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Politicians fight only to win elections, Not for principles any more

By Brij Bhardwaj. Dated: 9/23/2018 11:28:44 PM

With election managers becoming decision makers in major political parties, their ideology, their principles and their commitment to certain values are taking a back seat. Whiz kids decide how to win the polls. The political scene is changing for good. The grass root leaders, thinkers and political philosophers are becoming a thing of the past. Whiz kids have no use for the bygone election managers in the present times.
What happened on the political scene in Europe and the USA in the last decade has now reached India. There is no place for those who follow Mahatma Gandhi's principles or those who considered the means as important as the end goal; they have no place in decision making in political parties now whether they are ruling or not ruling. Such people are being pushed to the backyard. Overlooking their role in building up the party organisation in the past is forgettable; they are being pushed out; they have to fend for themselves or live in the shadows, with no role to play. The place of these leaders is being taken by poll managers whose sole aim is to win seats in their area of influence and allotted to them by their new or old masters. Whether they do it by fair means or foul is immaterial.
The result is that political leaders forget the parties' committed voters whom they expect not to desert them. They concentrate their efforts to poach vote banks from the opposing side. As such, we see Prime Minister Narendra Modi, trying to win over Bohra Muslims, the most orthodox set of Muslims, in India while Rahul Gandhi is trying to prove that he is a Shiv Bhakt and seeks to win over high caste Hindus, who have deserted the Congress and joined the BJP camp.
The BJP, which did not give any party ticket to Muslims in the past, is now keen to win them over by bringing an ordinance to make Triple Talaq a criminal offence in the hope that Muslim women, are won over to the Saffron party.
Prime Minister Modi, whose party back bone is high caste Hindu, is shifting especially the Brahmins, has once again realized after some years that he is a born Dalit or backward in reality.
Is he the one who raised the controversy over cremation grounds around "Shamshan Ghats" on sacred river banks and burial grounds, has suddenly woken up to the political ploy like protecting the honour of Muslim women? Have they conveniently forgotten that some leaders of BJP wanted the minority community to be declared anti-national and suggested that they should leave India? At present the demand is growing for very large numbers in the minority community living in Assam or in neighbouring States to leave the country?
BJP has also forgotten that in the past the leaders associated with the Sangh Parivar had opposed the Hindu Code Bill and one of its leaders had challenged the first Prime Minister, Jawahar Lal Nehru, in the election to the Lok Sabha. Changing of colours is not limited to the political parties; even the RSS is undergoing changes. It has suddenly discovered merit in the leadership of the days of the freedom movement in the 1940s when they had opposed the Congress Party and sided with the British imperial rulers.
As a young boy I recall how we took out a procession in support of an imprisoned Congress candidate in the united Punjab Assembly election in Lahore, now in Pakistan, who was opposed by a rich Hindu merchant belonging to the Hindu Mahasabha, a part of the Saffron brigade. RSS may claim that they are a social organisation, but its members now act as managers of the BJP election machine.
It is well known that changing colours is a trend that is not the exclusive monopoly of the Saffron Brigade. Opposition parties are equally guilty of it. In the name of secularism, the caste based parties are part of the same games. You see old enemies becoming friends, giving up their commitments to their own parties. Those who opposed the division of Andhra and creation of Telengana State have joined hands with those who made it possible to carve out the new State. Old time friends like Shiv Sena and Telugu Desam are not only threatening, but deserting the BJP.
We find that BJP has suddenly discovered that Atal Bihari Vajpayee, first Prime Minister of BJP, needs to be honoured and remembered. I hope they would do that for Vajpayee's Deputy Prime Minister L.K Advani also who has been brushed aside by being declared a "Marg Darshak" and placed in a group of very old party leaders, which never meets to deliberate on issues of the moment. It is a coterie of leaders now in forced retirement.
This is not limited to the BJP; even the Congress party under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi is getting rid of the old guard. What is the use of people who never contested or won an election and only adorn seats in the Upper House of Parliament. A time has come when only the ability to win elections and raise funds and other resources matters, forget the principles, ideology and commitment.
The debate is no more over socialism or capitalism as crony capitalism is the principle that counts. Liquor baron Vijaya Mallya escaped to London after cheating several Indian banks of thousands of crores of rupees, but it is pointed out that it was during the UPA rule that facilitated the loans and the other side facilitated his escape. Forget it, a senior journalist claims. Vijaya Mallya is not a criminal; probably in her view cheating one's employees and banks does not make a billionaire a criminal.
---(IFS)
*(Brij Bhardwaj is a veteran journalist and commentator)