<Narendra Modi has shown the power hungry politicians the way to electoralsuccess. Create insecurity in the majority group by blaming and hammering upthe minority group and emerge as the sole leader, well wisher and protectorof the majority. What happened in the aftermath of Godhra, in Gujrat, is being replayed inMumbai by Mr. Raj Thackeray the latest practitioner of the "ModiSchool ofpolitics". Indiscriminate killing of Muslims in Gujarat had created a deep fearpsychosis in the mind of the majority Hindus. Playing upon this fear andinsecurity he was successful in creating a permanent and a massive vote bankby projecting himself as the sole protector and the only leader to executean agenda to benefit one while discriminating the other. Envying Mr. Modi's success, Mr. Thackeray is following on the samefootsteps. Creating a sense of despair and insecurity in the minds of theMarathi community in Mumbai against the migrants from North India, he iscreating his own vote bank of wholesale and everlasting voters. FirstMumbai, then Maharashtra and finally India.>
Modi's successful election campaign in Gujarat was reportedly based on the "twin mantras of development and ['robust'] Hindutva". (INDIA TODAY, Jan 7, 2008). Hindutva, in turn, had a strong "anti-terror" (or security) element coupled with jingoistic nationalism. This has been dubbed by some as "Moditva" as outlined in the foregoing excerpt. Here we focus on the development plank. Modi's development model (INDIA TODAY Dc 17, 2007) consists of the following: Power supply to all 18,000 villages combined with the slapping of law suits against farmers indulging in power theft. The latter move has turned the state's power set-up from a loss of Rs 2200 crores to a surplus of Rs 200 crores in 2006. Meanwhile, the state has registered a CAGR of 10.6% during the first four years of the 10th FYP vs 7.2% for the country as a whole. The state has leveraged its strength in petrochemicals by laying a gas grid of 1400 km (target 2200 km). This is expected to boost industrial production as gas is cheaper than naphtha which is currently in use. Investment proposals in the pipeline total Rs 76,000 crores, exceeding that of three top states put together. The urban development drive to upgrade small municipal towns sent tax collection soaring because people were motivated to pay taxes. The state's finances as a whole have become revenue surplus (from revenue deficits for 15 years). State PSUs have become profit making. The government doesn't believe in too many populist sops to the people while emphasizing strict accountability. But special schemes have targeted girls' education, the prevention of female foeticide and agricultural extension activities. INDIA TODAY (Jan 7, 2008) explicitly shows the link between "development" and "electoral strategy". It is clear that much of it has to do with using government machinery for political purposes. "Credit must be given to his planning and to the many Government sponsored schemes and meetings that were converted into political rallies. By October 10 he had already completed the first round of his campaigning at the government's expense by holding 50 public meetings and directly addressing 40 lakh people from his target vote bank. In these meetings he gave them a run down of his development achievements.. The rallies which were organized with Government support effectively neutralized anti-incumbency at the grass-roots level. His ministers visited 4000 villages in a span of just 40 days on the pretext of inaugurating development work already completed.[Finally based on a pre-electoral survey], while distributing tickets Modi replaced around 38 sitting MLAs apart from the 11 rebels who had left the party." INDIA TODAY concludes that "it was the success of his development work that turned the tide". This is not at all self-evident as Gujarat-specific development has to be disentangled from national and global economic development factors before attributng credit. For all practical purposes, the jury is still out. INDIA TODAY does not underline the potential illegality of using government machinery for political purposes. Maybe this applies only to the period (from the announcement of election dates) in which the Code of Conduct is in force. But the spirit of this norm has apparently been violated with impunity. In any event, Modi has declared that next on his government's agenda is improving the state's ranking on the human development index (on which Gujarat ranks 6th among Indian states while the country as a whole ranks 128th in the world). Is Modi's brand of "development strategy" replicable in Goa, whether by BJP or by Congress? If so, why? If not, why not?