Booing of Cong CMs: Modi extends olive branch, invites Hooda to tea

Around 1pm on Friday Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s office received a call from the Prime Minister’s Office, saying that Haryana Chief Minister had an appointment with the PM later in the day. The message pleasantly surprised those in the office, but then there was some confusion because the Chief Minister had not sought any appointment with Modi. But the time they could ponder over it, the Haryana Resident Commissioner got a call from the PMO telling him that the Prime Minister would like to meet and have tea with Chief Minister at 4pm. Hooda was in Delhi and happily accepted the invitation but before he set out to meet Narendra Modi he duly informed Congress president Sonia Gandhi about the development, sources said. After the outflow of some bad blood between BJP and the Congress, beginning with Hooda being booed in Kaithal by Modi-bhakts, Modi’s tea diplomacy was a welcome peace initiative to restore some semblance of dignity in personal conduct and interpersonal rapport between leaders of the two rival parties, and more specifically between elected heads of the centre and the state. Modi’s olive branch was duly reciprocated by Hooda. [caption id=“attachment_1678417” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Bhupinder SIngh Hooda: Naresh Sharma/Firstpost[/caption] The move would also blunt Congress’s criticism of Modi that his inability to contain his overenthusiastic supporters in Kaithal, Sholapur and Ranchi was an attack on the federal structure of the Indian polity. Modi and Hooda met for around 35 minutes, and had a “general discussion” without once mentioning the Kaithal incident. Sources said Modi and Hooda already shared a fairly good inter-personal relationship. They have interacted with each other on a number of occasions as both have been chief ministers for a long time (Modi since 2002 and Hooda since 2005) Given that Chief Ministers sit in alphabetical order at official events, and Haryana is always next to Gujarat (G-H), Hooda has been sitting next to Narendra Modi at all Vigyan Bhawan functions for close to a decade. The situation has certainly changed since May, with Modi becoming PM but the personal equations continue. They will be targeting each other once more in the run-up to the assembly elections but all is fair in this democratic set up. The Election Commission is likely to announce a poll schedule for Haryana, as well as Maharastra and Jharkhand on Monday, or any day after that. Hooda is holding a huge rally in Panipat, which will be his last show of strength as chief minister before the model code of conduct comes into effect. Hooda is expected to offer all kinds of sops to various sections of society and announce a series of other schemes, should he get elected for another term. BJP president Amit Shah has already held two rallies in Haryana and Modi’s function in kaithal, though official, was intended to broadbase the party’s support base by initiating some developmental projects. The Congress’ call for the boycott of PM Modi’s function by their chief minister was imprudent. It was perhaps designed more to send a message across that it was not in the mood to take things lying down. It is worthwhile to recall an an incident of the 2011 winter session of Parliament. The BJP as a main opposition party had announced a boycott of then home minister P Chidambaram in Parliament, only to realise its follies later. By the time Parliament opened for budget session, the boycott was gone without anyone even talking about it. The Congress’s boycott of Modi in Nagpur may have allowed Congress to score a brownie point against the BJP but then Modi walked away with the sole credit of initiating the Rs 8,680-crore Nagpur Metro rail, a project in which the state of Maharashtra is a 50 percent partner. The centre and the state had been jointly working on this project for quite some time. The secretary of union urban development ministry will be chairman and state government will appoint managing director of the Corporation. Modi hosting tea for Hooda could make Congress ally, Bihar Chief Minister Jeetan Ram Manjhi review what he said about Modi while condemning him and charging that he was tearing “Constitution to pieces (Samvidhan ki Dajjiyan uda rahe hain..roj galat kam kar rahe hain) and committing wrongs everyday”. While the debate on what happened in Kaithal, Sholapur and Ranchi will go on, the BJP is certainly buoyed by the pro-Modi chants. The party thinks that it is indicative of continuation of popular sentiments that worked so well during the parliamentary elections. It is thus redrawing new terms and conditions for ally Shiv Sena in Maharastra and Kuldeep Bishnoi’s HJC in Haryana. After the EC announces the poll schedule, the BJP will have to deal with these allies first. To make them accept changes to seat sharing agreements within 7-10 days is a tough challenge. The Congress for its part, will be watching that closely. ends