Modi, Rahul, India badly needs election detox, development dose

Like in 2017, in 2018 too, PM Narendra Modi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi will spend much of their time in campaigning for elections.

New Delhi, Dec 19: Prime Minister Narendra Modi loves elections. That is when we get to see our PM, up close and personal.

In every election rally--it does not matter if it's in a remote corner of Assam or in the economic and industrial hub of India, Ahmedabad, Gujarat--the moment he disembarks from his charter plane, waves at the eagerly waiting crowd, takes those quick steps to the podium and holds the mike in his hands, Modi magic immediately spreads in the air. This is quintessential Modi for his die-hard fans.

As soon as he starts his speech, a good audience in rapt attention feels like as if a few drops of the most expensive perfume have been sprinkled on them. It's their "ganga snan" (the holy dip in the river Ganga, having the power to wash away all sins of Hindus), listening to Modi and cheering after the end of every "life-changing" sentence uttered by the PM.

The man, known as the master orator, speaks eloquently against his opponents (read the Gandhi family) and breaks the myth of the Congress to mukt (free) Bharat (India) from any challenge to his power.

In every election speech of Modi, one can witness the myriad moods of the PM--sometimes anger in his eyes, sometimes that sheepish smile on his lips and sometimes his arms stretching to 180 degrees--if these are the qualities his bête noire Rahul Gandhi could acquire, the Congress would readily give away all its wealth.

It is not that the new Congress president is not attempting to imitate Modi magic. He visited more than two dozen temples in Gujarat before the elections and attended as many as 30 election rallies in the PM's home state, but still fell short of Modi's 34 public meetings in the state in the recent past.

While Modi is the master of elections with the track record of winning almost all the elections for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)--with a few aberrations like Bihar, Delhi, Punjab and Kerala-- since he gave the saffron party its most "earth-shattering" victory during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the 47-year-old scion of the Gandhi family is taking his baby steps to win elections for the Congress.

Nonetheless as Rahul too has tasted the sweet feeling of aggressive and relentless campaigning in Gujarat (it does not matter if the Congress lost elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh), it looks like he is here for long, travelling in air-conditioned cars to the hinterlands of India, enjoying his meals in crumbling huts of Dalits and telling the world that he understands the pain of poverty as he too has lost his grandmother Indira Gandhi and father Rajiv Gandhi (both the former PMs were assassinated).

After 2017 saw some high voltage electoral battles in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa, Manipur, Uttarakhand, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, 2018 is not going to be any different as Assembly elections are scheduled in eight states-- Meghalaya, Karnataka, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

After the series of polls will end in 2018, 2019 will begin with a bugle of the Lok Sabha elections.

In the coming times, the two top leaders will be living the lives of backpackers, hopping from one part of India to another with lightning speed.

Amid the din of never-ending elections, if Modi and Rahul decide to speak about development, price hike, better health facilities and 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament, instead of their usual hate speeches and malicious accusations against each other, the nation would get its much-needed detox from divisive politics and open doors for development.

After all, it has been a long wait for achhe din (good days) for all, Modiji.

OneIndia News