Now I Know Why Vajpayee Lost In 2004

It was a shocker for many when Vajpayee lost the 2004 general elections. Most of the political Pundits along with the opinion polls had predicted a better performance for BJP than the last elections. It was even a surprise for the Congress party itself when they won. It was no different for me. For days I kept wondering how Vajpayee could lose when it was almost certain for him to win back again. More than anyone else I was confident on Vajpayee’s political wisdom. When he called early general elections he must have sensed a certain victory by a margin that would help get rid of few trouble making allies. But it turned out exact opposite. I had never seen the nation’s political punditry going off the mark so drastically. So many people can’t be wrong at one go. There has to be reasons for such a surprise to throw up. It is more than 14 years later that I am getting to realize what that might have caused Vajpayee to lose. It is only when Modi came to power and the events that followed, the plot got cleared gradually.

Not that it was a eureka moment for me today. I had sensed it long time back, precisely, a couple of months into Modi government. I had written it in length back then. But I was guessing more than authorizing my presumptions. It is these four years of Modi rule that gradually proved my guesses more or less correct. And here I held both BJP, the party, as well as its political foes equally responsible. BJP and Modi for being too unwise to repeat the mistakes that Vajpayee made and the foes for being what they are – charlatans who are perpetually hungry for power and a bunch of freeloaders who are too addicted to power, freebies and money. Let’s first see what the mistakes that the Modi government is repeating without any compulsion.

First mistake is the futile attempt at garnering more vote blocks. Precisely the mistake Vajpayee did and failed. It is good for a political party to add more vote clusters to its kitty but that shouldn’t come at the expense of your existing ones. That would defeat the whole purpose. An absolute majority for BJP, which was the first instance in last quarter of a century in our political history, has its reasons. It was certainly not a fluke. Even the voters who voted for BJP had pretty much similar background in more ways than one. And I don’t need to spell out who or which section voted Modi so definitively. The overtly secular avatar of Congress had alienated many Hindu sections. It was almost a breathlessness situation. The post debacle internal survey within Congress also highlighted this very thing. A big chunk of this frustrated lot voted Modi to see things changing to neutrality, if not out rightly in their favour. What these voters have got? Absolutely nothing. The situation hasn’t changed a bit since then. In many ways it in fact has gone worse. The present dispensation keeps on sucking up to the secularism nonsense and overplay themselves quite unprovoked. I don’t understand what is the compulsion and what is that the Modi government want to achieve at the end of the day. People who voted them so jubilantly simply matters nothing to them or so it appears.

I don’t know who is advising Modi but it is plain political suicide when you throw your diligent supporters under the bus at the slightest instance to appease the Muslims. Modi ministers work overtime in their act of appeasement that the populace had come to despise before 2014. They were all over the city when triple Talaq was cleared by the apex court. People in BJP known to me were overtly hopeful that this would bring many Muslim women voters in their fold. But had that happened? Definitely not. I had warned them then that it is futile running behind a smokescreen. Preserve your core vote bank that is rapidly getting restless looking at your clownish pursuance; were my wise words. I guess my words fell into deaf ears. I don’t even know on what line the Modi government is working on. Most of his ministers are ready to crawl on the ground to get that false sense of acceptability within the Muslim community. I repeat – whatever might the Modi government do or how much they bend backwards to appease the Muslims; they aren’t going to get any votes from them. It is as bitter a truth as Rahul Gandhi a third rated worthless politician. But somehow this basic political fact evades the morons in the party at ease. Every passing day Modi ministers are turning themselves more obnoxious in their act of appeasement. The instances where Modi Sarkar and his minsters shown unbelievable agility to appease the Muslims in expense of their core supporters are plenty. Rajnath Singh threw a genuine BJP supporter under the bus just because she questioned few rascal stone pelters of the Kashmir valley. Most in BJP today are exhibiting the same nonsense that we were so used to with the Congress party. What the core voters of BJP hated with Congress is getting repeated with BJP to their utter despair.

Not a single day passes without a Modi minister blabbering some nonsense or the other to demean Hindus. On international Yoga day Rajnath Singh announced how Yoga has got nothing to do with Hindu religion. Really? What this man smokes would be an interesting thing to know. This was another unprovoked nonsense that no one was forcing him to say. What made him disassociate Yoga from Hinduism when thousand-year-old scriptures talk about Hinduism and Yoga in the same breath? What scientific proof RS had to make such a statement? Absolutely nothing. But he has to make a statement just that the cheer girls of secularism would jump with collective orgasm for him. This is so ridiculous that I find it hard to even make any sense out of this statement. Who was even asking him if Yoga is related to Hinduism or not? This is how people like RS are annoying core BJP voters on daily basis. Congress was at least appeasing when it was needed for political benefits but Modi ministers are caught crawling shamelessly for no reason knowing very well that they aren’t going to get any votes from them. How can these bunch of clowns be such fools?

