Rishabh Shrivastava
Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) – the most stereotyped and the cynical party- was witnessed as the outstanding and the only party after almost 20 years to form the non-coalition party in the general elections of 2014. The BJP led the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to a sweeping victory taking 336 seats and overthrowing the Congress lead United Progressive Alliance (UPA), which, managed to capture only 58 seats in toto. The downfall of Arvind Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was the most disgusting blot to the Indian Politics. The general elections of 2014 saw the rise of the India’s most favorite Hindu Nationalist political leader since the last one decade; become the Prime Minister of India. The Narendra Damodardas Modi was sworned in as the 15th Prime Minister of India on 26 May, 2014. Today, 30 days are over, although these are not the correct days to judge the capability of the Hindu Nationalist leader and his party, but still the common man cannot see any signs of good governance coming to his way. The only hope is the general Union Budget that is going to be presented by the Union Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley in the second week of July. But what can we make out of these 30 days of Modi raj. The inference can be either positive or negative, but still we can take stand after analyzing some of the recent events that took place after BJP came into power.
The Cabinet of Narendra Modi constituted every big leader who played important role during the election campaign of BJP. Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Nitin Gadkari, Uma Bharti- all saw them holding one of the top most ministry of the government. When the manifesto of all the cabinet ministers was being announced, one was eagerly waiting to hear the name of the L.K.Advani in the cabinet of the Modi. But unfortunately, Advani ended up taking the backdoor exit from the BJP. Another senior leader of BJP, Murli Manohar Joshi was ignored by Modi Government and ultimately he was moved away from the mainland politics of the BJP. During the Reign of UPA, Manmohan’s Government took care of every senior leader be it A.K. Antony, Sharad Pawar, Salman Khurshid, P. Chidambaram, Kapil Sibbal and many others. No doubt these leaders were always in “burn hole” but these were the prominent leaders that change the shape of UPA government. Apart from the Congress Government did not forget their duty towards the Congress main-head Mrs. Sonia Gandhi and her intelligent son Rahul Gandhi. Sonia Gandhi was allotted the post of Chairperson for the UPA government while her son Rahul Gandhi was posted as Vice-President of the Indian National Congress. The jokes about Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh are famous and were real to some extent, but still the Congress never forget the duty which they owed for their old and senior leaders, which at some point of time used to be the ‘shining stars’ for their government.The decision of Modi for not keeping the L.K.Advani in the government was criticized, but still after resuming the post of Prime Minister Modi hasn’t even looked back for Advani, the person who nurtured the BJP with his guidance, blood, experience and last but not the least and the most important inter alia the sacrifices he made for BJP.
The another issue which was in the news was the selection of Smriti Irani as the Human Resource Development Minister. Smriti Irani was born in Delhi and studied upto class 12th. According to the experts, the person who has studied till 12th, can how suggest the current education system for the young population of the country. Modi, since the election campaign has always talked about addressing the problems of Young Population and focusing on them-India is one of the , but suddenly electing a 12th pass-out person to frame the education system and policies for the young generation is totally beyond the common man’s understanding. Also if one compares the Ministers of State (Independent Charge) of the two governments and taking into the account the notion of ‘Young Population’, BJP has no Minister of State (Independent Charge) whose age is below 50, may be the other view of looking at this may be that experience is the only thing through which politics is played. But on the other hand, Congress had around two or three ministers which were known for their enthusiasm and dynamism like Manish Tewari- 47 (Minister of Information and Boradcasting), Sachin Pilot- 35 (Minster of Corporate Affairs), Jyotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia- 42 (Minister of Power). Recent Strife between the UGC and Delhi University has put the Indian students in a state of dilemma. But still there is no course of action that is being activated by the Government or any single public appearance by the Smriti Irani on this particular issue.
The another major topic which has led to the criticization of BJP is the hike in the fares of train and other essential commodities like Sugar, Petrol, Diesel, gas have led to the return of fear into the public, that the same story is going to be repeated as by the UPA government in context to the Price hike. The passenger fares have gone up by 14.2 % while the freight charges have shoot up by 6.5 %. And the scrutiny was at its high-point when the passengers which booked ticket at pre-revised rates had to pull out their wallet in the middle of their journey when the ticket-checker came to take the money or see the ticket? When the media persons asked the Rajnath Singh that why their leader Modi is silent after assuming the Prime Minister Office, his explanation was that it takes time to realize such big post and he is believes in work rather than saying. But what explanation he would like to say about it, price hike that too without any prior notice and not even having any public appearance after it. The Budget is set to be release in second week of July and before it sudden increase in price, sends only one message to the public that the Budget is not going to relieve the tension of price hike. On that, the rise in the prices of essential commodities like Sugar and Diesel have once again posed problem for the common man. According to the analysts, the principle and concepts of price hike are not under the control of Narendra Modi. Then I believe that when the Manmohan Singh was the PM same commodities were there, same concepts of economics were there, and I am afraid the same principles of politics also played their role.
Iraq has been struggling with the internal rebellions since almost the decade now. NATO forces have been evacuated from the Iraq earlier this year. The ISIS leaders have took control of almost every major city of the Iraq now. Earlier, the news of 40 Kerala nurses being captured and many other boys working in an MNC from Punjab, were reported bondage in Iraq by the rebellions. The family members of these captives tried to initiate a meeting with the Modi government but due to some reasons it didn’t succeeded. Till now the NDA government has took no step to develop a real and a protective measure for these sufferers in Iraq. Indian Government seems to be insulating itself from the politics of Iraq. The people have started worrying about them, but the government seems to be on low-tide. The Vyapam Scandals, in the other BJP led state of Madhya Pradesh have shook the world from its head to its toe. There also the Shivraj Singh Chouhan, another BJP shining lad seems to be defending himself from the clutches of the media and the opposition parties. Uma Bharti is also having tuff time with Special Task Force (STF) teams. If the involvement of these high political personalities is proved than Modi government will have difficult time in protecting itself from the general public and the media. The recruitment of Amit Shah into the BJP frontier has also raised questions on the governance of Modi, due to the allegations on Shah for the fake encounter case of Ishrat Jahan.
Apart from all these the recent disasters be it of Rajdhani Express or a day-old GAIL Pipeline explosion. Be it related to Personal Secretary of Prime Minister or the holding of two big offices by the same hand, Arun Jaitley (Minister of both the Finance and Defense), be the violation of cease-fire by the Pakistani Forces once again on the border or the request of Irom Sharmila to repeal the AFSPA from the states of Assam and Meghalaya, till these 30 days the BJP led NDA government has seem to be off-color for the common man. According to the political experts, it will be wrong to judge the character of the new government on the basis of 30 days, but on the other hand no work has been activated by the government that could have brought the immediate relief to the citizens of India. There could have number of courses through which the BJP could have done many things in these 30 days but no substantiated steps is able to be visible on the big screen of the Indian Politics. People have started criticizing the new government, Narendra Damodardas Modi should now step up to it and should enrich the spirit of power and boldness in himself and his people for which he was known, when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat.