Political mood is pro-BJP, Modi tells Kerala cadre

Gujarat Chief Minister and the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, told members of the Kerala state unit that the political climate in the country was favourable to the BJP and they should work together to take advantage of the climate.

Addressing party workers on Wednesday evening here, he called on them to exploit the socio-political situation in Kerala. Urging a fight against corruption, Mr Modi said though the BJP does not have representation in the Kerala Assembly, the potential of the Right to Information Act should be used to fight corruption and claiming the rights of the downtrodden.

Mr Modi, who is on a two-day visit to Kerala, left for Kollam on Thursday morning to participate in the 60th birthday celebrations of Mata Amritanandamayi. Earlier, he visited the Padmanabha Swamy temple and called on the Travancore Royal family at the Kaudiar Palace.

Speaking to party workers, Mr Modi said the youth were angry about corruption and the potential of social media should be used for the election campaign. He claimed that 72 per cent of new jobs were now being created in Gujarat. Setting out the Gujarat government’s plans to set up a ‘statue of unity’ sculpture of Sardar Vallabhai Patel, he said farmers should contribute iron from their used implements for the statue.

State BJP leaders told Mr. Modi, that the party could win in Kerala if community organisations such as the NSS and the SNDP extended support.

Mr. Modi suggested that leaders should come up from Kerala to the national level so that issues of concern to the State could be raised at the national level. BJP national leaders Ram Lal and Bandaru Dattatreya, State president V. Muraleedharan, O. Rajagopal, P. S. Sreedharan Pillai, P. K. Krishnadas, K. Surendran and other leaders attended.

Earlier, he presented Rs. 5 lakh from the BJP’s central funds to the family of Indo-Tibetan Border Police constable P. G. Jomon who was killed during rescue operations in Uttarakhand.

The Hindu

Narendra Modi anointed BJP PM candidate, Advani disappointed

 Narendra Modi, a staunch proponent of Hinduvta, was on Friday anointed BJP's prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, ending months of suspense over his elevation amid stiff opposition by party patriarch L K Advani.

The announcement was made by BJP chief Rajnath Singh after a meeting of the party's parliamentary board which was skipped by Advani who expressed "anguish" over the way the party was functioning.

Except Advani, the meeting of the 12-member board was attended by other leaders like Sushma Swaraj, Murli Manohar Joshi, Arun Jaitley and Nitin Gadkari.

The decision on Modi came on a day of fast-paced developments and back-to-back meetings and last minute efforts to bring around Advani,Joshi and Swaraj.

Making the announcement, Rajnath Singh said the decision had been taken by the parliamentary board as per the party's tradition.

The party had announced its prime ministerial candidate in 2009 elections also, he noted at a press conference here.

Modi, who will turn 63 next Tuesday, said he will work tirelessly to ensure that BJP wins the 2014 elections.

Giving a slogan "nayi sonch, nayi ummeed" (new thinking, new hope), he said the party will work for good governance and development while fighting against corruption and price rise.

Touching a sour note, an upset Advani released a letter written to the party chief almost at the same time when announcement about Modi was made.

"This afternoon when you had come to my residence to inform me about the parliamentary board meeting, I had said something about my anguish as also my disappointment over your style of functioning," the BJP veteran said in the two-para letter.

"I had told you that I will think whether I should share my thoughts with other Board members or not. Now I have decided that it is better that I do not attend today's meeting," he wrote.

Modi, flanked by Rajnath Singh, Joshi, Swaraj, Jaitley, Ananth Kumar among others, said the country is going through a "crisis" and the countrymen should support BJP to emerge from this situation.

The Gujarat strongman sought blessings of crores of people from Kashmir to Kanyakumari to help BJP win.

He thanked party leadership and workers for reposing faith in him. He also expressed gratitude to NDA allies for supporting him through telephone calls.

Soon after the announcement, Modi went to meet Advani to seek his "blessings".

Advani initially appeared willing to attend the board meeting but changed his mind at the last minute, sources close to him said.

