Re-born or born to be hanged

                                                 Re-born or born to be hanged

The twitter at the bottom of a News channel read: “Without Namo, BJP is a zero; without Raga, Congress is a hero”. For once the Twitterati’s sarcasm spoke the truth. The by-poll verdict has proved true the twitter message. It is no wonder Namo taking the cue from the twitter is going to lead the campaigns in Maharashtra and Haryana as the two states  gear for the assembly polls in the next few weeks. One hopes that Raga refrains from these campaigns in much the same way by taking the cue from the twitter. For once during the recent by-polls, Congress saw the wisdom of holding back Raga –maybe to save itself the arduous  task of explaining post poll verdict- because the verdict would have been different had he pitched in. The by -poll results thus rest on the absence visible factor. It is certainly not a verdict against the 100 days old victor nor in favour of the 100days old vanquished. I am neither a spin doctor of the BJP to invent plausible causes for the defeat nor am I a political pundit to forecast a triumphant return of the GOP into the centre stage Indian politics. The results reminded me of the story where a couple on a ship was trapped in a terrible storm. The wife told her husband that she feared they would die. "Don't worry," he replied with a yawn, "if you're born to be hanged, then you'll never be drowned."

Here hangs the tale of all political parties. The only change in the present situation is the replacement of the storm by the omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent Media. The media that was getting fine tuned to Namo bhajans gleefully latched on to the by-poll results to make a u-turn to find all the possible chinks in Namodom. This time around, the media had to literally ‘modi-fy’ its Namo paeans to murmur( with trepidation) that Maun Mohan Singh has been replaced by Maun Modi. The hushed commentary of the media was feebly heard to say:  “If MMS had remained silent when the 2G scam was brought to his door, MM today remains silent in the midst of all loud ranting such as Love Jihad, Meat Jihad, Angrezi Jihad, “Hum hai Hindu, hum hi hai Hindustani ” ( We are Hindus, We only are Indians). The fringe voices (and even a few Ministerial voices that joined the chorus to echo the Meat jihad) are getting shriller day by day to drown the feeble voices of sanity in the BJP. It looks as though the BJP which recently had a re-birth is silently listening to the death knell being sounded by the lunatic hangmen surrounding it. BJP that was re-born hundred days ago should be wary of being hanged by this senseless fringe brigade.

The Congress feels foolishly euphoric as the real party pooper has been the Samajwadi party and not the Congress  in UP. The electoral gains of the Congress n Rajasthan and Gujarat are not to be seen that the Congress has risen like the phoenix. The credit goes to Sachin  Pilot who like a few others of his calibre have the ability to analyze, articulate and influence the voters on what had gone wrong in 100 days and re-win their confidence. The Congress has some fine spokespersons of all ages and groups who unfortunately remain on the fringes and are neither seen nor heard. That is the basic difference between the BJP and the Congress. The fringe group in the BJP is the shouting brigade that brings down the roof top Modi had assiduously built,  while those on the fringe in the Congress( both from the older and the younger groups)  form the silent brigade that quietly and unobtrusively work to re-build the shattered party. The scams of the past weigh heavily against the Congress and these small victories cannot wash them away. It is time for the young guns of the Congress to come out of their irrelevance and start firing. Congress has very fine articulators in Pilot, Scindia, Manish Tiwari, Singhvi, Tharoor and in seasoned veteran politicians like Digvijay Singh, Amarinder Singh, Chidambaram, Salman Khurshid and the like. But if it continues to hold on to the cherubic calf, it is doomed for eternity. It has to rise above the cow and the calf to remain relevant on the political stage.  It cannot look at the by poll results and pat itself on the back that it has risen from the ashes. The sins of a few in the past have eclipsed the GOP to this hapless irrelevance. But there is still a vast majority of solid, silent, honest, intelligent and suave young workers in the Congress who did not get  drowned in the welter of corruption. If this fringe brigade fails to take centre stage now and continues to sing around Raga, it is perfectly in order to say that Congress has just re-born to be hanged.