Congress and BJP are in a war of words lately {Modi vs (Rahul, Manmohan & Sonia) spat happen on a daily basis} and this election is likely to witness the bloodiest battle ever. On one side is the Gandhi family which has not been challenged so openly in any elections, on the other side is Modi led BJP who sees this as an opportune moment to create history taking advantage of the huge anti incumbency against ruling Congress. Result – accusations, counter allegations, hitting below the belt, lies, goof ups, gaffes etc.
While Rahul and Sonia don’t speak much (it is speculated that Madam doesn’t know Hindi and reads from English text), Modi speaks a lot. He is holding rallies on a weekly basis and is drawing crowds 6-8 times more than Gandhi family. This has emboldened him. And he is perhaps the only politician after Subramanium Swamy who is now directly taking on Gandhi family across generations – Nehru, Indira, Rajiv, Sonia and Rahul. So much so that Congress is running for cover and its spokespersons refusing to come on debates on TV channels.
Modi started the debate with pitching Sardar Patel vs Nehru and went on to say that Sardar would have been a better PM than Nehru. History is reminiscent of the fact that Nehru didn’t get a single vote for Presidency elections and was made PM only at the insistence of Mahatma Gandhi. Link of earlier post on the subject below – “Sardar Patel legacy gets murkier”.
https://politicalbaaba.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/sardar-patels-legacy-battle-gets-murkier/
Adavni upped the ante and stated that Nehru had called Sardar a “total communalist”. Congress shot back terming Advani’s statement a blatant lie and attempt at falsifying history. Link below from Advani’s blog:
http://blog.lkadvani.in/blog-in-english/when-vp-menon-cornered-a-british-general
Modi in his rallies addresses Rahul as “shehzada” meaning “prince” and Sonia as “madam”. In Bahraich rally in important state of Uttar Pradesh, he trained guns on Central Bureau of Investigation. He accused Congress of using CBI to silence opponents (Maya, Mulayam, Lalu, Amnit Shah) and thundered that he is not afraid of CBI. He alleged that Center was using Indian Mujahedeen to stop him, but he has millions of people behind him (in a reference to Patna blasts).
Manmohan slammed BJP and Modi for using bad language in speeches. Where were you Manmohanji when your leaders called Modi “mass murderers” despite Supreme Court issuing a clean chit to Modi in riots case.
The slang match continued when Modi in a rally in Chattisgarh asked people if they would like to bring back “khooni panja” to power in a veiled reference to Congress. On Congress complaint Modi was issued a notice. Last heard he got 4 days extension to file a reply. Congress shot back referring to Modi as “khooni insaan”. Link of earlier post on the same.
In Chhattisgarh, Rahul came and blamed that Center sends a lot of funds but they have not been spent and region lacks development.
Modi in a rally later called on “ill” Sonia to hand over reins to Rahul. Congress fumed at this and termed it as “very low level remarks” and peeping into the private life of an individual. When Rahul uses the ill health of Sonia to gain political mileage / sympathy votes it is right but when Modi makes a statement of fact it is wrong. In the same rally he took a jibe at mother-son duo and said that they are referring to Central funds as it is their mama’s (mother’s brother) money (veiled reference to Quattrocchi).
Sonia defended her son and govt. in a rally in Madhya Pradesh and took a jibe at Modi stating that some leaders were day dreaming to become PM and BJP has a lot of infighting. Rahul went a step ahead and called BJP a party of “chors and looteras” (thieves and thugs). This infuriated BJP and it has filed another complaint before Election Commission. BJP is chor party? UPA does 1.86 lakh crore 2G scam, 2 lakh crore coal gate scam. What is Congress then? Even Rajiv would now be smiling that a lot of hue and cry was made for a 100 crore Bofors scam (peanuts).
Today Rahul held a rally at Delhi while Modi held a rally at Bangalore. Twitter was abuzz with the gathering at both rallies. Rahul held a rally or was it a meeting? Taking a swipe at Rahul’s statement on “power is poison“, Modi mocked at the Congress vice president and said that Congress does not want to empower countrymen, hence they are warning people of staying away from power. While Rahul spoke about voting for Sheila for development.
In this slang match, real issues are being lost. Nobody is speaking about corruption, price rise, economy. Congress is on back foot and Modi is using his popularity to attack Congress. But negative politics won’t get votes Modiji. People are eager to listen to your vision / mission of India. How would you use your Gujarat development model in India? Please focus on that. Enough of mud slinging. What say people?
Politicalbaaba 
Reblogged this on Political Baba.
