With Modi-Amit Shah in charge, I don't miss being in BJP

I really had a wonderful time in the BJP till my resignation in 2013. I still have several friends in the party including LK Advani. But with Narendra Modi and Amit Shah in top positions, I surely do not miss being there. For me BJP meant leaders like AB Vajpayee and LK Advani who had a certain bandwith and depth, and not Modi and Shah who don't leave any stone unturned to divide the country on communal lines. They have no idea about the kind of damage they are doing to the ethos of this nation.

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Yes, the BJP is doing well. It just won Assam, but let us not forget that this party is bound to do well in communally charged states. Let's not forget Assam saw more violence than West Bengal during the Partition. Why are we making so much of this victory? As far as the "magic" of Modi is concerned, haven't we all realised that "achhe din" is a joke, a distant mirage? I am horrified by the thought that the BJP may come back to power in 2019.

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Honestly, what saddens me the most is that there is no solid alternative. The Congress is over if they persist with the dynasty. It's not that they don't have other leaders. Ask any common person and he can name at least ten top leaders from the Congress. Ask the same about the BJP and you will have him thinking. Why cannot the Congress look beyond the Gandhis? What about P Chidambaram, Digvijaya Singh and Kapil Sibal? Don't these gentlemen make for great leaders? Are they not bright?

As far as other parties are concerned, we do have people like Nitish Kumar and Arvind Kejriwal who have shone in recent times, but it is yet too be seen when they will start making a pan-India impact.

The BJP may come back in Karnataka but the real test is Uttar Pradesh. They have already started preparing and their poll managers are working overtime. Social media has been much abuzz with the kind of election experts this party hires.

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I agree, managing elections is a science but a top PR team or manager can only take you till a certain distance. After that, it's about how you connect with the people.

For the past two years, we have been witnessing the government's intellectual bankruptcy. Look at the way they handled award wapsi by the country's top artists. It did not even sit down with the intellectuals, but just dismissed them. Is this the way artists should be treated in a civilised country? Why do all top art and culture academies have to have your own people, even if they don't have the kind of intelligence and experience needed for those posts? On top of that, appointing someone like Gajendra Chauhan as the FTII chairman!

But what hurts most to thinking people like us is the way the media is behaving, not print but television. Is it not obvious that some anchors who shout on top of their voices are blatantly pro-government and refuse to acknowledge any voice of dissent? In fact, the way they dismiss opposing thoughts is so crass, so demeaning.

Yes, you can call the Congress weak, you can call Rahul Gandhi names. But let's admit it, the Congress is a party that retains sophistication even when down.

(As told to Sukant Deepak.)