BJP strategist Arun Shourie: Narendra Modi's cheap tactics in Bihar are past their sell-by date

by Guest Fri Nov 13, 2015 7:53 pm

Into campaigning for the fourth phase, which voted on November 1, a certain desperation had already crept in. Shah, and more significantly Prime Minister Modi himself, infused a communal colour to the BJP campaign, perhaps hoping to replicate what the party did in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar ahead of the General Election. So when Modi accused Nitish Kumar of conspiring to transfer quotas meant for backward castes to "a particular community", no one, including the crowd that turned out to hear him in Buxar on October 26, had the slightest doubt that the Prime Minister meant Muslims.

Addressing a rally in Raxaul on the Bihar-Nepal border on October 30, Shah too played the communal card, warning that "crackers will be burst in Pakistan" if the BJP loses the election. Coming in the wake of the sustained campaign by the saffron "fringe", not only did this remark firmly consolidate the 17 per cent Muslim vote bank behind the Janata alliance, it also angered several fence-sitters into wondering why the BJP was intent on polarising the atmosphere.

Arun Shourie, former BJP leader and a minister in A.B. Vajpayee's NDA 1 cabinet, however, says the strategy is past its sell-by date. "It should have been clear that you can't fire the same bullet twice" Shourie tells india today.

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/what-went-wrong/1/521133.html

by Guest Fri Nov 13, 2015 8:12 pm

Post-defeat, many Bihar BJP leaders admit in private that Modi may have ended up injuring the Bihari pride even before the campaign began formally. They cite the public rally in Patna, on August 18, where he announced a Rs 1.25-lakh crore economic package for Bihar much in the fashion of a monarch of yore handing out doles to subjects.

by Guest Fri Nov 13, 2015 11:25 pm

Rashmun wrote:Post-defeat, many Bihar BJP leaders admit in private that Modi may have ended up injuring the Bihari pride even before the campaign began formally. They cite the public rally in Patna, on August 18, where he announced a Rs 1.25-lakh crore economic package for Bihar much in the fashion of a monarch of yore handing out doles to subjects.

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BJP strategist Arun Shourie: Narendra Modi's cheap tactics in Bihar are past their sell-by date

BJP strategist Arun Shourie: Narendra Modi's cheap tactics in Bihar are past their sell-by date

Re: BJP strategist Arun Shourie: Narendra Modi's cheap tactics in Bihar are past their sell-by date

Re: BJP strategist Arun Shourie: Narendra Modi's cheap tactics in Bihar are past their sell-by date

Re: BJP strategist Arun Shourie: Narendra Modi's cheap tactics in Bihar are past their sell-by date