The BJP veteran had conveyed his reservations about announcing Modi's name at this juncture. He had suggested that the BJP chief ministers should be consulted on the issue and the party should wait till the forthcoming assembly elections to Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Delhi are over.

Advani was of the view that making Modi the prime ministerial candidate will put issues like price rise and corruption- on which the BJP has attacked the Congress- on the backburner and make the controversial leader the issue.

Rajnath Singh said the decision was taken keeping in view the mood and aspirations of the people. He said the decision was taken "unanimously".

He said Advani is a respected leader and will continue to be respected. "We will keep seeking his guidance," he said.

Joshi and Swaraj, who too were said to be having reservations to Modi's projection at this juncture, changed their stand to join the majority.

Significantly, Swaraj cancelled her plan to visit Haryana on Friday morning to attend the board meeting.

Earlier, Gadkari met Rajnath Singh to discuss the issue. Later, Gadkari met Advani to persuade him on Modi's name. Swaraj and Ananth Kumar also joined the meeting.

Joshi was asked to return to the capital by a special flight from Sagar, Madhya Pradesh where he had gone to attend a party programme.

Modi got a shot in the arm on Friday when NDA allies Shiv Sena and Shiromani Akali Dal extended their support to him for the PM candidate post.

source:Times of India

Early declaration of PM candidate to help BJP: Jaitley

             BJP leader Arun Jaitley on Saturday demanded that the party leadership should immediately declare its PM candidate honouring the sentiments of party cadre, in a not-so-subtle advocacy for Gujarat CM Narendra Modi. 

   Jaitley, who was speaking at a function to pay tribute to BJP's founder Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, argued that early declaration of the candidate would help the party in the coming elections. "We all are clear about it and so are party cadre. The sooner we move forward on the leadership issue, the better it will be," he said. 

     Although the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha did not take names, the reticence may have been motivated by the concern not to infringe party chieg Rajnath Singh's instruction like desisting from making public pitches for Modi. His invocation of cadre sentiment left little doubt that his plea for an early decision was an argument for the early anointment of Modi who enjoys high rating among party's workers and sympathizers alike, which was cited by Rajnath Singh when he had appointed Gujarat CM the chairman of party's national campaign committee a few months ago. 

   Jaitley's remarks tied in with the estimate that leadership will find itself under pressure for a formal declaration in Modi's favour after the monsoon session of Parliament gets over. The BJP top brass, which appears to be vacillating over the leadership issue because of continuing resistance from some members of the parliamentary board, has justified the delay in announcing its candidate on the ground that doing so during the session would have shifted the focus away from UPA's alleged failures and misdeeds. 

  

    Arguing that it was time the party completed the formality of spelling out its leadership choice, Jaitley said that an early decision would help the party frame the battle for 2014 elections as a choice between dynastic politics of the Congress and proven leadership that the BJP offers. He said that the next election would be like a presidential contest where the aspirational class and those disappointed by the weak and indecisive leadership of Congress-led UPA, were likely to opt for a strong and capable leadership. "We will be better off if we offered them the choice now," he reasoned. 

Times of India

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Why Modi strikes a chord with the youth and not Rahul?

The recent fight between the supporters of NaMo & Rahul Gandhi in the "Social Media" sites has given a dreat discussion topic to the Media. How NaMo is leading the social media battle? Can he really strike a chord with the youth than Rahul Gandhi, the so called youth leader. 

In the age of marketing, there is perhaps no social category as attractive as the urban 'youth' brand. The MTV generation has spawned channels, products, a lifestyle designed to promote this 'youth' culture. And now, in the battle for power in the next general elections, it is this ubiquitous youth factor which is expected to play a bigger role than ever before.

The 2014 general elections will be the first to have India's post liberalisation generation exercise their franchise. The post-1991 babies have grown up. One estimate suggests the number of first-time voters - between the age of 18 and 23 - will be around a 110 million of the 800 million eligible voters. This is, in a sense, the Virat Kohli generation, not even the Sachin Tendulkar one: their appetite for 20-20 cricket is translated into their life goals: a generation which is aggressive, aspirational, consumerist and impatient for change. This is an India, especially in the metros, which has only used mobiles, never seen a black and white TV, is Internet savvy and never heard of the Soviet Union.

