Soroor Ahmed underlines the bottom line that the BJP is barking up the wrong tree by adopting the same strategy of delivering long speeches when there is absolutely no scope for it in this era of ‘Shorts’.
Football and hockey are the games played in a fixed time of 90 and 70 minutes respectively. Sometimes in finals extra-time is given for getting result or move ahead as in the case of quarter and semi-finals. On some other occasions the decision comes after the penalty shoot-out.
But both the teams are not given indefinite time to play. If one of the teams is so crazy and wants to play for ever, what should be the response of the rival team and spectators? In such a case, the rival players are bound to leave the field. The gallery too becomes empty – barring a handful of diehard supporters.
The players of the team still on the field keep scoring and celebrating their achievements. The match ends only after all the players, referees and linesmen become exhausted and tired. Poor journalists and cameramen are bound to remain in the stadium as they have to cover all the developments – normal, abnormal and not so normal.
The whole three-day long debate on No-Confidence Motion (between August 8 and 10) can be understood in this way. Media persons in television studios and newspapers were left with no choice but to fill their time and space.
The problem with the top brass of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is that they are suffering from speech-syndrome. And even greater problem is that they are not accepting that they are suffering from any disease. So, there is no scope of cure.
BJP IN DELUSION
If nine years later the BJP bigwigs think that a sizeable section of Indians still listens to unusually long speeches of Prime Minister almost daily, they are seriously mistaken. A more than two hours long speech by Union Home Minister Amit Shah on August 9 to be followed a day later by another two and a quarter hour marathon one by Narendra Modi definitely attracted less audience. Panellists in different TV channels may have awarded first and second prizes as if it were a speech competition in a college but the fact remains that normal people have no more patience and time to listen to the same loud claims and false assurances laced with questionable data and figures.
The pulse of the people can be gauged from the discussion in general compartments of local trains, roadside tea-stalls and dhabas, vegetables and fruit mandis, etc and not in the offices of ruling parties and television studios.
They have listened enough about Nehru-Gandhi destroying the country. They do not want any more as they have more pressing problems now. Apart from Manipur, they wanted to listen from the top echelon of the BJP their stand on harassed women wrestlers and violence in Haryana.
OPPOSITION GOT OPPORTUNITY
The No-Confidence Motion which was bound to fail so far as number was concerned, provided the MPs of INDIA enough media space to highlight their point of views. Till a couple of months back television channels in particular had been giving very little coverage to their activities. Even the 150-days long Bharat Jodo Yatra of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi could not get proper attention.
It is being argued that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ministers got more opportunity to highlight their achievements during the latest Lok Sabha debate so the Opposition should not have taken this move. The truth is that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, especially PM Modi, gets disproportionately high time and space in media every day. So, it was nothing unusual for them now.
The newly-formed Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance succeeded in scoring several points over the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government. The foremost achievement was that they managed to bring Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Lok Sabha for the first time in the three-week old monsoon session of Parliament. Not only that Modi was virtually compelled to speak on Manipur, even though briefly in about two and a quarter hour long speech. He spoke on Manipur after completing more than 95 minutes of speech and that too after the Opposition members left the House. Whatever may be the views of ‘balancers’ in television studios, the truth is that the whole 3-day long debate exposed the fact that the ruling BJP bigwigs were totally incapable to defend their position on the 100-day long strife in the state tucked on the north-eastern corner of India. The message had gone deep among the masses that the Government, both at the centre and in Manipur, have failed.
The Opposition MPs may have been lacking the rhetorical skill as defined by our ladies and gentlemen sitting in air-conditioned studios yet the fact remains that Rahul Gandhi’s speech attracted more public attention simply because he and his party leaders seldom get due media coverage. People always want to lend their ears to the alternative voice.
Besides, their speeches were much shorter in size and in this fast world even the tech-savvy BJP supporters sat glued to TV, laptop or mobile to pay attention to whatever the MPs of Opposition had to say. If oratory is everything, why Modi’s party suffered humiliating defeat in Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh to Congress. In the latter Rahul even did not go to deliver a single speech in the assembly election held late last year.
COHESIVE I.N.D.I.A.
What is causing worry in the saffron camp is the unprecedented cohesiveness shown by constituents of INDIA throughout the monsoon session. There was total understanding even on the issue of walking out of Lok Sabha when PM Modi did not speak on Manipur for the first 95 minutes. He started speaking on this issue only after the Opposition took such an extreme step.
The party has not learnt any lesson from the West Bengal debacle of 2021 too as it lost to the Trinamool Congress simply because of excessive use of lung power by Narendra Modi.
The bottom line is that the BJP is barking up the wrong tree by adopting the same strategy of delivering long speeches when there is absolutely no scope for it in this era of ‘Shorts’.