ALL IS NOT WELL WITHIN THE RULING PARTY

In Bhartiya Janata Party since it came to power in 2014 with prime minister Narendra Modi’s Charisma, while there have been tremendous support for Modi within and outside the Party with his one time rivals like Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley slowly and gradually becoming his biggest admirers and trusted people after the latters’ induction in the Union Council of ministers given the charge of plum portfolios like finance and external affairs there is no dearth of opposition emerging from within as well, though slowly and steadily.

Today the Modi charisma though still on the hype but is partially on the down slide as well to an extent as he is being dubbed by his ardent opponenrts, particularly, the Congress as the rhetoric PM loading people of the country with excessive promises but doing little or negligible on the ground. During prime minister Narendra Modi’s three and a half year tenure as a most popular and gutsy leader while on the one hand he had been appreciated and lauded for his actions on foreign diplomatic front having toured several countries of the globe and resolving vexed issues like Doklam stand off, maintaining healthy bilateral trade and security relations with super power like US, Japan, countries of the middle east, China and SAARC nations, and establishing its leadership supremacy in UN by winning the election for the judgeship of International Court of justice defeating UNSC’s powerful member, Britain compounded with surgical strikes demolishing terror sanctuaries across the border etc compounded with incessant victories in several state elections thus ruling in 18 states of the country on the other hand he has been horribly condemned and criticized by his seasoned opponents like former finance minister Yashwant Sinha and ex Minister in the Vajpayees’s govt, senior journalist Arun Shouri as well as the former minister and actor turned politician Shatrughan Sinha on the issues of demonetisation, GST, inflation, his foreign visits and various policy matters terming them as anti people and utterly lop sided.

The former deputy prime minister Lal Krishna Advani, his one time God father and the senior leader and former union minister Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi too had been cut to sizes politically under the guise of having crossed 75 years of age and therefore of no use to the party. Political analysts say that while Narendra Modi is still extremely popular amongst the masses in the country but on the issues such as lynching of minorities, inflation, ill effects of demonetization, attacks on journalists and on GST implementation etc including his being tamed as the leader symbolising rhetorics have to some extent tried to put dent to his image. While the analysts claim that Modi may still have the upper hand in the 2019 elections due to the supposed wave of religious polarisation of majoritarianism and other factors such as weak leadership of his chief opponent Rahul Gandhi but the recent exposure in caravan about the suspicious death of the Mumbai High Court judge looking after the BJP chief Amit Shah case and the case of his son’s bank account that multiplied from 50 thousand to 80 crores in a short duration, if blown out of proportion may definitely bring his and the party’s image to the downslide tremendously.

The increasing pressure of Rahul Gandhi, Hardik Patel, Jignesh and Kalpesh Thakur have already compelled Prime minister Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah to shift the entire union cabinet to the poll bound Gujarat which unambiguously speaks of the fact that the graph of the current political dispensation and its leader at the centre who once ruled Gujarat as its two time CM is in greatest jeopardy atleast till the final results of the state are finally declared.

It may therefore conclusively be said that its not only from the Congress Party or its leader Rahul Gandhi through whom the BJP in Gujarat is confronting challenge of the greatest magnitude despite its chances of victory on Gujarat pride factor, Modi being the PM of the country but within the party too the one time invincible PM is being challenged by the likes of vociferous and oratorically highly skilled Yashwant Sinha, veteran journalist Arun Shourie and the actor turned former minister Shatrughan Sinha. While the patriarchs of the party like LK Advani and Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi are mum publically but it is reliably learn that they leave no stone unturned to criticize the party and government leadership as and when they get the chance to do so but within the four walls and amongst the party distractors. It seems that despite so much of over confidence all is not well within the ruling party. What do you say friends?

SUNIL NEGI