“Will VHP endorse Narendra Modi for PM’s post at Kumbh?” This is a prominent headline in Hindustan Times today. Same is the case with all prominent news media, be it the newspapers or the TV news channels. All are busy focusing on Narendra Modi and speculating on whether he will be declared as BJP’s or NDA’s Prime Ministerial Candidate during the ongoing Kumbh Mela. And a lot of hype has been built around it. The suspicious part is that this whole “campaign” is media devised!
The timing of the campaign is much revealing. The campaign was started around the time Rahul Gandhi was declared Vice President of Indian National Congress (popularly called Congress Party) and the news became butt of a joke with people from all quarters ridiculing him and his credentials. Congress Party became uncomfortable, especially with the popular sentiment at the social networking sites and designed its own counter-propaganda initiatives to correct the poor image of Nehru/Gandhi dynasty scion. But the party could not find answer to the one question which was underlying everything, “Does Rahul Gandhi has it in him to become PM some day?” It was from this question, that a need arose to “divert” public attention away from the PM Candidate of Congress Party. Making the focus being diverted to BJP/NDA was a very logical choice. The fact that there were multiple contenders of the post from within BJP/NDA, gave it its much desired leverage.
Any discussion to declare Narendra Modi as PM’s candidate would certainly ruffle feathers of a lot of other contenders from within the BJP/NDA. And this media-fed campaign did produce the dividends for Congress Party. Internal fissures within NDA came to the forefront. JDU’s shrewd politician Nitish Kumar was encouraged to further his anti-Modi stance to win some more Muslim voters. BJP came out strongly in favor of Narendra Modi to silence Nitish somehow. Next, NDA’s key ally and an opposite pole of minority-politics player JDU, Shiv Sena came out in the support of Sushma Swaraj. News channels found it easier to keep stretching this campaign for Narendra Modi because of Kumb Mela. Modi’s recent visit to a college in New Delhi (SRCC) to address students was hyped by the media as if it was address to the nation of a future Prime Minister. Everything is falling in the line of what Congress wants!
Because of multiple contenders for PM’s role, if BJP/NDA wins the next general elections, it is logically in the best interests of the party to not declare its PM Candidate in advance. Its focus should be on the wrong-doings of the Congress led UPA government’s misdeeds and failures and it should come out as “one team” against the incumbent. Therefore any discussion on “Who should BJP declare its PM Candidate?” is counterproductive to BJP/NDA’s interests. But logically what is wrong for the BJP is good for the Congress Party and using its network and leveraging its power position, the Congress Party is trying to keep the national attention on BJP’s candidate instead of its own!
Now the biggest question is: Will the Indian Public look through this design or will they be fooled by the Media barons?
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