On the same day Sushma Swaraj did her act of unprovoked secularism overdrive. The overdrive was so severe that she infringed in the process of passport procurement. A lady named ‘Tanvi whatever’ tweeted her about some alleged misconduct she faced in the Lucknow RPO while trying to get her passport. The ploy was victimhood. She accused the passport officer of biasness just because she had an inter-faith marriage. Good enough for Sushma Swaraj to act over the top. No enquiry was done whatsoever. The passport officer was unceremoniously transferred while the lady in question was granted passport on a war footnote by disturbing many procedures. Fantastic!! Later on, after an outrage on social media, it was found that the woman produced dubious documents which carried different names in each of those. A police investigation also revealed that she too lied about her place of residence. While she stayed in Noida she applied for her passport in Lucknow in a clear violation of the passport rules. She also produced suspicious bunch of documents as part of the application. What were her motives behind producing bogus documents? Can Sushma Swaraj or her cronies assure that there were no ill intent of the woman? Why an honest officer be punished for just doing his duty? The officer was absolutely right in questioning so many flaws in her application. Just because the woman cried victimhood in the name of Muslim, Sushma Swaraj jumped many protocols and screwed up the procedure upside-down. Just because crawling in BJP for new vote bank has become a norm an upright and honest officer was transferred. Honestly I don’t remember something so drastic even during the UPA rule. That is such brazen disregard to national security and laid out procedures. Who asked her to take out of turn measures in appeasing when it was absolutely not required? No one again. There are many genuine concerns that people tweet her regarding various MEA related help but she does nothing but in this case she was all over the place.

Even more brazen was the manner she responded later, presumably after she was back from her foreign junket. In one go she declared many hardcore BJP supporters as trolls, whatever that means. And all this because her act of nasty appeasement was caught red handed by people who want truth to prevail. Another act of throwing all the core supporters under the bus to appease a likely fraudulent woman. She in fact cherry picked only the vicious tweets while ignoring all constructive ones. All this was to make a monster out of most who support BJP without any personal gain. As expected most in the liberal cabal have praised Sushma Swaraj for her act. Many junks like Hindustan Times even have gone ahead publishing a front page news in listing all die-hard supporters and called them trolls. Who would want to continue supporting BJP henceforth, and for what? The brazenness doesn’t just end there. She fringed ignorance of the development on account of her foreign trip. Seriously again? This is such a lie, even a kindergarten kid would pick it. Without her knowledge a new passport was issued even after having so many flaws in the application and that too within hours and the passport officer was given transfer order overnight? Whom she is trying to fool? In all of this, the act of Mrs. Swaraj should serve as a warning to all BJP supporters – the party cares two hoots for genuine supporters. Congress is far better in this regard. They at least care for their core vote bank and supporters. Modi Sarkar is quite brazen in opposite direction. Those who have stood by them in all thick-and-thin for decades’ matter noting to them. May be, the morons have taken these gullible BJP supporters for granted. This reminds me when Arun Shourie said once – BJP is nothing but Congress plus cow.

Arun Shourie makes me remember another thing – “Ghar Ka Vedi Lanka Dhaye”. Precisely the kind that helped Vajpayee lose in 2004. There is this gang of 160-180 within BJP that constructively wanted Vajpayee to score far less, around the range of 160-180. This would make their presence more important in the party as they would be asked to stitch alliance with other parties. This gang was active during the 2004 Vajpayee government. Constructively they kept the image of Advani as someone who isn’t approachable. To some extent they even projected Vajpayee as milder communal in comparison with Advani. And the same gang is active now, pretty much for the same reason – keep Modi within 200 so that they can elevate their position in the party, may be even put forward themselves as potential PM candidates for wide acceptance across parties. Arun Shouire was/is just a cog in that wheel. Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj and Rajnath Singh are other cogs, so as that Yahwant Sinha. Satrughan Sinha is another joker that Modi has tolorated for far too long. Nobody would ever hear any opposition party leader criticizing these gang members; not at least to the tune and viciousness they exhibit while criticizing Modi or Amit Shah. Forget opposition leaders, you never even would find our otherwise fraud liberal media airing any serious views against these gang members. Have you ever seen anyone questioning Arun Jaitley? Can you recall Arun Shourie being questioned by our media when his tenure as the disinvestment minister was disastrous? Can you remember any media house being critical of Yashwant Singh though his credibility as a cabinet minister has nothing to write home about? Vajpayee was simple enough to not have picked these homegrown enemies within the party. I was happy when I saw Modi packing these now out-of-date gang members to the ‘Marg Darshak Mandal’. He should have packed the likes of Rajnath Singh and Sushma Swaraj too. A big mistake that Modi has done quite in line with what Vajpayee did. Hope he won’t have to regret his halfhearted attempt at cleaning these hidden enemies of the party when he had a perfect chance.

The immense support that Sushma Swaraj is getting from unexpected quarters like the Congress Party on this passport fiasco should serve as a pointer to what I am trying to elaborate here. In fact, most from the gang of 160-180 are loved by the usual foes of the BJP. This isn’t just a coincidence. There are valid reasons for such out of the ordinary love. Look at how Yashwant Singh is being invited to all kind of anti-BJP occasions. Media houses like NDTV have made it a routine to call Arun Shourie once a month to blabber against Modi and BJP. There is a pattern to this. There was a pattern during 2004 too. A quick glance of events separated by 14 years would draw a big parallel. Appeasement would bore nothing for the party. As I mentioned somewhere in the post, BJP and Modi won’t get votes from them. That never happened and it is not going to happen either. It will only irate the core voters of BJP further. Modi would do a great disservice to the party and himself if he fails to notice the symptoms that are so similar to what Vajpayee had to tackle.

There are snakes within in hiding. They need to be settled if Modi wishes to come back again in 2019. Or else we might just have to ponder – history repeats itself.