A few days before the election results were out at Marine Drive in Mumbai, I was on my morning walk when I saw what looked like a carnival. with young girls in red Priyanka GandhiThe slogan ‘Girl hoon, fight sakti hoon’ written on his shirt gathered around a stage, from where a man kept shouting, ‘Leave it to the girls. They are coming thick and fast now.’ A marathon was organized to show that the Congress party was behind the empowerment of women and if anyone missed it, they only needed to look at the huge posters of Indira Gandhi, Sarojini Naidu and other Congress women , to be sure, it was a campaign for the cause Priyanka had made a mark in the hope of winning Uttar Pradesh.
Subscribe Now: Get Express Premium to Access the Best Election Reporting and Analytics
It was not a bad slogan and indeed a worthy cause, but the tenure of the Sabha indicated that it came from an old Congress drama book when the language of political power was English. The incident had a fake, brittle quality and I was contemplating it when I heard the cries of ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Jai Shri Ram’ from the other side of Marine Drive. Here a yoga class was ending and the chants marking its conclusion were spontaneous and natural. these were not BJP are biased, but they belong to Modi’s ‘new’ India. This India was born in 2014. Earlier we were ruled by English speaking leaders whose main purpose of being in politics was to ensure that their children inherited their constituencies and their political parties.
It is true that Modi’s BJP has such people, but it was no coincidence in his election speeches this time that he repeatedly reiterated that this is a fight between his kind of politics and ‘parivarvaad’ or dynastic democracy. . Many times during the campaign, Akhilesh Yadav tried to make fun of the Prime Minister for not having a family. He dismissed the allegation of his ‘familyism’ as distracting. He said the main issues were unemployment, poverty, broken promises to farmers and general economic decline. Yes. These are real issues, but somehow the voters of India believe that the old political parties which are run like family firms will never be able to find a solution. They believe it is because they have failed them in the past and they seem to have learned nothing new in seven years Narendra Modi has dominated the political scene like a colossus.
Modi has proved that in a ‘new’ India, he will decide what the narrative should be, and that the narrative will include ultra-nationalism, Hindutva, self-reliance and massive investment in welfare schemes and infrastructure. He’s made it clear that’s what he stands for and has shown that when he makes mistakes, as he did during the pandemic’s second, deadly outbreak last summer, he can correct them and move on. Is. When it was discovered that his government had failed to order enough vaccinations on time, he started campaigning extensively about India calling it the ‘largest vaccination program in the world’.
Quite the contrary, our ‘secular’ political parties are not able to convince the voters what they stand for. The two main leaders of the Congress party seem to have no idea what they should stand for. Rahul Gandhi Devotes most of his speeches to shouting about Modi being a thief who works only for the interests of his ‘four rich friends’. His sister Priyanka believes that she can only continue to talk about the glory and sacrifice of her father and grandmother. It seems he hasn’t noticed yet that most Indian voters are too young to remember him. When all else fails, Rahul and Priyanka emulate Modi by visiting a temple and ensuring that TV reporters record every puja moment.
The results of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur and Goa have given me a personal message that people are ready to give Modi a chance as they do not see any alternative. Modi’s political and economic failures since the start of his second term have been staggering. protest against Citizenship (Amendment) Act And the agricultural laws were handled in a disastrous manner and there have been no glaring achievements in handling the covid or the economy. The state of national security can be gauged from China’s land grab in Ladakh. The way Hindutva is spreading has created a deep divide between Hindus and Muslims. But, somehow India has turned into a country in which common people who didn’t trust their leaders were made of the same clothes and culture, who now themselves believe that Modi can be trusted.
He seems to them to represent change, and change is what they want. Nowhere is this more evident than in Punjab. As a fellow Jat Sikh said to me, ‘We are giving you a chance because everyone else has let us down.’ Voters in Uttar Pradesh are disappointed with Yogi Adityanath but they are willing to give him a second chance because they know Akhilesh Yadav may be young, energetic and charismatic, but Modi is right when he accused him of representing that chronic disease. . ‘Family’.