bharatiya ‘jinnah’ party

first it was lk advani and now jaswant singh. and while lk advani was saved, jaswant was forcibly partitioned from bjp. what an irony!

lk advani was spared when he eulogised jinnah and called him secular, only because he was the raison d’etre of bjp. but jaswant singh has neither strong ties with any senior party leaders, nor the backing and background; he was unceremoniously dumped.

its not the expulsion that has to be questioned, but the manner in which it was done. a senior party member like jaswant singh was informed over a phone call of his removalfrom party posts. how embarassing is that! for a man who served the part for 30 yrs and was one of the founding members of the party, this was totally uncalled for. he deserved a personal visit and needed to be personally told about the gravity of the situation.

what’s more surprising is that, congress should have been the party which should trash the book and denounce the research. the book is more a criticism of cong and its handling of partition than jinnah. but bjp has the habit of axing its own feet. so, not only did they dislodge jaswant singh, the book has been banned in gujarat.

 

left parties … living in fool’s paradise

today was the 5th and final phase of polling and exit polls are coming out with their predictions, one after another.

the exit poll results suggest that it will be a photo-finish between the Cong and BJP, but what is totally clear is that Left is nowhere close to either weilding power or dictating terms.

Exit Poll Source	BJP	CONGRESS	THIRD FRONT	OTHERS
CNN-IBN	135-150	145-160	110-130	70-100
Times Now	183	198	–	162
Headlines Today	180	191	38	134
India TV	194	195	108	46
News X	191	199	104	48
UTVi	189	195	–	14
Star News	196	199	100	36

2004 polls were historic in a sense that BJP were the front-runners and the clear favourites to win at least 300 seats on its own, but that did not happen. in fact, Cong pipped them to the post by becoming the largest single party. and for the 1st time, Left parties together garnered 60+ seats.

so, history will now remain history because Left parties will be back to their realistic total number of seats hovering around the 35-40 mark. they can never think of getting 60+ seats again, never.

another reason why i say that they are living in fool’s paradise is because of their opposition to the nuclear deal, their out-dated economic policies and their anti-US foreign policy which recognises just one country, china.

its time they re-think their policies and not repeat nandigram. while they practised disinvestment in WB, they opposed it in the centre. they need to shift focus and be forward-thinking. follow the reading on the wall, understand what jyoti basu and buddhadeb are trying to say; its still not late. else, continue to live in fool’s paradise.