So, the PM concedes Gujarat BJP is in trouble

Prime Minister Narendra Modi rarely concedes anything. It, therefore, was significant when he referred to the innumerable crises that the Bharatiya Janata Party overcame in Gujarat in the past, adding that he was confident the party would overcome the present crisis as well. That it took the Prime Minister to acknowledge that BJP is in trouble in Gujarat barely two months before the assembly election indicates the party’s plight.

Even before Modi, who is said to have visited Gujarat 14 times this year as opposed to just three visits during the first two years of his tenure as PM, addressed party workers in the state on Monday, there were indications that anti-incumbency against the BJP Government this time is stronger than ever. And even attempts by the BJP Mahila Morcha to ridicule and criticise Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi for his reported comment on women not accepted in the RSS, failed to cut much ice.

As if all this was not enough, Prime Minister Modi on Monday worked himself up to allege that ‘ the family’ had always hated Gujarat and Gujaratis. He seemed to have so carried away that he forgot that there was no Gujarat state at the time of Independence, that it was actually created under the watch of the Congress. While Modi stooped to allege that the Nehru-Gandhi family ‘hated’ Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Morarji Desai and himself, he failed to remember the number of stalwarts from Gujarat, including Vikram Sarabhai, who received active encouragement from the Congress Government at the Centre.

Indeed the Prime Minister forgot to mention that it was another Gujarati, Mahatma Gandhi, who favoured Jawaharlal Nehru as the first Prime Minister of the country.

But the Prime Minister accused ‘ the family’ of ridiculing former Prime Minister Morarji Desai’s ‘drinking habits’. Desai himself gave any number of interviews to promote the benefits of drinking one’s own urine and it is ingenuous for the Prime Minister to find fault with ‘ the family’ for bringing ridicule to ‘ Urine Therapy’ or Morarji. If anything, Morarjibhai had brought it upon himself.

While the Prime Minister’s intemperate, some would say irresponsible, election speeches have become familiar to the Indian electorate, he seems to discover fresh depths to which he decides to sink at every election.

It is also known by now that the Prime Minister can be economical with the truth. And true to form, he blamed the ‘ family’ for conspiring to send his then home minister Amit Shah to jail in the Sohrabuddin Shaikh fake encounter case. He has a convenient memory and forgets that it was the judiciary which monitored the case and ordered Shah into jail, shifted the trial outside Gujarat and ordered Shah to remain away from the state.

For a Prime Minister who is reluctant to share credit with even his own ministers and chief ministers, the Prime Minister appeared keen to share the blame for the problematic implementation of the Goods and Services Tax, which has not gone down well with the traders.

In his speech, Modi switched to Gujarati while blaming Congress and ‘ thirty other parties’ for rolling out the GST. Possibly for the first time he played down his own role and the role of the Centre in rolling out a ‘ historic’ , ‘ path-breaking’ reform, to quote his own words.

Mocking comes easily to the Prime Minister. But while the jury is out on whether the speeches of the Prime Minister cross the ‘Lakshman Rekha’, what is indisputable is that the BJP in Gujarat is in trouble. The Prime Minister himself says so.