Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s three-day fast in Ahmedabad appears to have come as a blessing in disguise for the Congress.
If the fast has developed fissures in the NDA as two of its constituents — the JD(U) and the Shiv Sena — are seen hurt for different reasons, it has also made prime ministerial aspirants in the BJP uncomfortable.
Mr Modi sat on the fast to change his image. Instead, it has reinforced his image as a hardliner.
The NDA cannot expand nor emerge as an alternate to the UPA so long as it is dominated by leaders like Mr Modi and Mr L.K. Advani, feel Congress insiders.
This is because they are associated with the Gujarat riots in 2002 and the Babri Masjid demolition.
“This is the beginning and you will see what happens till the general elections,” they said, hinting that the permutations and combinations would change if the hardliners will try to capture the NDA.
Mr Modi’s fast has shifted the national focus from corruption and inflation.
Describing Mr Modi as a “headache” for the BJP and the NDA, the Congress on Tuesday claimed that he had reinforced his image of “great intolerance” by enacting the “drama of fast”. “Modi is a headache for the BJP and the NDA. It does not affect the UPA. We do not see it from that angle. We see the fast undertaken by him as the biggest political hypocrisy of the decade,” AICC general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi told reporters.
Mr Dwivedi said Mr Modi’s actions were not surprising as the Opposition party was witnessing a “race for supremacy”.
In an obvious dig at Mr Advani, Mr Dwivedi said those people who cannot do their politics without support from the Gujarat chief minister will have to blow Mr Modi’s trumpet.
He said it was strange that a person against whom people have complaints of injustice should undertake such a fast when it is observed by those who suffer injustice.
Referring to the “fissures” in the NDA, Mr Dwivedi asked, “Where is NDA if the JD-U and Shiv Sena are not with the fast?”
Suggesting that all is not well in the BJP over Modi’s projection, he said, “Ask those in that party who have welcome Modi’s fast? How they are feeling inside.
“Be it the fast or the Rathyatra, it is all about the politics to gain control of the party.
“Nowadays, everyone in the BJP is trying to establish one’s supremacy, RSS is doing it as an organisation while all others are doing it in their personal capacity, be it Advani’s Rathyatra or the BJP president Nitin Gadkari’s antics.
“If under these circumstances, Modi was playing the drama of fast what is surprising about it? It is just the beginning. Let us see how things take shape by 2014,” when the Parliament elections are scheduled, he said.
Asked whether the Congress was ‘comfortable’ with Modi’s projection as prime ministerial candidate as it would lead to political polarisation on secular and communal lines, Dwivedi said, “Not at all.
“We have always opposed political people like Narendra Modi who do not accept the all inclusive social structure of society. The emergence of such leaders is not a good augury and there is no question of being happy about it,” he said.
Describing Modi’s talk of communal amity as a “open fraud with the people,” he said that nobody will accept that he can stand against the politics of caste and communalism.
“As far as Modi’s politics is concerned, it is BJP’s problem. As BJP was helpless in Karnataka, the same holds true for it in Gujarat in some matters,” he said.
He said that one of the causes for undertaking a fast is self-purification,
but Modi did not say that he urgently required it.