To Rahul, With Rancor (Bura Na Mano Holi Hai)

Dear Rahul G,

Today is Holi. It is a festival of colors celebrated in India. India is a country, of which Uttar Pradesh is a state. Now, I am sure, this letter has caught your attention. UP is to you what red color is to a bull. Color again reminds me of Holi. And as the tradition goes, you must not mind the mud thrown at you on the occasion of this wonderful festival.

So, we can clearly see that you are red-faced. No, not because of the festival of colors but due to that hammering in the festival of democracy. I had warned you beforehand. Parachuting to a Dalit's house for picnic or cooking up stories at Bhatta Parsaul wont help your cause. (Read: To Rahul, With Rancor) I had also urged you to come out clean on your vision and ambition. What do you promise and offer to this country? What do you stand for? And, who are you at first place? But alas, you did not pay heed. (Read: To Rahul, With Rancor-2) You pay heed to nobody. You ignore media. Sorry, this time people ignored you. I wrote you two long letters! You know what it takes to blog? You know what it takes to blog about you? What Rahul G? I am sure even Parle-G would have paid heed after so much of effort. Ok, bad one. But again, it's Holi. I warned you.

I want to pay you some respect. Please don't mind. Respect for coming out from your shell, and owning up the responsibility for UP fiasco. And now, I take back that respect. For not turning up at your party's meet to discuss what went wrong. I know Congress is run from your mother's kitchen and you discuss your strategies with her at the dinner table, but still this is not done. This shows that you are an arrogant and a weak man. You can not look into adversity's eyes. You are far from ground realities. Your chopper is no match for Akhilesh's cycle. And you are not sympathetic and compassionate towards your own party members.

All throughout your campaign in UP, you faked aggression. You tore papers. People tore your party apart. You shouted against almost every political leader. The people shut you up. By now, you must have known that you are good at attracting crowd. You are a handsome Gandhi. People are bound to queue up to see you. But they will vote only for people they trust. And you failed to win people's trust.

To be honest, I also sympathize with you. You worked really hard to make a difference for your party. But you went horribly wrong in your calculations. You dreamed of forming government while your last tally was just 22. Your promises were lofty, far away and way high from the ground. Being a politician, how could you not read the writing on the wall? How could not you assess the ground realities, your party's actual prospects? Why did you continue to be ill-advised by a bunch of loud-mouth, moth-faced politicians? And the biggest sin of them all, how could you trust and entrust a joker like Digvijay Singh with so many responsibilities?

I pity you for being painted red this Holi. Hence, I made sure that I use coal black font color for writing this letter. I still wish you good luck for future. And I wish you and your family and your party a very happy Holi. Times change. Your day under the orange sun will come. Just make sure that you clean your face and heart properly after playing Holi.


With Rancor,

A Non-Congressman

UP Polls 2012: Return of Sadhvi

She had all the ingredients to be the ‘next big thing’ of the BJP, yet she never really found her place in the party’s ‘Gen-Next’ brigade. Gifted with excellent oratory skills and an ability to judge the ‘pulse’ of the masses, Uma Bharti is the saffron party’s quintessential ‘infant terrible’. Her relation with the BJP is as melodramatic and full of twists as a Bollywood potboiler. However, the maverick sadhvi is back in the thick of things as the BJP’s saviour-in-chief for Mission UP 2012.

Uma’s biggest challenge in UP is to revive the BJP by consolidating its core vote-bank as well as try and break new grounds among the electorates. She brings with herself the much-needed energy and urgency in the election campaign for the BJP. In fact, all the headlines that the BJP has grabbed from Uttar Pradesh can be mainly attributed to Uma Bharti. Otherwise, UP elections would have been all about Mayawati versus Rahul Gandhi with a pinch of Mulayam Singh thrown in between.

BJP finds itself in a great fix in the politically crucial state of UP with its electoral fortunes declining steadily. There is a dearth of credible leadership in the state and it is in this regard that Uma Bharti comes across as a very pleasant option for the party. She is a proven crowd puller and her appeal amongst the backward class may just revive BJP in the state. Also, Uma’s projection as BJP’s in-charge in UP can galvanize some of the Hindu votes. The party has already made its intentions clear by promising cow to the poor and including Ram Temple issue in the manifesto. Also, there is a lot of slugfest over the issue of minority quota with Uma terming it as ‘an attempt that could lead to second partition of the country’.

