New Delhi (15.05.2024): Will achieving personal milestones take precedence over party’s agenda if Prime Minister Narendra Modi wins for the third consecutive terms in the ongoing hustings? Except for the Uniform Civil Code, most of the contentious issues and promises made by the BJP are taken care of as claimed. Now, the a la carte of the BJP manifesto has new fitments that the PM and other senior leaders are talking about. But some written promises are popping up in speeches of senior leaders.
Explicit promises like bringing Uniform Civil Code, country-wide NRC and One Nation, One Election and implicit commitments like stopping demographic change with a check on infiltration and also ensuring stern measures on population control. But the dream run of bringing PoK back even by External Affairs minister S Jaishankar have something bigger than what is told and visible. PoK is an unfinished agenda of the BJP which the party may continue racking up to whip up sentiments of the people to get electoral benefits. The BJP supporters have full faith in Modi Ki Guarantee (Modi’s Guarantee) which means if Modi is promising something it will be delivered. And its top leaders are doing assigned jobs as in case of Yogi Adityanath winning as many seats as possible in UP, for Shah where there is barren land for BJP bloom lotus there and for Jaishankar to fix China and Pakistan and bust opposition narrative on PoK and Aksai Chin for domestic electoral gains.
The way a diplomat like Jaishankar who was otherwise limiting himself to external affairs issues is now targeting the Congress, taking on Rahul Gandhi and holding Jawahar Lal Nehru responsible for his faulty policies on China and Pakistan, it sniffs something unimaginable or prompts one to have wild imaginations like a person from South India may be at the helm post Modi. There is a saturation for the BJP in certain parts of the country and expansion is possible only in the south for what Jaishankar could be a good mascot for the BJP.
Jaishankar is well equipped with information; can articulate in a better manner; carries the image of an intellectual, is a Brahmin from Tamil Nadu and most importantly has cultivated himself now as a politician. He suits the RSS agenda of Akhand Bharat or the greater India. This message appears to be travelling too far. Meanwhile, the RSS has its plans for the south. Narendra Modi is a done story for the organisation and Modi may hang his boots after third term as speculated. So, the RSS appears to be working for the post Modi scenario where it may surprise conventional wisdom with its backing for such a leader who himself can’t imagine it for himself.
As far as the issue of PoK being racked up by some top leaders of India even before elections especially Rajnath Singh, it is not possible without the sanction of the top leadership of the BJP. But when the solo from Rajnath Singh becomes chorus, it clearly means that PoK is here to stay as it will benefit the BJP in the days to come and if internal contradictions of Pakistan bring PoK in the lap of India it will change the politics in India forever. But for now PoK and Jaishankar appear to be new subjects that a laboratory called RSS keeps on experimenting.
(Rakesh Ranjan)
