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Media,
particularly the English one, is still busy in
degenerating BJP by raising the bogey of Moditva
vs. Hindutva, BJP chief’s cool reaction, and
absence of NDA leaders from the oath taking
ceremony of Modi. However, I have started
dreaming a bright future for the democracy and
the people after observing a little analytically
the outcome of the assembly election.
- Caste is becoming less important. Leaders of
Patel community with significant influence went
against Modi. They tried to influence the people
of the caste to get Modi’s candidates defeated
through various appeals in media and
door-to-door campaign too. But the drive didn’t
cause any damage.
- Mayawati inspired by her recent well-publicised
social engineering feat in UP tried her
successful experiment in Gujarat. Unfortunately
or fortunately, she failed miserably to make a
dent. Her party couldn’t open its account. Her
dream to capture Delhi must have got a set back.
It may be that ‘Delhi door hai’.
- Gandhi- Nehru charisma is failing to get vote
good enough to make a win. Sonia Gandhi worked
really hard. Even Rahul Gandhi was used
extensively. Their sycophants managed crowd in
their election rally, but failed to make
Congress win Gujarat. Perhps in years to come
with totally new generation going to polling
booth, the new voters will hardly give much
weightage to the Congress Party because of it
being headed by someone from Gandhi-Nehru
family.
- Money in campaign can’t change the mind of the
people. As per one estimate reported in Mail
Today on December 25, Rs 450 crore was spent by
Congress to win Gujarat from Modi. It meant
almost more than Rs 2 crore per seat. However,
it couldn’t win the election for Congress and
Soniaji.
Development gets appreciated. “Modi has been
successful in merging muscular Hindutva and
Gujarati asmita (self-respect) with a commitment
to good governance.”
Link
Work done by the government does matter. Though
Yachuri painted a very poor picture of Gujarat,
some of the stunning facts of the development
under Modi and certain aspects of good
governance can’t be overlooked: “Value of
farm-output had grown four times. School
drop-out rate was down to 3% from over 40%. All
villages, without exception, were getting 24
hour, 3-phase power for homes. Besides, the
pipelines and canals fetching Narmada water,
more than 140,000 check-dams and village ponds
across the state had solved the drinking-water
and irrigation problems in a state that was
perennially drought prone, arid and dependent on
water-tankers ferrying expensive water. The
number of registered unemployed in Gujarat had
actually declined by over 15%. Almost one lakh
rural-poor expecting mothers had delivered,
assisted by private gynecologists, all paid for
by the state. To top it all, the past five years
were riot-free, curfew-free, and despite being
targeted by several terror groups from across
the borders, terror-strike-free.”
As reported, fundamentalists, be it named cadre
of RSS, VHP, Bajarang Dal hardly matter. None
helped Modi. Many a times, they may spoil the
chance.
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Comments: |
This
is with reference to the article on
the possibility of development
converting into votes. Although I am
not a supporter of the lack of
Rajdharma by Narendra Modi during
and aftermath of the Gujarat riots
of 2002, I am a supporter of his
policies for development of Gujarat.
Lot of hope was generated during the
Chief Minsitership of Chandrababu
Naidu that development is a
vote-winner. However, his defeat at
the hustings dismayed the hopes of
lots of people who felt that for
once more than caste and community,
development is the primary issue
based on which elections are won.
However, with the victory of
Narendra Modi in Gujarat, it has
been comprehensively proved that
good development can also be
converted into votes and people are
becoming more conscious of the real
issues facing them rather than the
emotive issues like caste and
religion. One of the important
differences in the victory of Modi
and defeat of Naidu is that while
Naidu's development was mainly in
hi-tech areas and confined to
Hyderabad and Secunderabad, Modi's
development is more encompassing.
In the context of Bihar, this has
given hope to us that Nitish Kumar
has been voted on a development
plank and he will be judged in the
next elections based on his
performance in developing the state.
Perhaps victory of Narendra Modi
will be a confidence booster to him
for carrying onward the development
activities. - Balajee Diwakar,
Noida - Dec. 31, 2007 |
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