With Mayawati still pretty much in command of her ‘socially engineered’ electoral base, Rahul Gandhi going full throttle in his attempt to revive Congress and Samajwadi Party leaving no stone unturned in wooing minority votes, BJP faces the possible embarrassment of finishing fourth in the elections. Uma Bharti not only needs to resurrect her party’s plunging fortunes but also urgently requires to send out a strong message to ‘critics’ who wrote her political obituary. Her detractors accuse her of being an ‘outsider’, someone who has come to UP only to perform an ‘assigned’ task. Also, the fact that she is not even the chief ministerial candidate of her party makes her job tougher. Uma needs to convince the common voter of UP that she is not just another ‘star campaigner’ who hops around in helicopter. She needs to build some confidence in the hearts of the people of Uttar Pradesh. And she also must realize that things have changed drastically since she hogged limelight in UP for her call to build the Ram Temple at Ayodhya.

Whether she succeeds in salvaging BJP’s pride in UP or not remains to be seen. Frankly, no one expects a miracle of sorts from the Sadhvi but yes, she is at least expected to put up a good fight. She has definitely come across as a breath of fresh air for the almost dead and buried BJP in Uttar Pradesh. The party, which had almost nothing new or exciting to offer and promise, now at least has a known and proven mass leader to spearhead its campaign.

Note- First of a series of articles on State Assembly Elections 2012.

To Rahul, With Rancor

Dear Rahul,

You troubled me a lot last week by shamelessly occupying news space, my staple diet, for a reason, which I found hard to comprehend. You must understand that you are to politics what Ranbir Kapoor is to Hindi Film Industry. You are media’s favorite pin-up boy, single and available for marriage and also prime ministership, (in your case). But that does not give you the liberty to poke your nose in each and every affair of this country. Ranbir can get away with fooling around every now and then, but sorry you are not so lucky. The same people who hail you as the Next King of India would banish you to death if a single step goes wrong.

Firstly, who are you? What is your qualification and distinction? Why shall I trust you when you say that women have been raped and there is a mass grave in Bhatta Parsaul? Do you have any substantial evidence to back your serious charges? The answer is in negative and your flip-flop post that overzealous statement is a testimony to this fact. I will not, and no Indian should, trust you blindly just because you carry that illustrious surname. You have achieved little in your life other than that scion tag and your theatrics seem to be mere eyewash.

You have a fetish for rural India and poor milieu. When you get bored, swimming in the political waters of Delhi, you swiftly retreat to a untouchable’s house in some non-descript hamlet, shake hands with villagers, carry mud on your head and spend a night there. What difference does this trip of yours make in the lives of those poor villagers? They only find themselves in the news headlines along with you.

Why is it that you take up farmers’ issues only in the states that are not ruled by your party? Is the UP land agitation the only of its kind in India? Where were you when farmers were shot at in Jaitapur, Maharashtra and in Andhra Pradesh? You don’t bother to go there just because these are congress-ruled states. You have one-point agenda in your mind: To strengthen Congress’ base in states where its clout has eroded. Nothing wrong with that, its your duty as the party’s youth leader and General secretary. But why do you 'fake' issues? Why are you hell bent on playing politics over dead farmers in UP? Why have you exaggerated the issue and made Mayawati look like Muammar Gadaffi? Rahul, you have misled the already 'lost Prime Minister' of this country, and the ignorant Indians at large.

I applauded when you took that Bombay local to defy goon politics of Shiv Sena. I liked the way you raised the issue of Kalavati in the Parliament. But you seem to have lost plot here. You are behaving like an  ill-informed kid who is dying to get his share of lolly. Truth and honesty, which made you distinct in initial stages of your political career, have deserted you. But let me remind you, Uttar Pradesh wont be reclaimed by these 'one-day retreat' dramas of yours. Mayawati is no saint. But you are no God either.

With Rancor,

A Non-Congressman