to win the all important state of UP by the Nitin Gadkari (with RSS pulling the strings and trying to cut Modi down to size). The result was nothing short of a disaster.

And then you have someone like Amit Shah who may not have a lot of the backing of the BJP brass or the RSS or may not cut a dashing picture or speak well (like Sushmaji) but has the Midas touch when it comes to winning elections. He has been credited with winning the Gujarat state elections for the BJP (of course the job is slightly easy when you are selling Narendra Modi to the voters) under extremely difficult conditions and that too three times. The very fact that he has been targeted by the Congress as viciously as Modi himself tells you how he is valued by Modi and feared by Congress.

Shah by no means could have been an easy sell to the BJP old timers. The reason why Modi is feared by the so called New Delhi establishment is because he is constantly changing the rules of the game. When he reaches New Delhi, NV Subramanian said, “Modi sabki chutti kar dega”. If Modi is a tall leader then Shah is the shadow he casts. Bringing up Shah to the national scene implies one thing only. Business as usual is not going to happen anymore. Shah’s sole aim is to ensure his boss’ victory on the national scene and he will do whatever it takes including the shakeup BJP to its core. This cannot be sitting well with established fat cats.

Since even the political novices know that the road to New Delhi goes through UP, the significance of Shah’s appointment as the BJP in-charge of the 2014 elections cannot be lost on anyone. The fact that he has been appointed despite of a stiff opposition from non-performing leaders in UP and Delhi tells you one thing clearly which is Bhai Narendra Damodardas Modi is going to be BJP’s nominee for the PM candidate. You can take that to the bank. The moment my friend Swami Thambi told me about this appointment, I told him that he can now rest easy. Modi is going to be our man in the ring. Wow. How long I have waited to write that and I write it with a cautious optimism in my heart and a tear of joy in my eye.

The politics in UP is nasty, no more than politics anywhere else but the size of the prize (eighty MPs) makes it worse. Politicians are willing to cut any Faustian pact to win this prize. Akhilesh Yadav is trying to get reservation for Muslims despite of the fact that his tenure has seen almost one Hindu-Muslim riot every month. The state gets divided into castes and then into subcastes. Everything that is wrong with our society gets magnified many-fold in UP because of the size of the prize. Sleazy deals, SOPs, bribing the voters, economy destroying social programs are all part of the game. All the new BJP administration (Bravo Mr. Rajnath Singh) has done is to send Amitbhai Shah to UP. It’s like Hanumanji being sent to Lanka.

If you needed a sign of what Shah is going to do then look no further than his first order of business. He along with Mukhtar A Naqvi and Lakshmikant Bajpayi are going to court arrest in Rampur which is anything but. Rampur actually is the modern day Lanka because it epitomizes the worst of UP politics. By taking the fight into the enemy territory, Shah has sounded the war-shankh. He is telling the Yadavs and Khans that the BJP under him is willing and able to fight them on their turf. As a BJP supporter, I say it is high-bloody time that these guys are given a fight of their lives.

The path is long and treacherous for Shah but if Narendra Bhai has faith in him then so should we. He will have to weed out the non-performers no matter how established and bring up the capable leaders toiling in anonymity. He will have to acclimatize himself with the caste politics of UP and play the game accordingly. I am sure the man who along with Bhai Narendra took on the entire Congress party (with CBI, NGOs and the media) and still won in Gujarat is capable of dealing with the cesspool we know as UP. Clearly, Shah has Modi and Rajnath Singh in his corner. I sincerely hope that the UP leaders throw their weight behind this man rather than sabotaging him. After Shah’s appointment, one UP BJP leader said that why should he work if the credit is going to go west. To that clown I say this “ If by performing you mean like you did in the last state election then please fold your tent, wrap up your lungi and get the hell out of town. This is a man’s game and has no room for village idiots”.

Appointment of Amit Shah tells me that all is well in UP. That is the happy me. The real me tells me that this is as best as we can do in UP. With Amit Shah in charge under Modi’s guidance, I say it is pretty good.

The following is a fantastic analysis by Praveen Patil

http://www.niticentral.com/2013/05/24/uttar-pradesh-is-narendra-modis-new-frontier-81253.html

With Netas Like Sonia, Manmohan, Why Blame Sreesanth?

