Musings of an unknown citizen

At last the greatest show in India has started with first phase completed on 7th April. This is expected to go for next five weeks with the campaigning heating up as the polling dates in important states draws near. Already lot of controversial utterings by the leaders are on air. There is Amit Shah of BJP and Azam Khan  of Samajwadi Party and Masood of Congress airing controversial remarks. Latest to come out is that of Mr Azam Khan dragging the religion of the soldiers who stormed the heights of Kargil during the proxy (or almost a full) war during the regime of Mr Atal Behari Vajpaye. This particular set of comments be they uttered now or 2-3 years back are highly objectionable and should be condemned.

Coming to the comments of Azam Khan, yesterday I had the misfortune of watching a debate (??) on Times Now hosted by Mr Arnab Goswami. I have seen debates on several issues hosted by Mr Arnab over the period. This man is known for his loud, disrupting and passing unnecessary or provoking comments during a debate. But yesterday's debate has topped off all such things what I saw earlier from the same anchor person. There were 6 or 7 guests in the so called debate. It was started by this anchor with a great show of righteous indignation calling for throwing off Mr Azam Khan out of politics and possibly into a Jail (implied from the way he was speaking). Mr Arnab literally dominated the debate giving one opportunity to speak to somebody from BSP, twice to BJP guest and talked for most of the first 5-6 minutes of the debate demanding this and that from the Samajwadi spokesperson but did not give him an opportunity to speak at all. In between he passes a comment on a lady from Congress that they are soft on this issue with Samajwadi Party and not contributing / jumping into the debate at all. Funny thing in this debate is he is not allowing any one to speak but accusing the lady why she did not open her mouth. It appears Mr Arnab is very fond of his voice and likes to give a long discourse under the garb of righteous indignation and his favourite utterance "Media has a right to know, the country has a right to know". Of late it appears there is a slight slant towards one of the parties during these debates. May better sense prevail on this anchor person who has a good grasp on things what he is putting on debate and not butt in while the one invited to speak is clearing a point.

Do I imagine? or Is this a kind of Playacting (scripted playact)? or Has he runout of the explosive issues? not very sure. Of late, I perceive there is a slight toning down of  the way Mr Modi is talking in his public meetings. I feel there is a slight change even in the demeanor of Mr Modi. Of late he is appearing slightly mellowed down. At the beginning of the campaign, the way he used to conduct the meeting appears to be like a Prime Minister waiting for swearing in rather than like a candidate. But of late, he is coming to the standard BJP's appeal in earlier elections like "Give me 60 months to set right things which have gone bad in 60 years of Congress rule". Never heard something like this from this man earlier. Is there some perception of weakness?

Coming to weakness, BJP is weak in Southern India excepting Karnataka (may be it is different in that state for this time). To cover up and try to get some seats they went into alliances with 4-5 non-descript parties in Tamil Nadu who are at best not very effective there. In Kerala, currently they did not have much of a sway. Coming to Andhra and Telangana, after much bickering and public announcements by both the parties that there will be no alliance, BJP and Telugu Desam came to an understanding of alliance with TDP appears to be a senior partner. But the choice of Telugu Desam appears to be suspect and there may not be much to gain for BJP from this alliance as chief of Telugu Desam does not appear to have much of credibility left. Mr Naidu is literally promising everything under the Sun to the voters in a really desperate bid to come into power. Doubt if it is going to succeed.

Coming to presence and strength of BJP, I have a doubt for quite long. Of all the states in India, Tamil Nadu has the largest Temple population with the people visiting a temple invariably every day. Also the Tamil people are very passionate about their beliefs  and are loyal to the leader they follow and one rarely sees defections in political parties also. My doubt is with such a large hindu population and fierce loyalty of people, how come both BJP and RSS has very little presence there? If they can invest their energies properly this is one state which can given consistent and good representation to them. After all this is a state where matinee idol MGR is still revered decades after his death and even Jayalalithaa needs to keep his portrait on the party banners.