BJP’s blitzkrieg

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)? on Saturday night released its first list of 195 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections ahead of its principal opponent and newly-formed Indian National Democratic Inclusive Alliance (I.N.D.I.A.) bloc of 24 parties.

The BJP?election panel seems to have taken many bold steps if its decision to drop 33 sitting MPs is of any indication. If winnability is to be the prime criterion, many suspect it was the overconfidence of those close to their iconic leader Narendra Modi, on whose star value anyone and everyone can win, akin to that of Indira Gandhi’s glorious days.

The decision to drop Delhi's four of the five sitting MPs, which includes one cabinet minister and known legal mind, Meenakshi Lekhi, indeed has come as a surprise.

Maybe, Modi-Amit Shah has planned a much bigger role for her in the Delhi assembly poll. That apart, dropping the two Gandhi tag members, Menaka and her son Varun, too is considered the boldest move as the party leadership appears determined to wipe the ‘Gandhi’ tag existence from the Indian political arena.

One may welcome the party poll panel’s decision to drop the most controversial MP from Uttar Pradesh, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh,?who caused considerable damage and embarrassment to the party with allegations of sex abuse as the president of the Wrestling Federation of India.

The inclusion of the party’s most charismatic and firebrand parliamentarian late Sushma Swaraj’s daughter Bansuri Swaraj for the New Delhi (West) seat, too was an appreciable move though it might invite the family tag taunt.

Also picking up of Congress party’s tallest leader of Kerala and former Union Defence Minister AK Antony’s son Anil K Antony from the Pathanamthitta constituency was yet another right step to accommodate those who are willing to believe the concept of a new and modern India, which is set to emerge as an economic and military power soon.

Meanwhile, the BJP poll panel’s decision to retain all three sitting MPs from Telangana - party’s former state chief Bandi Sanjay Kumar from Karimnagar, another equally fearless young blood Dharmapuri Aravind from Nizamabad and present state party president and Union Minister for Tourism G Kishen Reddy from Secunderabad - where the party hopes to improve its tally this time around?was felt as the right decision.?

However, dropping its sitting member from Adilabad Soyam Bapu Rao or fielding Etala Rajender from Malkajgiri indeed had come as a surprise to many. Interestingly, its candidate from Chevella, Konda Vishweshwar Reddy, who appears creating history as he won on a Telangana Rashtra Samiti ticket in 2014 and lost in 2019 on a Congress ticket, is now trying his luck on a BJP ticket!

Perhaps, never before one might have heard or witnessed, such a rare phenomenon - how a candidate can so fast switch parties in a bid to test his luck? Thus far, the BJP’s first list, a mixed bag of bold decisions and compromising moves under the guise of ‘winnability factor’, looks funny, until poll results prove otherwise.

Bengaluru blast

The K Siddaramaiah-headed Congress government in Karnataka appears to have been forced to make a retreat. Initially dismissing the Bengaluru café incident as a cylinder blast, the government now said it was of a possible terror attack using a low-intensity improvised explosive device, after the Opposition’s pressure. This explains the state of affairs in Karnataka.

There is no denying the fact that the Congress rode back to power with the unflinching support of the Muslims. The Muslims were feeling choked under the earlier Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition government, which was on a mission to weed out Islamic terror outfits that made the state a haven.

The past BJP government’s hijab ban in educational institutions and its stand on?reservations to Muslims (which is against the?Constitution as it doesn’t permit religion-based quotas) indeed cost it to lose power, but not the backing of people.

Whereas the Congress managed to sweep the polls on the promise of reversing the BJP government’s policies and its so-called four guarantees, which has now become a burden on the state exchequer.

It is no secret that the Muslim clerics are so brazenly demanding their slice of the cake from the government. Siddaramaiah government had no option but to dance to the tunes of the Muslim bodies. They might have done away with the hijab ban as well as restored reservations to them, yet the Muslims wanted a free run to destroy India as a nation.

Though the Popular Front of India was banned by the Union government, the outfit is believed to be getting reactivated in Bengaluru and elsewhere in the state, if one has to believe the Central intelligence agencies. Islam is the second most popular religion in Bengaluru with approximately 13.9 per cent.

And, the anti-terror agency’s recent searches and raids in close coordination with the state police stand testimony to this. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) which carried out searches at 19 locations not so long ago in South India (as many as six were in Bengaluru) by busting a highly radicalized jihadi group establishes this suspicion.

The NIA nabbed T Nasir, who is identified as the mastermind behind the 2008 Bengaluru blasts. He is also suspected of converting people he met while incarcerated in a Bengaluru jail. Nasir was earlier detained by the police. It is alleged that he enticed people with promises of financial assistance to convert to Islam and radicalized them during their imprisonment. Upon their release, the people reportedly underwent conversion at a madrasa.

The NIA sleuths also managed to track down those converted, gathering evidence related to these cases. But, all that hard work of the previous government seems to have been compromised by the Siddaramaiah government, paving the way for these jihadi outfits to regroup and carry out violent incidents.

And the Bengaluru café blast is only the beginning of these forces' ulterior motives. Many were also appalled as the Siddaramaiah government was rather reluctant to hand over the case to central agencies, though the latter was thrust upon to go ahead with their investigations of the blast.

It proves that the Congress' appeasement politics is putting the country in the striking range of these jihadi outfits. How the Siddaramaiah government dares to prove the doubting Thomases wrong, one has to wait and see, as he boasts of nabbing the culprit sooner than later.