Dear prime minister, bullet trains & Yogi Adityanaths can't co-exist in India

The disappointing results in the recent bypolls has raised questions about the

's two-pronged strategy and Prime Minister

had to make a statement after the debacle to ensure that the grand mandate that he and his party had won a few months ago doesn't look threatened so early.

Hindutva has boomeranged

The prime minister has told the Sangh Parivar that not polarisation but development should continue to be the goal of the ruling regime. The polarisation strategy, which had paid off so well for the BJP during the Lok Sabha election in key state like Uttar Pradesh, boomeranged in the bypolls, exposing the saffron party's efforts to fan Hindutva politics in the Hindi belt under the cover of personality cult.

Only the PM can correct BJP's courses

But the BJP must learn things fast to correct its course and nobody other than the prime minister can do this for the party has been reduced to an individual now and he has to take up the issues related to its ideological and organisational weakness. For if Modi took all the credit for the Lok Sabha victory, it is also he who has to accept the responsibility of the wrongdoing.

Right-wing extremists can't do whatever they feel just because BJP is in power

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is doing a very good job as a statesman at this moment. His foreign policy initiatives and the focus on domestic issues like banking services for the commoners or toilet for women and girls are praiseworthy. But the prime minister needs to take a tough call on another key issue and that is rein in the communal elements who think they have got a license to do whatever they like just because the BJP is back to power.

Modi to talk tough?

According to reports, Modi is set to meet the leadership of his party and the Parivar after the departure of the Chinese president on this issue. He is likely to tell the right-wing forces that polarisation on communal lines is not going to reap any dividend for the BJP as a ruling party. People seek better administration, controlled prices of essential goods and good law and order from a government and not promotion of Hindutva.

Hindutva-development debate is an eternal one for BJP and now Modi confronts it

This is an eternal problem for the BJP. In the past, tall leaders like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani had a face-off with the RSS on the issue of Hindu mobilisation and it is said Vajpayee, despite being a moderate leader himself, had to pay the price of the anti-minority riots in Gujarat after two years. Now, Modi is in the hot seat of a BJP prime minister who has to make a much more balancing act than say a Congress incumbent.

BJP's political dilemma

But Modi, who is increasingly looking a leader with little similarity with his own party, must take a strong stand to settle the BJP's political dilemma. In the past, the party used to project the faces of Vajpayee and Advani as and when the situation demanded but now there is only face and that is of Modi.

The man has covered a long journey to transform his image from a successor of Advani to one of Vajpayee and can not just allow people like Yogi Adityanaths to steal his show and put the party in a trouble. There has to be a line drawn somewhere to prevent the right-wing fanatics from ruining the long-term dream that Modi harbours for India, both internally and externally.

Bullet trains and Yogi Adityanaths can't co-exist

The bullet train and Yogi Adityanath can't co-exist at the same time. And it is only Modi who can take the call on this. The bypoll results have suggested so.