Gujarat Elections 2017: Why BJP Really Lost and 6 Critical Lessons for Modi

BJP, led by Narendra Modi, won 49.1% of the vote share in the Gujarat Elections 2017.  Such a vote share in 2007 had translated into 117 seats.  In 2017, however, this has meant 99 seats.  This clearly means that margins of losses in some major constituencies would have been very low.  When one does the analysis, one finds that it was NOT Congress which really defeated BJP.  But it was NOTA (or None of the Above)!  Look at the table below.  15 decisive seats were lost by BJP to NOTA!

Most of these seats were rural seats.  Which means that the campaign of lies and falsehoods – of creating a certain perception that was unleashed by the Congress succeeded!  The three jokers – the casteist miscreants created the situation where people who wanted to vote for BJP only did not do so.  But they did end up ensuring BJP’s defeat nevertheless in those seats!

Cabal Of Convenience, Social and National Disruption

There have been many inflluences and attempts by Congress to usurp the elections in one way or the other.  They had allies and powerful ones at that:

• Recently created caste “leaders”
• Journalists and media anchors
• Moles within BJP – like Yashwant Sinha, Shatrughan Sinha and Arun Shourie
• Pakistani establishment

Even when the whole religious and communal discussion was brought in by the Congress with their Temple-Hopping while signing in Non-Hindu registers or with using the Mughal kings as the synonym for their Gandhi dynasty; the sycophantic media anchors painted it as the handiwork of BJP.  Which had merely pointed to the obvious!  The messenger became the culprit – because of the machiavellian media.

In the face of how every dirty trick was used by the cabal put together by Congress to fight the Gujarat elections and beat BJP – while losing it all – a new normal has come about.  Things are no longer the way they used to.  The desperation of Congress can lead it to go to any length or depth.  Even sell out the country.  (Please read – What Really Was Plotted In Mani Shankar’s House – Five Possible Action Items)

These ways will need a fighting mechanism of a different kind.  And, the battle will be fought in people’s minds.

When Karna’s chariot was stuck in the mud and he came down, Krishna ordered Arjun to shoot at him and kill him.  Karna chided Krishna asking “what about the rules of war?  isn’t this against those rules?”  To which Krishna reminded him – “where were the rules when Draupadi was unclothed?  Where were rules when Abhimanyu was killed in cold blood and you all danced around his dead body?”.  There are no rules for those who fight with no rules.

Machinations of Congress have created an existential crisis for India as a nation.  If Congress succeeds, India as we know it will not.  Beyond glitches of GST and demonetization is the whole survival of the country itself.  What use will be a perfectly executed GST, if the country is brought down to its knees by its rulers.  Has the generation today forgotten the existential crisis brought about by VP Singh?  Or IK Gujral?  Or Dewe Gowda?

Small countries – a seventh our size, like Pakistan, have bullied us and made a mockery of our entire polity and nation.  That is what 70 years of political pussillanimity has done!

Economic populism cannot be allowed to bring down sovereignty of a nation and civilization that can be the only hope for future spiritual direction of humanity.  There is far more to lose from the installation of Congress at the helm that a few hundred thousand crores in another plunder.  India risks itself!

So what should BJP do now?  I have listed 6 steps that are needed to win 2019 and continue what is needed for the improvement, growth and betterment of the Indian people.

Gujarat Elections: The 6 Lessons and Takeaways

Let us discussed based on what we have seen in this Gujarat elections 2017.  The lack of scruples and use of lies and falsehoods.  It is time to take off the gloves and fight hard.  Ruthlessly so.  So let us look at the options that BJP and Modi team have at their disposal.