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“People are eager to listen to your vision / mission of India. How would you use your Gujarat development model in India? Please focus on that. Enough of mud slinging. What say people?” – Frankly, I’m surprised you ask! Obviously you have not done your research because Dr.Swamy and Modi have gone public about their blueprint of their vision not once but many times. In fact, I’m still waiting for RG to speak something coherent about ‘PROGRESS and DEVELOPMENT’. Besides, why doesn ‘t the MEDIA do the research about the GUJARAT model and highlight it to the rest of the country?
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Thanks Bala. I agree with you that RaGa has no vision / mission so we can’t expect him to talk about it. The entire country has pinned its hopes on NaMo. But negative politics won’t help beyond a point I feel. He needs to communicate his ideas to his voters. Media and voters won’t do that research for him. He is eliciting votes not media. Congress has not done any development for 60 years, that everybody knows, nothing new in this. What will he do, what will he change? I meant positive politics will translate crowds into votes.
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Agree on that. But my point is he has to connect with the audience and he has done that admirably well. He tunes his speech based on the crowd he has to address. Giving a blueprint about Gujarat Model of growth to tribals in chatisgarh is not going to fly. The Genius of a Leader is how he connects with the people and take them along. He is doing that amazingly well.
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Reblogged this on TalesAlongTheWay and commented:
Political Baba has a new update about the elections in India. He does a great job presenting both parties in this historical race.
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This time we have seen the extreme low of Politics…. family drama, emotional drama, blasts at rally, everyone is talking about the history ( 2002 riots and past scams), now I hope to see some constructive politics, hope to hear from some one about acceptance that yes they did wrong and now wants to improve, hope to hear some future plans that now how we can take the country further on development grounds, and ultimately hope to see a change!!
change in politics, change in attitude of political people, change in development pace of India, change in current financial situation, change in country’s policies, change in youth’s mindset, all we want a positive change…. and all we can do only hope and vote !!!
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Thanks Pritesh. Well Put!
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I thought its worth sharing one of the comments posted about RaGa and congress dinasty in first post an hour ago – http://www.firstpost.com/politics/congress-picks-rahul-gandhi-to-head-2014-poll-campaign-1344045.html
“Congress likely get about 50 seats in 2014 election, it is purely depending on other parties to increase this count at least to 100. Because it needs survival in the politics by supporting a weak party and come to the power. In this situation, leading Congress by Rahul will damage his name very badly that will create very big problem to control the party. Other side, if he didn’t take this role, he may never get a chance to reach Congress leader position. That position may be swallowed by others.
He got a great opportunity when UPA come back to the power, he didn’t use it. At least when UPA II was completely lost people trust after the corruption series (though they are behind it), he could have replaced MMS as PM. Either he don’t have confidence, or his close associates not recommended since he is good for nothing. Now all gone out of hands, waiting for some miracle to happened at least to stop Modi to keep open the future for Congress.
Used to get one philosophical thought that the family can’t survive with its full potential for more than 3 decades. Though practically refer many such cases or even statistics supports, we don’t accept it because of no satisfying reasons. But things are very simple if we look at psychological perspective.
Rich or powerful family can’t survive more than 3 generation. The second generation knew the hard work of their parents, that at least give importance to save their wealth if it couldn’t do well. Third generation loose the connectivity and go for taking high risks or waste the wealth without knowing value of it. Still few may survive with some remaining wealth, but fourth generation totally clean up everything to next generation to keep start from scratch.
Rahul is in such a position, he didn’t have any real experience. He is been surrounded by Congress leaders who always appease him for their personal benefit. He didn’t have Vidhur needhi and like the people who really told the truth about wrong things. If he really had nice people and he is in position to grab things around, he could have smell the fall of Congress when it was defeated in Bihar and UP. Instead of telling the fact, their next level leaders took the blame on their shoulder to convert it for their corruption. Things went and finally when noticed the reality, all four states are gone out of their hand and India too.
Even now, they didn’t try to do understand their mistake, but believing others mistake for their survival. He was thrown out of Harvard University though he managed to get seat by sponsorship.
Some time tough time will teach good lesson to understand about your surroundings. But this guy seems to be not matured enough to come out of it. He has no cognitive power, so accepting all others input as it is. A below average guy can’t lead a Congress kind of party and rule India. They still divide & rule policy to come back to the power or at least survive in the politics by believing a AAP which is another mess.
I strongly feel that except Rajiv Gandhi, no one from their family had any intention to do some good things for this country. From BJP Vajpayee came, but we were not used by becoming victim to the paid media false drive. Are we going to fall again or VOTE FOR INDIA?”
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Thanks Vivek. Raga no match for NaMo.
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