Bangalore, October 11, 2011: The much awaited Jan Chetna Yatra of BJP leader L K Advani finally kicked off from Bihar against the initial speculations of holding it in Gujarat. Conspicuously it knocked doors for speculations in the political arena as why the BJP leader was reluctant to utilise his party icon Modi in his Yatra and preferred the JD(U) leader from Bihar for the same.
Meanwhile, the saffron leader from Gujarat was also found to be missing in the mega-event where many prominent BJP leaders marked their presence. Surprisingly, the billboards, banners and colourful posters donning the images of all central and state BJP leaders flooded almost the whole of state capital of Bihar hardly witnessed a single image of the Gujarat chief minister.
It came as a surprise why the ‘Hindutva mascot’ and supposed to be a strong contender of the future PM was absent from the showoff. If certain experts are to be believed Nitish and Narendra Modi are the two strongest man and vote-pullers of the NDA coalition and certain section also claims both to be the strongest PM contenders at the same time. Then why the two famous stars of NDA was seen together.
Well reasons could be many. Now it is more of a Nitish versus Modi issue. The one time old friends are now preferring better to be seen apart. Nitish Kumar from his side is trying his best to keep his secular image in front of the people and barring himself to be seen with the known ‘communal element’ of the BJP after the Godhra riots. The relation between the two got bitter when a controversy broke out on an advertisement showing Nitish and Modi holding each other’s hand in a rally which was heavily utilized by the RJD and LJP leaders to questions Nitish’s secular image. The whole incident compelled Nitish to take harsh steps to secure his secular image. Part from canceling the dinner where Modi was supposed to come he also preferred to return Rs 5 crore provided by Narendra Modi for the Kosi flood victims just to save his image in front of the people.
Much celebrated CM’sApart from the issue, there are a lot of similarities between the two much celebrated chief ministers. At several points they give strong competition to each other. Many a times one can easily see how the duo are also learning from each other the better ways to connect to the people either through exploiting the cyberspace or through some othe means. But one must accept that the two have adopted several unique means to reach to the common people unlike other chief ministers of the country.
Take the case of Nitish Kumar, for the engineer turned politician, it seems inspired by the Bollywood film ‘Nayak’ (where Anil Kapoor who became CM of a day tried his best to get in touch with the common people), he moved ahead of it and did something that even Anil Kapoor in the film could do. The JD(U) leader started the concept of ‘Janata Darbar’ where he with his team comprising the state DGP and other powerful authorities meet the common people and listen to their grievances and act on the spot putting an example the innovative ways on how to go into the mass.
At the same time, Narendra Modi who does not want to compare Gujarat with any other Indian state but with the foreign countries trying in his ways to make at least Ahmedabad a high-tech city. Ranging from in house domestic gas pipelines to moving restaurants Ahmedabad and somewhat the whole Gujarat is undergoing a transition with the passage of time.
Also just look at the popularity of the two chief ministers who are on their way of creating a ‘feel good’ environment in their state unlike what once former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee created in terms of garnering electoral votes. If you go by the social networking site orkut you can have the idea of their popularity. According to statistics Narendra Modi seems to excel Nitish with more than 100 orkut communities dedicated to Modi, some also claiming him to be the future PM while Nitish has around 50 such communities on orkut. But point noteworthy, there are some anti-Modi communities too as ‘I hate Narendra Modi’ unlike the JD(U) leader who has only pro-Nitish communities.
The two celebrated chief ministers also have learnt to exploit the cyberspace strong enough to peep into the people of their state. Both the chief ministers are bloggers. For instance, Nitish’s blog is followed by 19,85 people whereas Modi going more high-tech has made the facility of reading his blog in nine different Indian language and marked by 359, 976 likes. Whatever be the case, but one thing is for sure they have learnt how to get into the mass, the art few of the chief ministers have learnt and the results are in front of the people.
