Note:Within minutes of the announcement of election schedule for the 16th Lok Sabha elections, AAP seems to have stolen the thunder and demonstrated that 2014 elections is a context between BJP and AAP. The workers of both the parties were on the streets in Gujarat, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh clashed with each other and shouted slogans. The clash began after Kejriwal was detained by Gujarat Police as he began a four-day tour to “assess” development in Gujarat. At his third stop at Radhanpur in Patan district, the police took him to police station for an alleged violation of the model code of conduct amidst Kejriwal's demand to see official papers regarding the alleged violation.
AAP supporters staged a dharna outside the police station. Kejriwal left after about half an hour in an open jeep along with his supporters. Upon release Kejriwal said, "My detention shows that Narendra Modi is rattled by my presence. Modi is anti-farmer and anti-common man. The only development in Gujarat has been for the Adanis and the Ambanis." AAP is raising the issues which were raised by Kanu Kalsariya. After the incident Gujarat Police stands exposed for being partisan. They are claiming that they only requested him and his supporters help them deal with a massive traffic jam. Kejriwal's detention in Gujarat backfired and BJP appears cornered. BJP headquarters all over the country will now have to be wary of AAP supporters who are ready for a pitched electoral battle.
Gopal Krishna
Mr Governance vs Mr Anarchy
Allegation news is having a field day as AAP’s Lok Sabha campaign gets
into stride. And unsettling the front runner campaigning across the
country.
Kejriwal is brilliant at countering the print media advantage his
rivals have, says SEVANTI NINAN. PIX: AAP-BJP activists clash in Delhi
Posted/Updated
Thursday, Mar 06 10:52:47, 2014
TALKING MEDIA
Sevanti Ninan
http://www.thehoot.org/web/Mr-Governance-vs-Mr-Anarchy/7346-1-1-10-true.html
Sevanti Ninan
Winning in politics isn’t about likeability. Or is it?
Mr
Governance is up against Mr Anarchy. One is trying too hard. The other
seems to not be trying hard enough, chucking up responsibility given,
and explaining it away with a toothsome grin. “We got as far as we could
with 28 seats. When we get 40, we will do more.”
Television
is kinder to Arvind Kejriwal than it is to Narendra Modi or Rahul
Gandhi. An intimate medium is right for a man who is not larger than
life, but quite the opposite, a muffler wrapped version of RK Laxman’s
common man. While neither of the other two contenders give interviews
(except for Rahul Gandhi’s singular missed opportunity), he gives
several a day. He keeps his cool, gives reasonable answers, and is
sombre and chirpy by turn. It is a sensible strategy-- he does not have
access to funds for print media advertising the same way that the
mainstream parties with access to government budgets do.
In
fact he is brilliant at countering that. What will you read first—a
full-page Gujarat government or central government advertisement, or the
day’s headlines sparked by a tantalising allegation that Mr Anarchy has
lobbed into the public sphere? Allegation news is having a field day as
the Aam Aadmi Party’s Lok Sabha campaign gets into stride. And
unsettling the front runner campaigning across the country.
What
do their media encounters tell us about these men? Narendra Modi hasn’t
put himself in the hands of an interviewer yet, maybe he is still too
paranoid to do that. So the alternative is demagoguery at the hustings, a
barb a day followed by a promise a day. And huge ads labouring an
obvious point: “Government’s only Religion-India First. Government’s
only Holy Book-The Constitution. Government’s only Worship-Betterment of
125 crore Indians.” Etc, etc.
For
all his assiduous social media positioning, Modi backed out of an
Internet-TV townhall meeting sponsored by Facebook, while Arvind, as
anchor Madhu Trehan kept calling him, went, enjoyed himself, explained
himself. Why did Modi back out? He made demands we could not meet said
Newslaundry, but wouldn’t tell a curious Kejriwal what these were. And
you couldn’t help wondering, had Modi really consented to appear on a
platform where NDTV was a partner? After all those snide cracks about
secular tigers (a reference to NDTV’s save the tiger campaign) and
communal lions made on a rival channel?
You
don’t hear Kejriwal woo his audience through unlikely pitches. He isn’t
trying to be a Dalit among Dalits, or an Arunachali among Arunachalis,
sporting tribal headgear that looks a trifle misplaced. If he went to
West Bengal and talked about Renaissance and Vivekananda he would sound
odd, to say the least. So he leaves that to Narendra Bhai and focuses on
his more mundane pitch: India has first class people with third class
governance. “Yes I am an anarchist for all those people who are misusing
the system”, he told the BBC. “I am doing my duty getting all the good
people in this country together.”
His
take on Kashmir is artless: “If Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh are an
integral part of India, then obviously the Kashmiris and people living
in Arunchal Pradesh are also an integral part of India. It is not just
the land mass. Hame inka dil jeetna padega. (We have to win hearts.) You don’t do that with guns.”
Modi’s take is a more laboured one. “We have heard from the Ramayan about the jari buti
(medicinal herbs) in the Himalayas. Jammu and Kashmir is a treasure
trove of these.” He then goes on to how these herbs can give the youth
jobs, how tourism needs to be restored, how the film industry’s 100th
year should have been celebrated here, where so many films used to be
shot in earlier years. Should there not be a film institute here? And so
on.
But sometimes Modi manages a simple take too. Last year when he went to Hyderabad he said, “Four lakh Telugus in my state live pyaar se (in harmony). So why can’t Telengana walas and Andhra walas
live with each other in love and harmony?” Rahul Gandhi, poor man, is
so busy practising forceful delivery that such lines do not roll off his
tongue.
In
some ways Kejriwal is the most happily placed in the run up to these
elections, because he has little baggage. No party eminences to mention
before he gets going at a rally, no riots to defend. Nor he is trying to
get to 272 seats, just a fraction of that number will serve to make him
count. He can be himself—the BBC called him a politician with a hole in
his sweater, while increasingly Modi dresses for his rallies like he
has a stylist working on his appearance.
Kejriwal
is enjoying unsettling the big guys. Land up in Gujarat to study good
governance there, hold a meeting under a tree in Ahmedabad, and get into
trouble with the police thereafter. Make enough noise to steal Mr Front
Runner’s thunder, just for a bit.http://www.thehoot.org/web/Mr-Governance-vs-Mr-Anarchy/7346-1-1-10-true.html
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