How one week has dented Modi's frontrunner status

This is one decision of the Narendra Modi government that BJP leaders are finding difficult to defend. The state government’s decision to seek death penalty for its former minister Maya Kodnani and some others in the Naroda Patia massacre has forced them to use convoluted arguments about the “procedural” nature of the decision. But it may not contain the anguish of its core social constituency – both sections within the party and the Sangh parivar. [caption id=“attachment_710250” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Maya Kodnani. PTI[/caption] The Gujarat Chief Minister’s close supporters are acutely aware that whatever he had decided, it would hurt his credibility. If he had negated the recommendations of the Special Investigation Team (SIT), he would have been damned by his critics and possibly by the courts. Now that he has chosen to go strictly by the “procedure and oath of allegiance to the Constitution” and backed the SIT demand, it is beginning to hurt his image as a strong Hindutva leader. Three events over the past week have been detrimental to Modi’s persona within and outside Gujarat. It began on Sunday with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s veiled attack on Modi where he set a deadline for the BJP leadership to chose between continuance of the JD(U) alliance and Modi as PM candidate. Then came the Supreme Court judgment ordering the Gujarat government to transfer some Asiatic lions from Gir forest to Madhya Pradesh. After the Supreme Court verdict was pronounced, Modi was confronted with Saurashtra’s sensitivities, as the shifting of Gir lions is viewed negatively in that region. Topping it all is the revelation that the Modi government has asked for the death penalty for Maya Kodnani, Babu Bajrangi and others. The decision is fine on legal grounds, but does huge damage to Modi within the Sangh Parivar. Modi’s detractors have for long accused him of deserting and discarding a number of his close party colleagues for personal political gain. These three developments – all within the space of a week – have dented the Modi story.  Till early last week, Modi seemed to be riding a wave. Through his extended public outings in Delhi and Kolkata, he virtually spoke like the Prime Ministerial challenger of the main opposition party. He looked like a leader at peace with himself, supremely confident of his message. He was consciously seeking an image correction without diluting his USP of being a strong development-oriented leader. But Nitish Kumar’s half-an-hour speech in Delhi at the JD(U) National Council meeting may yet force him to keep defending his 2002 role, and his acceptability to a wider political spectrum is again in question. It is in this context that the Gujarat government’s decision to sanction the SIT recommendation on Maya Kodnani and others becomes interesting. The VHP has already voiced its anger over the issue by writing an open letter to Modi, and various angles of the case, rational or otherwise, are being discussed privately within the party and parivar. Talking to Firstpost, Gujarat BJP leader Jay Narayan Vyas called the Gujarat government approval as a “procedural” clearance and blasted rival political parties for giving it a political colour. “The state government is unnecessarily being blamed, it has no role”, he said. His argument was since the SIT was appointed by the Supreme Court, it had its own prosecutors and the developments were monitored by the court. It was incumbent on the state government to give approval to its recommendations for enhancing the punishment for Kodnani and others. It was immaterial whether or not it agreed with those recommendations. The Gujarat government’s official spokesman Nitin Patel had made similar arguments. A BJP leader even found a silver lining for Kodnani from the state government’s decision. She will now have a chance to present her side afresh and seek a reversal of the judgment. But couldn’t she have filed an appeal by herself? There was no clear answer to that. Other senior Gujarat BJP leaders argue that if the Modi government had differed with the SIT recommendations and not given its approval, it was bound to be challenged in court, thus making the state government a further target for various liberals and social groups. No government which owed its allegiance to the constitution could have said no to the SIT’s recommendations, they say. But there is no avoiding the damage. BJP leaders are also worried that this decision could potentially affect Modi’s ratings within the Sangh parivar, something he can’t afford to dilute ahead of the parliamentary elections. Despite her conviction, Kodnani has good connect and image in her ideological family. Kodnani’s conviction had come ahead of the Gujarat assembly elections and, despite the initial shock it generated within the party, it did not impact the election outcome. A section with the Sangh parivar tried to use that as ammunition against Modi but was compensated by a section of Muslims seeing the verdict as part of Modi’s attempt to correct his image and move beyond the riot taint. This time around, however, the fallout will not just be limited to Gujarat and Modi’s critics are unlikely to change their perceptions on him. The Supreme Court’s order to transfer Gir lions to Madhya Pradesh is another issue that is causing concern to Modi. It is fast turning into an emotive issue not just in Sasan, where some locals have threatened to commit suicide, but in the whole of the Saurashtra region. They see it as an insult to their pride. A BJP leader from Saurashtra said the rise in the number of tourists to the state in the wake of the Amitabh Bachchan ads exhorting people “to breathe in a little bit of Gujarat” has added a business angle to the mythological and social connect between the lions and the local people. This has prompted the state to file a review petition in the Supreme Court. The idea is that the case will drag on for a few more years and avert a negative perception for now. In Delhi, meanwhile, a fuss has been kicked up through a media report which suggested that former BJP chief Nitin Gadkari may have given Nitish Kumar an assurance last year that Modi won’t be projected as PM candidate. But Gadkari today issued a clarification that the meeting held at Arun Jaitley’s residence in July 2012 made no such assurance. It has all the looks of the BJP’s internal intrigues. None of it will help Modi for now.