Choose the Right and Performing Leader: In the past 3 years, one has seen that two leaders from BJP have been accepted whole-heartedly by the people, despite the campaigns by the media against them – Yogi Adityanath and Narendra Modi himself. Both, had been given a “hardliner Hindutva” image by secularists and the media – albeit incorrectly if one was to look at facts. However, both have some traits in common:

• They are not apologetic about being Hindu.
• Both do not attempt at appeasement of the minorities
• Are strong and steadfast in governance – no nonsense
• Both work very hard with minimal frills and expect others to do so too
• Are strong communicators and do not remain in a shell with no engagement with public or world at large

Fact is that the appeasement of the minorities and the bastardization of “Secularism” has been so rampant and shameful, that the country now needs people who are unapologetic about the basic Indian civilizational ethos, while they do NOT do that with any idea or feeling of vengeance.  For example, Love Jihad – or grooming as it is called in Europe – is a reality.  And it needs to be fought.  However, it should not lead to violence against the Muslims at large.  And, at the same time, Muslims cannot be allowed to take law into their hands when they try to do so.  Secularists have condoned, justified and even motivated the latter, while raking up disproportionally the former.

This strong unapologetic Hindutva which is free of vengeance needs to be backed by performance on the ground.  All right-leaning hype with no performance on the ground will not lead anyone anywhere.  We need Yogis and not activists leading BJP governments.  Which is what Modi and Yogi are – Yogis who are leaders.

The problem with Gujarat leadership post-Modi was that Anandiben was a known corrupt person.  I still remember talking to a Gujarati person who was strongly pro-BJP and he was not happy that Anandiben would come in after Modi.  She was weak, spineless, and corrupt.  Irrespective of her seniority, she was a curse for BJP! That was the reason she was ousted.  Vijay Rupani is an old RSS hand, but he is a very weak communicator and a rather listless leader.  He too won’t do much for Gujarat’s rise.

Finding that one, even unknown leader, who is strong and fierce and can arouse passion and ability to work in people is needed.  The same goes for other states as well.  Even Himachal.

Exemplary Action Against high-profile Corrupt People:  As asinine as it may be, the argument from Congress flunkies against their unmitigated plunder has been – fine, if there was so much corruption, why isn’t there any indictment until now?  We have dealt with this question on why Modi cannot, and indeed should not go around putting people in jail without any court judgment.  But, not everyone wants to look at the facts and how a democracy works.  Besides there has been a large amount of plunder with the economy.  It is about time that the government uses the CBI (as much as it is against the norms) to go after some high-profile criminals.  Specifically the Chidambaram family, Robert Vadra and someone from the Mulayam or Laloo Prasad type of corrupt individuals.  People expect the government to use these agencies.  It has been the way all the governments have worked.  Most times to the detriment of the country.  So, it is time that these agencies are used for the right reason.

So, Mr. PM, use the full force of the government to not just jail some of these high-profile criminals, but bring their wealth back into the system.  Even if symbolically.  Indictments are a must now!

Push Reforms to the Next Term: Many tough and much-needed reforms have been undertaken.  Unfortunately, we have a “deep-state” and a media that is beholden to Congress.  So nothing gets the visibility that it needs.  For example, just the Jan Dhan Yojana has added (as of Dec 13, 2017) 300 million new bank accounts.  Maybe 30 crores does not sound that big, but it is the whole population of US put together!  It is almost as if a leader started opening bank accounts in US from Zero and gave accounts to every citizen in just 3 years!!  I am not sure how many of the readers are bankers, but I would bet that the best and the greatest of bankers from HSBC, Citibank, Chase etc would get shit scared if they had that kind of target!!  It is not about gathering people, it is about the logistics and the distances involved along with the lack of infrastructure!  And, those bankers would shit in their pants even with their ultra-modern infrastructure.  All that was achieved with the creaky, ancient often, infrastructure!

Why was that important – even with zero balance accounts?  For two reasons – One, direct payment of benefits and Two, platform to offer low-cost insurance!  Let us put this in context.  For last 10 years of the UPA government, the outlay for MNREGA – the flagship program for poverty alleviation from Congress – was Rs. 30,000-40,000 crores.  That was in those times roughly $7-10 BILLION!  With a B!  And in most cases, there was no paper trail or evidence of any beneficiaries!   In one report, CAG reported that ONLY 7% of a total of 13.4 million registered families holding MGNREGA job cards were provided jobs for 100 days from 2007 to 2013.  That was the level of plunder!  All this by middlemen who could direct the monies.

