There is a sinister plan hatched by the Congress party to implicate Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi in a web of legal cases relating to 2002 communal violence and some alleged police encounter cases. Accordingly, the Congress party led central government is working overtime to implicate, dethrone and arrest the popularly elected Chief Minister of Gujarat sometime between now and October this year.

Hectic efforts are on to subvert every institution and influence every wing of the government to implement this evil plan. Disgruntled officials of the central services working in Gujarat have been used as pawns in this “target Modi by hook or crook” operation.

IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt who had filed an affidavit in Supreme Court alleging that Narendra Modi instructed the police officials to let Hindus vent their anger during communal riots in 2002 is one such conduit acting at the behest of the ruling Congress party at the Centre. This was established when Bhatt and state Congress president Arjun Modhwadia tried to influence a junior police officer Karansinh Panth to depose against Narendra Modi.

When Panth refused to yield, they threatened him saying that the state government (led by Narendra Modi) would collapse in two months and the chief minister would be arrested. This episode clearly exposes the nefarious designs of the Congress party to destabilize a democratically elected government in Gujarat.

The reasons for targeting the popularly elected Gujarat chief minister are not far to seek. The Congress is frustrated by its repeated electoral failures in Gujarat and sees no hope for its revival as long as Narendra Modi is at the helm. By targeting the Gujarat chief minister, it also sees an opportunity in consolidating the Muslim vote bank across the country and particularly in the poll-bound electorally crucial battleground state of Uttar Pradesh.

But even more importantly, the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty fears that Narendra Modi could threaten the future success of Rahul Gandhi.

Modi preferred over Rahul

A widely published recent Mood of the Nation poll carried out by LensOnNews.com (http://bit.ly/iIPZAy) confirmed this fear. It showed that Narendra Modi pipped Rahul Gandhi to the post in prime ministerial preference rankings by several notches.
Asked who would make a better prime minister between Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi, 52% chose Narendra Modi over Rahul Gandhi with 40%. Modi has a huge lead over Rahul Gandhi among upper castes, OBCs, college educated and urban voters. Voting sections strongly rooting for Narendra Modi are not loyal to any party and vote perceptibly based on performance. It is this ‘swing vote’ that proves decisive in regime changes.
Narendra Modi who has emerged as a national icon owing to his impressive leadership of Gujarat and zero tolerance policy against corruption and terrorism seems to have caught the imagination of this highly perceptive and well informed voter groups. For a country and populace craving for good governance and reeling under the mis-governance of the Congress led UPA government at the Centre, Modi’s virtues are of great significance.

In sharp contrast, Rahul Gandhi’s sole virtue is his parental lineage. He does not come across as a confident, intelligent man and blabbers away uttering inanities on most subjects. For a 41 year old “young” man, he lacks work experience of any kind and whatever little one has seen of his political management abilities, he hardly inspires any confidence.

Far from extending the party’s appeal, much like his mother Sonia, Rahul Gandhi seems to have become a lighting rod for the political disaffection of the educated classes. Browse the internet to see how people, particularly the youth resent the mother-son duo of Gandhis. It is not just online generation, even the television viewing masses share this perception. In a Television show on CNN-IBN hosted by Sagarika Ghose recently, asked if Rahul Gandhi was ready to become PM, an overwhelming majority of 86% of the viewers said no, while only 14% answered in the affirmative. (Watch video at http://bit.ly/lF412C ) For the undisputed future leader of a ruling party, such poor public support is indeed alarming.

History tells us that whenever the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty saw dwindling public support, it had exhibited dictatorial tendencies and an authoritarian streak. The dynasty’s motto seems to be simple: if you can’t defeat an opponent, eliminate him. Unscrupulous politics is the hallmark of Congress party’s culture. No other party or leader in power has ever practiced such coarse politics.

Most BJP sympathizers wonder how the Gandhi family, mired it was in so many scams and misdeeds, was let off lightly when the party was in power for six years at the Centre. Many of them aver that the Gandhis would have been in jail if only the NDA government had pursued cases against them seriously. But that simply is not the kind of politics that the BJP has ever practiced. It is just that the Congress culture is different.

The Congress regime at the Centre which is staring at a precipitous fall in public support due to a series of scams realizes that it has lost all moral right to govern. It believes that the only way to safeguard its future is by targeting all its political rivals who pose a threat to the dynasty’s future. The midnight crackdown on Baba Ramdev’s supporters showed its fascist tendency and it is once again in full display in Gujarat.

In attempting to target Narendra Modi in the alleged police encounters of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Ishrat Jahan, the Congress party is showing its overweening concern for the “human rights” of gangsters and alleged terrorists. The same Congress party led government at the Centre had appointed the Banerjee Committee to concoct evidence that the Godhra train carnage that killed 59 innocent Hindus was an accident and not a pre-meditated terrorist act.

The Bollywood song “Yeh public hai, ye sab jaanti hai” captures vividly the wisdom of the public in this country. Men-women, educated and uneducated can all see through the cynical games played by political parties.

The government that has lost its mind and has gone berserk, one hopes, will come to its senses and refrain from targeting political rivals in a mafia-like manner. Caught in its habitual hubris, if it overreaches itself, it is sure to face an electoral backlash more severe than that of 1977 that followed Indira Gandhi’s Emergency.

The author is a noted political analyst

Your view: What do you think will be the implications of arresting a popular leader like Narendra Modi?