They should not forget he has now emerged as a
seasoned politician, as much as a practising priest.
POLITICS | 6-minute read | 22-03-2017
The selection of Yogi Adityanath as UP
Chief Minister has shocked many.
Like many, I too am uneasy to see
sadhus mixed up in politics just as mullahs and padres talking politics make me
uncomfortable. But I refuse to be prejudiced.
The mainstream English media, which has
grown simultaneously with the amorphous secularist ideology of the Congress
party, see the doomsday looming with the elevation of a Hindutva archpriest as the
chief minister of India’s most populous state.
Forgetting the Gorakhpur MP is leader
on his own merit, with his own loyal followers, they tend to blame Narendra
Modi for Adityanath’s rise.
They do not seem to factor in Modi’s
own limitations in exercising monolithic control over the BJP's decision-making
process.
Modi is probably ready to trade off his
stand on some issues, as long as they serve the larger interests of the Party
without compromising his overall strategic agenda.
Some of the contradictions between what
Modi says and how he acts would indicate this.
Probably, Modi had to go with the
selection Adityanath as the chief minister, because the Gorakhpur MP’s
electioneering skills contributed hugely to the BJP’s resounding victory in the
assembly elections.
Perhaps, this was also the reason for the
overwhelming support Adityanath enjoys among the UP BJP leaders and the
MLAs.
The opposition does not seem to bother
to understand why the BJP opted for Adityanath as the chief minister.
They only see him as a rabble rouser,
preaching the gospel of hate.
This only indicates their failure to
understand the popular backlash in the state against the Akhilesh government’s
pro-Muslim tilt, ignoring the needs of the majority.
This is what caused their failure in
the UP polls, not the saffron clad Adityanath’s vitriolic speeches.
We saw the same syndrome – failure to
read the public mood - in Assam also, where people opted for BJP, though the
party was a non entity in the state before the assembly polls.
Mamata Banerjee is also making the same
mistake in West Bengal; in her case, it is fast becoming a national security
concern, as the state has become a refuge for Islamic extremists escaping the
crackdown against them in Bangladesh.
Even the Bangladesh government has
expressed its concern
about this.
The basic problem of non-BJP opposition
is its understanding the RSS.
It is popular for them and the
intellectual class to accept the Left-leaning forces description of the RSS as
a Fascist force.
Of course, the Left has conveniently
forgotten its own ideology wedded to proletarian dictatorship, in preference
for the social democratic cloak it now wears, like the proverbial wolf in Red
Riding Hood.
The RSS is a cadre-based conservative
religious organization, wedded to propagate Hindutva, a concept it believes should
apply to the people of India.
In spite of the popular branding of
RSS, during my military service in disaster-hit areas, I had seen RSS cadres
working hard to help the affected people, irrespective of their religion.
Of course, the RSS has its organisational
rigidity; I have my doubts whether its set up is democratically-elected.
But in this country, few political
parties function democratically.
Perhaps, they are following the Mahatma's
tradition of dictatorially conducting the Congress party affairs.
Following the same tradition, the Congress
party now pays obeisance to another set of Gandhis, who continue to call the
shots, despite their repeated leadership failures.
Just as Gandhis are above others in the
Congress, in Samajwadi Party it is Mulayam Singh Yadav and his clan.
And about the Dravidian parties’
sycophantic traditions, the less said the better.
The opposition fears the RSS because it
challenges their so-called secularist political style, based on "vote
bank" politics of dishing out favours to Muslims and Dalits to keep them
in their flock.
This clouds the judgement of the
Congress party (and its regional copy cats) and other pseudo socialists like the
SP in making objective assessment of the RSS and its umbilical relations with
the BJP.
The BJP also practises “vote bank”
politics, selectively, when political pragmatism overtakes its ideology.
But it listens to the RSS when it suits
the party, as the case in UP.
The Yogi, despite his strong RSS
pedigree (much like Modi), has shown he has fully imbibed BJP's political
pragmatism as shown in his Cabinet formation.
While assessing Adityanath, the
opposition should not forget the UP chief minister has now emerged as a seasoned
politician, as much as the practising priest that he is.
Col R Hariharan, a retired
Military Intelligence specialist on South Asia, has rich experience in terrorism
and insurgency operations.
Courtesy:
India Today opinion portal Daily O
1 comment:
RSS should become a constitutional body some day. And I am sure it will happen.
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