How Narendra Modi and Amit Shah are destroying the BJP from within

by Guest Wed May 17, 2017 11:32 am

As the all powerful duo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah celebrate three years in office and dream of a ‘vipaksh mukt Bharat’, an India without any opposition – a hugely alarming prospect in a democracy – the one party they have truly decimated is the BJP itself.

From a vibrant cadre based party – the only one in India apart from the Communists – where differences were tolerated and several generations of leaders were allowed to come in to their own and jostle for primacy, the BJP of Shah and Modi is a two-man party.

The duo rule with an iron hand and the party is a pale, forlorn shadow of its once vibrant self.

Modi’s cabinet resembles an army of chocolate cream soldiers. No minister has any real power or veto and some laugh sarcastically if you ask about the idea of “primus inter pares” – the first-among-equals role that the prime minister is meant to play in the Westminster cabinet system that India modeled its parliamentary system on.

Says a minister who holds an important portfolio but who apparently now has only notional powers, “First among equals. What is that? We don’t say a word in cabinet. Every thing is pre-approved by Modiji and the all-powerful officials of the PMO. We are a silent rubber stamp. Modiji does not like any discussion, let alone debate. Why do you think Manohar Parrikar was so keen to go back to Goa and other senior ministers to UP? Better to be a chief minister in a state than a prisoner in a gilded cage at the Centre. From one to 100 it is only Modi and then Amit Shah and then no one.”...

That explains why Union home minister Rajnath Singh is never consulted on any issue which falls within his ministry’s domain. The same is the case with Sushma Swaraj, who is nominally minister for external affairs but who functions as a sort of Mother Theresa of Twitter, helping Indians around the world in distress. A laudable endeavour no doubt but hardly the only thing that falls in the External Affairs Minister’s remit. Foreign policy is left to Modi and his all powerful national security advisor, the 70-plus ex-spy Ajit Doval, who has no domain experience of foreign affairs.

Before Modi reduced the cabinet to a rubber stamp, he ensured his dominion over the BJP. Leaders senior to him such as the two founders of the party, L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, the second and third presidents of the BJP, were sent off to a newly created old age home called the ‘margdarshak mandal’. For the record, the ‘mandal’, which also includes Yashwant Sinha, has not even held one meeting. And it was supposed to be providing ‘direction’ to Modi.

https://thewire.in/136597/modi-three-years-amit-shah-bjp/

by SomeProfile Wed May 17, 2017 11:43 am

How Narendra Modi and Amit Shah are destroying the BJP from within

How Narendra Modi and Amit Shah are destroying the BJP from within

Re: How Narendra Modi and Amit Shah are destroying the BJP from within