By Our Correspondent
BJP’s poster boy not so long ago, is trying hard to keep the paint on these days. So Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi was quick off the block to ban Jaswant Singh’s book to skim some political cream. Political analysts see the Modi move as an attempt to kill two birds with one stone. For one it is aimed at scoring points with the party cadres, rise in the esteem of the RSS top brass which is increasingly suspicious of him and, endear to the Patel voters in Gujarat.
Modi’s political fortunes have been going downhill ever since the Lok Sabha elections. Confident of bagging 24 of the 26 seats in the state, the BJP could barely muster 15. Like a losing gambler betting double he raised the ante in a politically insignificant Junagadh municipal corporation elections making former Union ministers and former MPs contest for the councillor’s post and going out of the way to announce a Rs 600 crore package for Muslims, only to come a cropper. The BJP lost the civic body elections to the Congress. Again the ruling party in the state pulled out all stops to wrench the Amul milk cooperative, Anand, from the Congress only to be beaten back and defeated. Having faced such debacles, Modi now has to contend with the looming by-elections to seven Assembly seats slated for next month. The bulk of these seats were held by the Congress and with those occupying it moving on to the lok sabha, the seven seats are up for elections. A debacle here could only add to Modi’s problems. With the Patel voter known to be increasingly getting disenchanted with the Chote Sardar, he is hoping that a ban will benefit the party and at the same time prevent the Congress from capitalising on it.