Author: Sanjay Singh
Publication: Firstpost.com
Date: October 21, 2013
URL: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/kanpur-rally-narendra-modi-unveils-a-new-strategy-1182795.html

The impact of Narendra Modi’s first rally in numerically crucial Uttar Pradesh can be best assessed from Samajwadi Party leader Naresh Agarwal’s comment. Unable to comment on the content or turnout, he suggested that the rally was ill timed, as people of the state and nation were hooked to only one issue — the 1000 tonnes gold lust in Unnao that the Archaeological Survey of India is looking for.

The size of the crowd, non stop NaMo chants and cheering, cannot make his rivals, the Congress, Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samajwadi Party happy. The aggressive response from the gathered crowd could just be an early indication that BJP could yet again be a rising force in the state that sends 80 MPs, driven by Modi making the party acquire the flavour that it had acquired in the post Ram-Rath Yatra elections of 1996 and 1998.

Modi didn’t miss the opportunity. He hit where it could hurt the Samajwadi Party most, track record on riots and how the Akhilesh Yadav Government was bent on getting terror accused released from the jail just because it could help secure votes of a particular community. Should they be released, he asked, “No” the gathered crowd roared. Interestingly, it is apparent that he is unafraid to bring up issue that might give critics a chance to yet again raise issues related to 2002 riots or fake encounters.

The tone and tenor of Modi’s Saturday rally was of a hard core election rally. It was his first rally in the state in the last several years, he thus had to pull out every stop to impress the crowd. He was a rabble rouser, playing to the gallery and touching on issues of governance only to suggest that he was no communalist as his rivals and critics alleged but he was as or even more committed to protecting secularism, as enshrined on Dhrma Granth (religious scripture for the ruler) Indian Constitution for welfare of all 125 crore people. “We have to do politics to unify 125 crore people, not divide as the Congress has been doing. Divisiveness is in Congress’s blood, DNA.”

But more than turning the table on secular-communal issue, he pinched the Congress most with his barbs on Rahul Gandhi, “the Shahzada born with a golden spoon, who now fancied poverty tourism with cameras from media persons. He mocks poverty and says it is not real, instead it was a state of mind. I feel hurt when he mocks poverty,” he added.

Modi then tried to strike a rapport with the crowd by reminding them that he was one among the millions of poor. He has lived with life of a lower income person and felt it, he said. He has now been doing it quite often, perhaps consciously to respond to his critics that he was not elitist and pro-capital as he is accused of being.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh were not spared either. Their silence on rising prices, early claims of bringing it down in the first 100 days of UPA2 were ridiculed.

The BJP Prime Ministerial candidate unveiled a new strategy in Kanpur to target the Congress. While doing so he also provided a clear message to his own party leaders: the 2014 elections are about Congress led UPA 10 years rule at the centre, not about Gujarat: “I have already presented myself for scrutiny to the people of Gujarat in elections held less than a year ago. I have already passed this test with distinction. Now it’s time for Congress to respond. They are trying hard to keep talking of issues relating to Gujarat but that will be responded to by the people there in the next assembly elections. It’s time for the lotus to bloom and nation to be freed of Congress.”

Modi perhaps understands that Food Security Bill is the only major talking point that the Congress has before the electorate. So it was important to puncture the hype around the bill. His counter argument is that the food given in food security to the adults is even less than what is given to the young children in mid day meal scheme. He takes on Rahul Gandhi’s Adhi Roti-Poori Roti slogan on a different plane. “This is a law to keep the poor hungry not to fill his stomach. People want real answers not one more addition of law in the statute books”, Modi asserts.