In the normal course, 43-year-old Rahul Gandhi and his youth 'managers' should have been the natural mascots of this new India, and not a 62-year-old Narendra Modi and his Sangh Parivar. Rahul is younger, English-speaking, telegenic and tech-friendly. And yet, as most recent youth surveys suggest, it is Modi who is the preferred choice of young Indians. Where has Modi succeeded where Rahul has failed in attracting younger India?

In 2007, Rahul was appointed Congress general secretary in charge of the Youth Congress and NSUI, its students' wing. The promise was that Rahul would reform youth politics, and, importantly, 'democratise' the youth organisations. Yes, he did succeed in energizing and holding elections to these youth bodies, but he failed in actually breaking down the closed shop of dynastical politics within the Congress. Being a dynast himself, he perhaps lacked the moral authority to completely overhaul a system which has thrived on family ties. Instead of being identified with a new, meritocratic India, Rahul allowed himself to be trapped in the baba log image: a child of privilege for whom politics was a family business.

More importantly, Rahul has failed to throw up a big idea that would make him particularly attractive to teenage India. Spending a night with a Dalit family or travelling in a Mumbai local is not a big idea but a photo op, one that smacks of tokenism. Rahul's attempted discovery of the 'other' India might even have worked if he had stuck to it. But you can't make one speech highlighting the plight of Kalawati and Vidarbha's farm widows and then forget about it. During the Anna agitation and the anti-rape protests when the young took to the streets, he again went missing. You cant be anonymous in Parliament, give no interviews, rarely address press conferences, refuse high profile college fest invites, not have a twitter or Facebook account and then expect to reach out to a highly interactive generation which thrives on constant communication.

This is where Modi has stepped in to fill the vacuum left by the Congress youth icon. In the last five years, while Rahul has stayed mostly closeted behind the forbidding walls of Lutyens Delhi - barring the occasional foray into a UP - Modi has made a conscious and sustained attempt at engaging with young India. Be it a Google Hangout, a Twitter account with regular updates and addressing students, Modi has almost been like a Shah Rukh Khan on a 24 x7 Chennai Express promotional overdrive in seeking young audiences.

Nor is wooing the young simply a matter of who plays the social media game better. The winner of the next elections will not be decided by who has more followers on twitter but by who offers a better dream for the future. Rahul has chosen the India versus Bharat theme, reminding us of an unequal society and the need for a compassionate state. Modi, by contrast, has attempted to sell his "Gujarat as India" high growth model, one which sees the state as a facilitator to private enterprise.

In a pre-1991 era, the Rahul idea of a poverty-conscious society might have struck a chord. The post-1991 kids don't want to feel a sense of guilt at past failures or even present inequities. This generation simply wants to steam ahead into the future, unencumbered by either ideological faultlines or income divides. They are looking for a political leadership which promises quick fix, solutions to age old problems: one which will fix corruption, red-tapism, unemployment, even terrorism and Pakistan by simply a swish of the hand. The rhetoric may not always match reality, but Modi's image as a tough, no-nonsense leader is nonetheless attractive. So what if he carries the badge of authoritarianism and the baggage of failing to control the 2002 riots, he talks our language of growth targets and delivery is the prevailing 'youth' narrative.

Ironically, the last leader who enjoyed such high popularity among the youth was Rahul's father, Rajiv Gandhi. With the computer as his weapon, a fresh-faced Rajiv offered the seductive big idea of technology as an agent of change. Modi is offering his personality as a symbol of change, the macho hero who will shake up an ageing status quoist system. Rahul needs to throw up a counter to the Modi challenge, something which he has failed to do so far. Here's a thought: why doesn't Rahul even now make the rampant commercialisation of education a key campaign plank? Yes, we need bijli sadak pani; we also need high quality shiksha.

Post-script: My 18-year-old son is a first-time voter. I asked him what he thought of Modi's Independence Day speech and whether it was inappropriately timed. "I don't know about the timing, but at least he spoke!" And therein hangs a tale.

Source: ibnlive