Varanasi won’t be a cakewalk for Narendra Modi, admits RSS

April 15, 2014

fekuVaranasi, April 15: The climb from the ghats of Varanasi to New Delhi's 7 Race Course Road is proving to be steep and replete with roadblocks for Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial aspirant Narendra Modi, veteran Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) organizers admit.

"The BJP and RSS have given us the target of securing a victory margin of three lakh votes for Modi. He would be lucky if he manages to win by 30,000 to 40,000 votes. There are three parallel setups, often working at cross-purposes, entrusted with the task of managing Modi's election campaign. Is this how a war is fought and won," asked a veteran RSS organizer, who has managed successive Lok Sabha, state assembly and Varanasi Municipal Corporation elections since 1977.

One set of workers comprise the local RSS cadre, who religiously attend the shakhas held every morning in their respective localities. Another set is that of mid-level RSS organizers sent to Varanasi from different parts of the country. The third set comprises of city and district party functionaries of the BJP.

"Those from outside Varanasi are handicapped because they don't know the local Bhojpuri language, the lingua franca of residents of Varanasi," says the RSS veteran, who is not only fluent in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Marathi, besides Hindi and Bhojpuri, but also knows by name each and every family residing in the intricate maze of narrow lanes and bylanes of the city.

"Being the BJP's prime ministerial candidate, Modi is widely known thanks to the high exposure in television and print media. But this need not necessarily translate into votes in his favour," he said, while not wishing to be identified as per organisational discipline.

"During election time, voters demand concrete assurance from the candidates and their party workers to redress their grievances concerning public utilities and civic services such as water, drainage, roads, hospital, school and livelihood," he added.

Modi's campaign workers lack motivation. "Gone are the days when RSS volunteers and BJP workers used to put in their own time and money to campaign for the party candidates. All political parties now engage paid workers, and the BJP is no exception," said another RSS organizer.

"For many political workers, election time is when they get the chance to make money," said Sunil Tripathi, a former activist of the JP movement of the 1970s.

Old-timers of RSS and BJP are also uncomfortable with Modi's campaign style and the use of information communication technology - the internet and the mobile phone. "BJP's district and city unit presidents don't even know how to send and receive an SMS, leave aside using emails and social networking websites," a BJP municipal councilor said.

Modi's campaigners who have converged here from different parts of the country are mostly IT-savvy young men with whom the local party workers find it difficult to strike a rapport.

Lack of coordination and communication problem between the locals and outsiders apart, a more serious challenge facing Modi's campaigners is how to tackle the complex caste factor - the political alignments of various caste and community groups. Of the 16,00,000 voters in the Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency, there are over 300,000 Muslims.

Underworld figure Mukhtar Ansari's decision against contesting from Varanasi has dashed the BJP's hopes of splitting the Muslim votes and at the same time polarizing the Hindu votes in Modi's favour.

Yet another development that does not augur well for Modi was the fielding of Ajay Rai, a three-time legislator, by the Congress from Varanasi. Rai belongs to the powerful Bhumihar caste. The Kashi Naresh (king of erstwhile princely state of Banaras) is also a Bhumihar. There are over 40,000 Bhumihar families in the constituency.

As if utter disorder in the BJP's campaign team and the caste-community factors were not enough to upset Modi's apple cart, the decision by Aam Aadmi Party's national convenor Arvind Kejriwal to become his challenger has aggravated his worries.

"We don't know what issues Kejriwal is going to rake up and in which manner during his week-long stay in Varanasi beginning April 15. He is bound to spring a lot of surprises," a senior RSS campaign manager concluded.

Apprehensions and the disorderly campaign machinery apart, Modi is widely expected to win, though a low victory margin could dent his image.

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News Network
June 13,2020

New Delhi, June 13: A quarantine notice pasted outside former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s 3, Motilal Nehru Place residence has raised speculations among media and political circles.

According to reports, the daughter of a domestic help who works at Singh’s residence has tested positive. She and her family, who live in the servant quarters, have been quarantined.