We are living in an era of guilt-free, responsibility-free pursuit of wealth and pleasure. The real leader of the Indian government has no post in the government and yet is the most powerful person in the country. She has access to all the national secrets, gets to meet visiting leaders, decide on major issues, use national resources of private purposes, enrich her family members (scams are too many to mention), is as opaque as cast iron plate, has no qualification other than marrying into the right family, garners all kinds of praise from the leftist brigade for sacrifices made, running the economy into the ground (even with a so called economist at the helm, we are either running bankrupting social programs or redefining poverty) and yet gets referred to as a hero by some in the media. Despite all her faults, sins and crimes, she enjoys all the power and is not accountable to any one. No one has the balls to say that the emperor has no clothes. When face with issues, crises, scams and problems, Sonia and Rahul retreat in the background and leave the stooge PM holding the bag. OF course the PM himself is the kind of person who has signed a Faustian pact for his chair.

Our netas have committed every crime or sin there is and invented a few of their own. Worse that African dictators (our children are worse fed than some sub-Saharan countries), these guys are talking about making new laws to curb spot fixing or fraud in betting on IPL. WOW. The hypocrisy is breathtaking. Kapil Sibal who has done his part in the 2G coverup is now the law minister and is talking about tough laws to fix betting in IPL. Well, Mr. Sibal, illegal betting in IPL is not the biggest problem facing India. As far as scams go, this is way smaller than what Indian politicos are involved in. Introspection would be a good first baby step for our netas.

Think about it. Dawood Ibrahim and his cronies in India are making money by illegal betting. Cricketers are making money (in lakhs and thus chump change). Bookies, team owners, gangsters and most probably some politicians are making money. Indian viewers who are addicted to cricket and cannot think of boycotting as tool or protest will continue to watch it (we still watch Salman Khan movies even with his crimes). The only losers are the gamblers who are stupid enough to bet through these bookies. But if there is no IPL, then these losers are going to find some other way of squandering their family fortunes. At the end of the day, the Ram Chandra Bhartiya is no better or worse than before. This is why, I am aghast that there seems to be more of an outrage over Sreesanth than Sonia Gandhi. Our priorities are really really misplaced. If our netas who are supposed to be caretakers of the future of the country cannot stand up and be accountable and do the right thing, why should some guy who is playing a stupid game (no matter how entertaining) be expected to do so?

Advani And Swaraj Are Destroying BJP

Non governance and corruption are crippling India. The Congress would have you believe that their ministers are corrupt but Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi / la famiglia are not. As far as Singh is concerned, almost all the fig leaves are blown away by the rail and coal scams. This power hungry man has no honor or shame (Lal Bahadur Shastri, a Congressman, resigned from his post because of a train accident. Compare him to Bansal and Singh). As far as La Famiglia (The Family translated to Italian) is concerned, no matter how many layers they hide behind, no one except truly gullible are fooled. The latest example (from a huge list of others) of their corruption and hypocrisy is the Sarkari Damaad, Robert Vadra who is as crooked as they come, was given a free pass by the Rajmata. Now the Congress would like you to believe that only after Rajmata’s intervention, did these two corrupt ministers resign and thus is a paragon of sacrifice and virtue! Buy this explanation at your own peril!

But why am I talking about Singh and Rajmata in this blog? It is because to some extent, Advani and Swaraj are guilty of the same sins. Of course no one can match Congress’ crimes so Advani-Swaraj sins are nothing. However, while Congress was, is and will be crooked, the BJP was supposed to be a party of difference. While their hands were tied (thanks to unscrupulous friends like Chandrababu Naidu) BJP regime still did a lot of good. If they had not bungled up the Kandahar hijacking episode and ran a sensible campaign (rather than the arrogant campaign run by Pramod Mahajan and other Advani followers) they may have won in 2004 and continued on their India repair (rather than India shining) campaign. After Atalji retired all we saw was missed opportunities and political blunders from Advani and friends. Even Congress was surprised when they won in 2009. Even at state level, petty egos and mishandling of affairs caused nothing but ruin. An excellent columnist, Mr. Virendra Kapoor writes the following:

However, this is not to suggest that the Karnataka outcome was not on the expected lines. It was. The BJP did not leave the voter with any option. It did everything in its power to court unpopularity. Its drubbing was well-deserved. Early evidence of factionalism in the state unit was accentuated further by groupism at the central level. If Sushma Swaraj patronised the infamous Reddy brothers, L.K. Advani played godfather to Ananth Kumar. The two together never allowed a moment of peace to B.S. Yeddyurappa. And now the Advani-Sushma duo is engaged in denying the BJP the only credible chance it has of dislodging the corrupt and non-performing UPA by blocking the graduation of Narendra Modi from Gandhinagar to Delhi.

No one could have captured the truth better. What makes this whole thing even more galling is that they are not seeing the writing on the wall. Not only is their way of doing business unacceptable to the voter but how the voter is reacting to Narendra Modi. Of course the eleventh hour campaign by Modi did not bear any fruits for the BJP (or did it? Could things have been worse for the BJP in the urban centers without Modi?), his speeches and ideas were received very well. Modi was given a rock star treatment not just the voters and the cadre but also other leaders like Venkaiah Naidu (while Sonia and Singh stared at empty chairs) by the voters. So why did they shy away from voting for the BJP?

There are enough examples, anecdotes and hearsays about voters agreeing to vote for Modi but not BJP. These are not the staunch BJP supporters like me but independent voters. They have stopped to see the BJP as a party of difference but see Modi as an honest, able, performing and inspiring leader. These independent voters are the ones who will decide the next election. Voters in Karnataka know that no matter what Modi says, he will not govern their state. Maybe they are astute enough to differentiate between state politics and national politics. Modi and only Modi has the capability of enthusing and inspiring the BJP cadre and middle level leadership. He is the only one capable of changing the nature of political discourse and thus leading from the front. He is the only man in BJP who can unite the party and bring independent voters in the fold. In short, he is the only chance we have of winning the next general elections and changing the fortunes of our motherland. We can ride his coattails into the central government and beyond.

However, by all accounts, Advani and Swaraj are doing all they can to stop his forward march. Advani has had two chances of winning the general elections and he has blown it. He needs to step aside, give his blessings (growing less important by the minute) to Modi but like Manmohan Singh, he is trying his best to worm his way into another race and IMHO, ruining it for the party. Swaraj screwed it up in Karnantaka and has miserably failed to expand her own political base outside of New Delhi (even there she is no force. Hint: Two Sheila Dixit terms). Even then, she is nursing some perverted ambition of becoming a national leader by creating a nasty atmosphere and placing herself for the spoils.

So we see that instead of accepting their limitations and doing the right thing these two are acting as spoiled brats hell bent on “my way or we ruin the party” trip. Modi should be preparing to unite the party, bring new alliances and draw up strategies to fight the next elections. Instead he will have to deal with these two miserable human beings. You can see that by the refusal of Modi to attend the recent BJP parliamentary committee.

Swaraj has no legacy other than being a proficient orator (even there, she is no match for Modi) so she will be forgotten with ease. However, we would like to remember Advani for all the good he did to lay the ground work for the current day BJP. But now he has become a liability. It is up to him now. Does he want us to remember him as the party founder and pray for him or remember him as a frustrated spoiler and pray for him to disappear one way or another. The choice is his.

The Kapoor article can be read at: http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analysis/corruption-is-an-issue-believe-it-or-not

BJP In Karnataka: Crisis And Opportunity

This is what one analysis says about the recent election:

The big story of the election is the three-way split in the BJP (B. Sriramulu’s BSR Congress, or BSRC, being the other breakaway faction), which hit it really hard. Our calculations show that had the BJP, the KJP and the BSRC fought the polls as one party, the combine would have secured 87 seats while the Congress would have got only 91 seats—leading to a hung assembly. The three-way split of the BJP helped secure for the Congress nearly 30 additional seats.

Would that have been better than the big loss? NO. I will try to explain.

Really poor governance and petty egos of men past their prime have brought the BJP to their ruin in Karnataka. Staunch BJP supporters like us are licking their wounds and listening to Congressmen of abysmally low character crow. People who stole from the handicapped have taken it upon themselves to pass judgment on an honest performer like Modi. All we can do is put up with it and take it on the chin. However, there is one thing we can do. Remember, every crisis presents an opportunity. I am going to put my thoughts down as best as I can (I am still very upset):

1.BSY did not perform and stole. It is immaterial that his theft is nothing compared to what Congressmen and their cronies have stolen. Theft is theft. BJP was supposed to be the party of difference. People do not see them as such. Poor performance and cronyism in the state was there for all to see. The rapists of Bellary, the Reddy brothers, their obscene display of opulence and their proximity to Sushmaji was also there for all to see. I would have had difficulty voting for these guys.

2.Caste politics in Karnataka is as bad as it is in the rest of the country. BJP leaders knew that while kicking BSY out. Especially seasoned veterans like Advani. While Advani and Swaraj have done things in the name of realpolitik, they decided to adopt the high road when it came to BSY. I believe Ananth Kumar was also in the mix of leaders who got BSY kicked out. Didn’t they calculate the power of Lingayat votes? They clearly overestimated Shettar’s ability to consolidate the Lingayat votes. This was a blunder and these three have to answer for it.