With the opening up of 300 million bank accounts and linking them with Aadhar card – not only creates an audit trail that is recorded, but the moneys can go without any intervention from the treasury to the beneficiary!

So, all these amazing – nay pathbreaking – reforms are fantastic.  But the common man does not really want all this.  People are fine with populism.  So, the time to give the bitter pill is over.  Its time to provide the sweets now.  So, one can feel better.  Now it is time to give some populist measures to the juveniles.

Major Job Push with large deals:  The direction of creating employment vs jobs is the right direction for India to go to.  Because so many jobs will not be created by employers alone.  However, those who want to push another agenda there is enough fodder.  Jobs have visibility.  Entrepreneurship takes time to fructify.  It is imperative that the government starts large programs along with the private sector to create jobs.

One of the ways to push for more jobs and make them visible is to have large companies start big initiatives in India with clear job creation goal statements.  For this, it would not be wrong to give tax and other incentives.  After all, the IT companies prospered in India when they got the 10 year tax holiday.  Providing such incentives for manufacturing industries so they can move the factories from China to India will go a long way to help with the job scenario.

While India keeps pushing for more reforms and better ways of doing business in India, it also needs signature and visible initiatives that will bring jobs in for people.

Open Up a Larger Partnership with the Blogging and Social media Community:  When the whole mainstream media was waging a media war against the BJP and specifically Narendra Modi, it were the bloggers who came to the fore to set the narrative in the right direction for Narendra Modi.  It was the blogging community that brought out the farcical and false campaign against Modi.  In a large part what happened in the Social media – the memes, the information and the data that was shared was a collective, open source, and impromptu effort.

The mainstream media has been compromised.  Specially the Lutyen’s group.  It is imperative that the Modi government opens up channels with the social media activists and with political bloggers via conversations, dialog, information sharing, interviews and promotion of their content to lend credibility to the voices who are trying to set the record straight for Narendra Modi and the government.

The world is changing.  The medium and the idiom of expression is changing.  The content and the communication needs to be open sourced.  Credible information with integrity needs to be given to those who can communicate it correctly.  And it should be collective and joint partnership.  Make the social media and blogging community which has substantive views successful, and the politics of achievement will also get the boost.  India needs varied voices with a large spectrum.  Until now this voice which pushes for nationalism and Indian ethos has been smothered by those who peddled fake Secularism.

It is time to broad-base the fight and the partnership!

Create Regional Competitors to Casteist Miscreants:  Congress used three casteist miscreants – Hardik Patel, Jignesh Mewani, Alpesh Thakor – to outsource their political fight in Gujarat.  The Secular forces had also created another local guy – Arvind Kejriwal.

These are political miscreants whose agenda is or never was any social equity or fighting corruption.  When the rubber met the road, they came out clearly as the “B Team of Congress”.  All of these had sworn their opposition to Congress.  The most ascerbic critic of Congress was Arvind Kejriwal.  He ran an entire campaign on how he would send Congress to jail during the Delhi elections.  Yet, he took the support of the Congress when shit hit the fan!

Now, one way for BJP is to fight these miscreants with all its might.

Another way is to create its own surrogates at these local and regional level – who are their competitors.  But do the right things.  For example, have a Patel leader organize the Patels.  But not for reservations.  For bringing their community together for empowering them.  If there has to be a Patel community group – let it be one which is proud of itself but is collaborative.  This local leader can engage and challenge the Hardik Patels of this country.  Let there be another Arvind Kejriwal – but this time backed by BJP.  Let him do what Kejriwal promised.  And bare the obvious hypocrisy of Kejriwal.

One main thing that this Gujarat Elections should have taught the Narendra Modi camp is that – in the world of proxies and B-teams, it is stupid to pit your main National team against these local and regional players.  Because when they fight, they get legitimacy, and when they poke, the main national party loses its credibility.  Let the competitors use the same medium and idiom.   The same language and the same ways.  But to do good.