Singh, who has not been keeping well for some time, is slowly getting active. Congress leaders said the former Prime Minister attended a meeting of the party’s consultative committee on Thursday through video conference.

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Agencies
July 23,2020

Expressing concern over the ban imposed on TikTok by the government of India, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly called the development in the south Asian country “worrisome”.

TikTok was amongst the 59 Chinese apps that were banned in India but why it hogs the maximum limelight because TikTok had the second-largest user base in India with over 200 million users.

As per The Verge writer Casey Newton, Zuckerberg was worried about TikTok’s India ban. Although it soon cashed into the opportunity and released a TikTok clone “Reels”, the government’s reason behind banning the app in India wasn’t received well by Mark Zuckerberg. 

He had said that if India can ban a platform with over 200 million users in India without citing concrete reasons, it can also ban Facebook if something goes amiss on the security and privacy front.

Why Mark finds it particularly worrisome because Facebook is already involved in a lot tussle with the governments across the world involving national security concerns. 

“Facebook already faces fights around the world from governments on both the left and the right related to issues that fit under the broad umbrella of national security: election interference, influence campaigns, hate speech, and even just plain-old democratic speech. Zuckerberg knows that the leap from banning TikTok on national security grounds to banning Facebook on national security grounds is more of a short hop,” the report by Casey read.

Facebook till now has not faced any kind of issue in India but considering the debacle with the other governments, it is not entirely wrong to worry about its future in India if any national security issue arises. Back in 2016, Facebook’s Free Basics service, which means a free but restricted internet service, was banned in India by the telecom regulators. 

The TRAI had said that the Free Basic services were banned in India because it violated the principles of net neutrality. With Free Basics services, Facebook had planned to bring more unconnected users online. But since 2016, there has been no major tussle between the Indian government and Zuckerberg due to national security issues.

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News Network
June 20,2020

Jun 20: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his remark that neither is anyone inside India's territory nor has any of its posts been captured, alleging that the PM has "surrendered" Indian territory to Chinese aggression.

In a statement on the all-party meeting called by Modi on Friday to discuss the situation at the India-China border, the government said, "At the outset, prime minister clarified that neither is anyone inside our territory nor is any of our post captured."

Tagging PM's remarks with his tweet, Gandhi said, "PM has surrendered Indian territory to Chinese aggression."

"If the land was Chinese: 1. Why were our soldiers killed? 2. Where were they killed?" Gandhi said.

The categorical statement by the prime minister came in the wake of reports that Chinese military has transgressed into the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control, the de-facto border, in several areas of eastern Ladakh including Pangong Tso and Galwan Valley.

Soon after Gandhi's tweet, Union Home Minister Amit Shah posted video of father of a soldier, who was injured in Galwan face-off, and hit out at the Congress leader, accusing him of indulging in "petty politics".

"A brave armyman’s father speaks and he has a very clear message for Mr. Rahul Gandhi. At a time when the entire nation is united, Mr. Rahul Gandhi should also rise above petty politics and stand in solidarity with national interest," Shah wrote.

The prime minister's assertion came even as Congress president Sonia Gandhi, at the all-party meet, questioned the government's handling of the situation, asking if there was any intelligence failure, and seeking assurance that China will "revert" to its original position.

Rahul Gandhi on Friday accused senior ministers in the government of "lying" to protect the prime minister and that the Centre was "fast asleep" while martyred jawans paid the price in Ladakh.

The former Congress chief also tagged a one-minute video of a jawan's father saying the Indian soldiers were unarmed when they were attacked by Chinese troops.

He has been questioning the government on the LAC standoff and asking how the Chinese occupied Indian territory and why Indian soldiers were sent "unarmed to martyrdom" in Ladakh.

Twenty Indian Army personnel, including a colonel, were killed in a clash with Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh on Monday night, the biggest military confrontation in over five decades that has significantly escalated the already volatile border standoff in the region.

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