3.Bringing Modi in late was like trying to put band-aid on a severed artery. Man is brilliant but even he has limits. Because of Advani / Swaraj / Kumar’s arrogance and mistakes, Modi has to face heat.

4.Loosing this badly was better than losing slightly. With 80 to 90 seats, Advani / Swaraj / Kumar could have come up with any number of excuses (Advani has already started to crow that if they had followed his advice and fired BSY before, this would not have happened. It is clear that he still does not get it). But with only 40 seats, the only honorable thing for them to do is to accept their mistake and step aside. As it is, Advani is a liability. If he does not leave quickly I and a whole lot of others are going to start hoping that he is removed from the scene by nature. Swaraj is a good speaker but a lousy vote getter. She is not even a force in Delhi. Ananth Kumar needs to be fired from the party. With the fat-man Gadkari gone (the damage that buffoon did to the party is incalculable), the party would be better off without these three.

5.It is clear that BJP needs to clean house. They need to either bring back BSY or completely destroy him so he does not divide any more of the BJP votes. Since the latter is not possible, I suggest that Bhai Narendra step up and bring him back into the fold. Uma Bharatiji has already made gestures. I am sure that BSY also realizes that he needs BJP and vice versa. He needs to swallow his pride. If Advani / Swaraj / Kumar are removed / sidelined then no one in the BJP has to swallow pride and thus will be easy to bring BSY home. Winning the general elections is a whole lot more important than a state election. This exercise in diplomacy will also give the new BJP leadership an important lesson, which they can then use elsewhere like in Assam (where a pre-poll alliance with AGP would have defeated Congress) or UP (where they need to get Kalyan Singh and others like him to recreate the old magic) or Bihar (where they have to decide soon if they want to go it alone or keep tied to Nitish) or Andhra (same concern as Bihar) etc.

6.Since Bhai Narendra is our candidate (barring some huge setback) he needs to evaluate his own tactics. Clearly his speeches in Karnataka, while wildly popular, did not translate into votes. Is it possible that the so called internet Hindus who feel brave and dedicated while sitting on their computers, feel too lazy to go out in the sun and back their talk? I hope that is not the case. After all these guys helped the BJP in Gujarat. Be that as it may, Modi needs to re-evaluate his tactics. He has been fantastic in his speeches and has brilliantly tailored them to the audiences concerns. He needs to do more of that and hit the road in battle ground states like UP, Maharashtra, Andhra, Karnataka, Bihar etc.

7.We do not have much time left. The win in Karnataka notwithstanding, the Congress is in deep trouble. Even their pet media dogs have started to ditch them. General elections are going to be declared soon. BJP need to get the leadership issue resolved sooner than later. The foot soldiers need to know who their leader is. Judging by the reaction to his speeches even in a devastated state of Karnataka (BJP-wise), Modi commands respect from all levels of BJP. They need to declare him as the PM candidate so he can start drawing the war plans. This is a time to show a very united party where we do not have eighty five year old senile leaders who have had their chances, muddling up the waters. This the BJP’s election to lose. In fact if they lose because of leadership issues, I am going to have to re-evaluate my support to this party.

The analysis was taken from the following:http://www.livemint.com/Politics/dnbRQfEz0k4pIJRgBBVvAI/Split-BJP-hands-over-Karnataka-to-Congress.html

China, Pakistan: What A Neighborhood!

I just read that Sarabjit Singh has succumbed to injuries sustained in the beating he took in the prison. Well, Pakistanis have shown us the right way. Imagine. Of course when it comes to killing, Pakistanis can teach anyone a few tricks. Now if we had done the same to Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and Maulana Masood Azhar and did what was done to Sarabjit in their jail, then we would not have had the Kandahar hijacking, BJP government’s weakness would not have been exposed, Daniel Pearl would still be alive. Since any Pakistani in India is a potential terrorist or a spy, we should arrest then and solve the problem in pakistani style. And why not? Pakis love to live by the sword or should I say Saif ul Islam. Let them die by it as well.

However knowing the brave leaders we have elected especially the current PM, NOTHING will happen. It falls on us, the aam aadmi. We need to be aware of the paki bastardry and boycott everything and everyone coming from that shithole of a nation. However, I have some good news on that account. No matter what we do to them will always pale in comparison to what the pakis are doing to themselves. Arsla Jawaid writes the following:

According to estimates from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, close to 2,284 people were killed in violent attacks in Karachi in 2012. By some media estimates, targeted killings and a string of deadly bomb blasts cost the lives of 500 people in 72 days of this year alone. Victims range from civilians to policemen, the paramilitary Rangers to development workers, journalists to lawyers.

