Anita Katyal | Is Modi making up for memorial mess? Why Kejriwal said he will pay priests
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent meeting with popular Punjabi actor-singer Diljit Dosanjh is clearly part of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s ongoing effort to woo the Sikh community which has repeatedly spurned its overtures. The BJP has failed to make a dent in Punjab even as its neighbouring states have handed out handsome electoral victories to it. Not only was this meeting an attempt to reach out to the Sikh youth, it also had the desired result of creating a rift between Dosanjh and the protesting farmers who felt betrayed by the singer since he has consistently supported their cause. This meeting also comes shortly after the Modi government paid fulsome tributes to the late Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on his passing while its top brass turned up for his funeral. Despite going all out in praise of Manmohan Singh, the Modi government found itself on the defensive as it could offer no plausible explanation for holding the late Prime Minister’s last rites at the public Nigambodh Ghat and not at the Rashtriya Smriti Sthal which was set up in 2013 on the banks of the Yamuna river as a common place for the cremation of national leaders. Atal Behari Vajpayee was cremated here in 2018. Finding itself on the backfoot, the government is now working overtime on setting up a memorial for Singh following a request by the Congress.
When the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power over a decade ago, a senior party ideologue had exultantly declared in an informal conversation with media persons that they would ensure that Jawaharlal Nehru’s legacy is completely destroyed and his name erased from public spaces. Among the various steps this government has taken is to rename the Nehru Museum and Library as Prime Ministers’ Museum and Library while Nehru’s residence, which was converted into a museum, has been dwarfed by a new modern building in the compound housing the new Prime Ministers’ Museum. Now there is talk about a move to rename Delhi’s popular Nehru Park. According to the Delhi grapevine, an official committee has been set up to zero in on a new name, preferably in the memory of RSS leaders like Veer Savarkar and Deendayal Upadhyaya. This is actually a minor issue as compared to the highly effective campaign being run by the BJP to devalue Nehru’s work through the use of social media and agenda-driven writings of right-wing writers and columnists.
The Delhi unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party is anxiously awaiting the names of candidates for the upcoming Assembly polls, especially as the Election Commission is expected to announce the election schedule very soon. While hectic lobbying is underway for the prized ticket, a guessing game is on about who will eventually make the cut. The latest speculation is that as in the case of other states, the BJP will field several former MPs in what promises to be a fiercely-contested battle. Smriti Irani, Meenakshi Lekhi, Parvesh Verma and Ramesh Bidhuri are among those whose names are doing the rounds. In fact, Mr Verma has virtually launched his campaign by reaching out to women voters and organising a bhandara at Delhi’s well-known Hanuman Mandir. Smriti Irani, it is said, has abandoned Amethi and enrolled as a voter in Delhi though the BJP insists these are rumours spread by the Aam Aadmi Party.
Meanwhile, the ongoing battle between political rivals, Bharatiya Janata Party and the Aam Aadmi Party has taken a fresh turn after former Delhi chief minister announced that his government would pay Delhi’s temple priests and gurudwara granthis a monthly salary of Rs 18,000 if elected back to power. While the BJP has hit out at Mr Kejriwal, saying these freebies will put a strain on the exchequer, AAP insiders had their own explanation. According to them, this was in response to reports that the Delhi government’s Religious Committee, currently headed by lieutenant governor V.K. Saxena, had ordered the demolition of temples in the capital as a precursor to branding the AAP as “anti-Hindu”. Mr Kejriwal, it was said, pre-empted the BJP move by announcing salaries for priests and granthis even though this scheme could prove to be non-starter as no criteria has been laid down to identify the priests who will be entitled to this salary.
As Congress members await the long overdue organisational reshuffle, quiet moves are on to push for the replacement of key office-bearers like K.C. Venugopal known for his proximity to Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi. Instead of running a direct campaign against them, which often proves counter-productive, it is being argued that general secretaries who have completed five years in office should be either moved out or given a fresh assignment. According to them, the 2022 Udaipur Declaration adopted by the Congress had laid down that no one will hold an organisational post for more than five years. Pro-changers are feeling hopeful after Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s address at the Belagavi meeting of the party’s working committee where he reiterated that the Udaipur Declaration will be implemented.
