Gujarat riots cast shadow over Modi’s governance and development buzz. Let us for a while forget what has been saidearlier by various political parties, Muslim organisations, or secularists on Modi’s ineffectiveness or partisan role during and after Gujarat riots. Nothing could have come as a surprise for Narendra Modi than what ManoharParrikar, BJP chief minister of Goa, who had been most vocal to project Modi as the face of BJP prior to Goa conclave, said that Gujarat riots were a bad example of governance and administrative failure, but defended Modi in his own way.
Parrikar, in an interview to the Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta for NDTV’s Walk the Talk programme, pointed out that Gujarat riots were a clear cut example of administrative failure and bad example of governance. Goa CM was also quick to defend Modi by saying that it did happen because Modi was not having the kind of grip required at that point of time to administer and govern in an effective manner. Such a statement from the horse’s mouth has come after Vajpayee strongly asked Modi to follow rajdharma after Gujarat riots.
Parrikar’s views seem logically incorrect because it may take hardly a month for a chief minister to have grip on the administration and even the weakest chief minister can control riots within hours if there is a will to do so and chooses not to turn a blind eye to the gravity of the problem and its after effect on people and the nation.
VibhutiNarainRai, former IPS officer, holds the view that no communal riots can extend beyond 24hours unless and until the establishment at some point is complicit. Even if we consider Parikkar’s explanation for a while then how long is required to have a grip on the administration to ensure that no fake encounters will take place. Or the kind of grip required to control riots differs from that of controlling fake encounters. So far Tamang, SIT and CBI reports have claimed Ishrat Jahan encounter as fake. The conspiracy angle is believed to have stretched far and wide which is likely to unfold in the chargesheet filed by the CBI by 4 July. On 20June, the CBI told a special court that it was looking into complaints made in a petition filed by Shabbir, brother of SadiqJamal, that has accused Narendra Modi and Amit Shah of involvement in the Sadiq Jamal encounter.
On the political scene, efforts to reconcile the hostility between senior leaders of the BJP by the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat is believed to have failed because his meeting with LK Advani has not moved beyond assurance to the issues that were raised by Advani. The BJP is projecting truce between Advani and Modi but what Advani’s close aide SudheerKulkarni has recently said suggests that political tussle is yet far from over. Kulkarni in a letter posted rediff.com has defined Modi as an autocrat and has called Rajnath Singh foxy. As per Kulkarni, an autocrat is sought to be enthroned, and a perfect democrat is being marginalised and humiliated.