Considering that it was just one part of Pakistan, it is a pretty impressive kill rate. Read the following from the same article:

In one of the most recent cases of violence, unidentified assassins shot a prominent Karachi social worker, Parveen Rehman, inside her car at a traffic intersection. Rehman was the director of the Orangi Pilot Project, and dedicated her life to working for the vulnerable and disadvantaged in Karachi's Orangi slum. While no particular group has claimed responsibility, suspicion has fallen on Karachi's ruthless land mafia, against whom she remained a vocal critic. Shortly after her death, students and media outlets paid homage to the courageous worker, hailing her as the "Mother of Karachi."

How many of you think that the aforementioned land mafia is unconnected to Dawood Ibrahim? After all he is the biggest gangster/terrorist (a two for one combo) under the protection of paki authorities. Makes sense that he will have a finger in the land pie. If he is involved, then I say keep him. He can continue to screw up Karachi to his heart’s content. So you see, we just have to wait it out and pakis will certainly implode. It is a criminal enterprise, not a country.

                  Beijing air on a 2005 day after rain (left) and a sunny but Smoggy day (right)

We have a bigger problem with the snake-pit up north though. The Chinese have intruded on our land again. Our response: NOTHING. Again. This is becoming unbearable. The current brave leaders are not even willing to put up a token fight. After all this Salman “will not do a scam for Rs 71 lakh” Khurshid is still going to China. In fact if you look at it from the Chinese point of view, why not do it. If I were a Chinese general, I would continue to intrude and build roads, rails etc on Indian land and not worry about repercussions. After all, what the hell is the Indian government do except roll over and play dead.

Again, since the brave men and women we elect are not going to do anything other than twiddle their thumbs, we may as well take it upon ourselves. BOYCOTT EVERYTHING THAT SAYS – “MADE IN CHINA”. What else can the helpless Indian voter do?

However, once again, nature has a way of balancing things out. In a mad dash to get rich, the Chinese have raped their land. As bad as pollution is in India, it is China which is referred to as the sick man of Asia. The pollution problems of China are too many to mention. More than 80% of their water cannot be used for drinking. Cancer and renal failure are the leading cause of death. That should tell you something. This is nothing to celebrate because the Chinese are going to go to war with their eighteen neighbors for resources especially water. But that nation is paying for its sins.

Another sign of trouble in China is the latest aggression against India (and Japan to some extent over the Senkaku Islands). Whenever dictators are in trouble then foment problems on their borders to unify the country. The Chinese are facing daily problems in Xinqiang and Tibet from two different ethnic minorities. Then they are facing problems from their workers. As far as corruption is concerned, they will give us a tough fight any day. Meanwhile there was a change in leadership. The new leader Xi Jinping is trying to consolidate power by using the military and the saber rattling that comes with it. It is a valid fear, not only for us that he may have unleashed forces which he may not be able to contain. Japan and the US are equally interested parties for their own reasons. In a rather revealing article, the following was revealed:

To many observers, however, his speech seemed to confirm that China's provocations against Japan were in fact "evidence of profound domestic insecurity rather than rational policy,"

Then, too, there is the very real risk that if China or Japan miscalculates over the Senkaku Islands and actually does spark a war, China may lose. That, at least, is the assessment of several military analysts with whom I spoke, who believe Japan's disciplined, professional forces would prevail even without direct U.S. intervention. More broadly, I have heard growing doubts about China's actual fighting capabilities in some sections of the Chinese military, foreign diplomatic corps, and U.S. academia, many of whose members are revising their views on the PLA. "Our assessment is they are nowhere near as effective as they think they are," a Beijing-based defense attaché from a NATO country told me.

What if the recent drums of war are a sign of China's weakness and not its impressive new strength? "When Xi tells his troops to be ready for war, it's really an admission that they're in disarray," says the defense attaché.

What is clear is that China is not as strong as they would like us to believe. To deal with that kind of bluff, we need a strong leader as PM. Manmohan Singh is not that leader. We really do need to elect a real leader with enough majority in the Loksabha that real decisions, tactical and strategic can be made with only national interests as the driving force. That is the task before the Indian voters.

The article on pakistan can be read at: http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/04/09/failed_city_karachis_violent_spiral

An idea about the pollution that China is facing can be read at: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_in_China

The article on the Chinese military capabilities and adventurism can be read at: 
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/04/29/xis_war_drums Xi's War Drums