Current Affairs: Rahul Gandhi's Bihar Strategy; Shiv Sena

Rahul Gandhi's Bihar Strategy

Rahul Gandhi has, in the 2009 General Elections, proved his metal by laying a strong foundation for Congress in its old lost ground Uttar Pradesh, which I say time & again, is the epicenter of Indian Politics.

Now his target seems to be Bihar, which is another old lost ground, & a very strong political vote bank, for congress. Congress lost Bihar back in 1975-77 by an anti-Indira Gandhi movement led by Raj Narain & Jai Prakash Narayan.

Following lines (in italics) is a brief history of what exactly happened back then. Only those who are interested, go through it.

In 1971, Raj Narain & JP Narayan filed a case against Indira Gandhi in Allahabad High Court of her using the government machinery to rig the elections procedure as well as voting. tIn 1975, he Allahabad High Court Justice Jagmohanlal Sinha ruled it in favour of Raj Narain & held Indira Gandhi guilty of the charges & ordered a re-election. It was here that Indira Gandhi forced the President of India to declare a nation-wide emergency. The state of emergency lasted till 1977 after which Congress had lost its vote bank in UP to Raj Narain & in Bihar to JP Narain. In fact in the next general elections, Janata Party (led by JP Narayan), a non-Congress party formed the central government. UP & Bihar have, since then been a shame for the Congress.

Rahul Gandhi, looking at the current scenario in Bihar, knows that Congress can no longer piggy-back on RJD. RJD, formed my Lalu Prasad Yadav, got only 2 seats in the 2009 general elections. That leaves only one strong candidate, Nitish Kumar of JD(U) - Janata Dal (United) which is the current ruling party. Since, JD (U) is an NDA ally, Congress needs to build up its own footing in Bihar. The dynamics of Bihar politics, as we all know, are very different. One might say that a person like Rahul Gandhi may not be able to understand how to penetrate into such a market. But, I think he can, especially considering Congress' performance in UP where he was competing with veterans like Mulayam Singh Yadav (Samajwadi Party) & Gundas like Mayawati (BSP). Here he has the experience of Jagadish Titler who is the Observer of Bihar & his marketing managers, who I am sure know how to penetrate into a rural market.

Shiv Sena + MNS v/s Rest of India (Including sensible Maharashtrians)

We have heard/seen/read about this discussions/arguements/fights, time & again. But, I don't know why Shiv Sena & MNS do not seem to get over it. They are still riding on the same old khacchar (hybrid of horse & donkey), promoting maharashtrians. Wasn't one incidence in Air India embarassing enough. A Marathi air hostess (hired as a mandate because of Shiv Sena) said to the other "fukta rice" when the passenger had asked for "only rice" & the passenger got offended (for obvious reasons) & filed a case against the airlines.

These people have had a problem with possibly everybody popular & who are in media limelight. I wonder why is it that, they target the popular personalities to force their opinions on them. Why are these issues always highlighted in the media when they can also say call them personally. More importantly, how can people, from any community appreciate such actions.

Here are some of the recent incidences in which the following were the victims:

1. Amitabh Bachchan & Jaya Bachchan for supporting Hindi as the national language at a press conference in Mumbai

2. Sachin Tendulkar (who is a Maharashtrian) for considering himself an Indian first

3. Karan Johar for using Bombay instead of Mumbai in his movie wake-up sid

4. SRK for criticising IPL on not permitting Pakistani players to play.

All they are doing is promoting regionalism which is worse than terrorism. Terrorism creates terrorists which are still countable, but regionalism makes everyone a terrorist. Imagine states fighting with each other like Hindus & Muslims fight. There will be riots within each state, not just between religions but, between regions. These people don't realize but what they are doing is not going to build their vote bank but divide it as there will be Shiv Senas for every small community. What will result is a micro-divide & all the hard work of Sardar Patel for uniting this nation would be wasted. I sincerely hope that these people realize this & change their tactics of winning votes.