Through Goa and Manipur Model BJP Wants to Replicate Indira’s India

Manohar Parrikar and N. Biren Singh became the Chief Ministers of Goa and Manipur respectively this week, transforming the BJP‘s defeat in the assembly elections 2017 into victory in these two states by showing utmost disregard for the verdict of the people.

The BJP was trailing behind the Congress‘ 17 seats in Goa and 28 seats in Manipur with 13 and 21 seats respectively. However, it managed to stitch opportunist alliances in both Goa and Manipur by weaning the MLAs from other parties, including those who fought the elections with an anti-BJP identity, like the Goa Forward Party and the Trinamool Congress.

This utmost desperation of the BJP led by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah to form its own government by showing disregard to the popular mandate in both Goa and Manipur showed the ultimate aim of the saffron brigade is centred on replicating the experiment of Indira Gandhi led Congress Party during the 1970s. The Congress party and its fascist leader whom the BJP and its stalwarts would leave no chance to abuse using choicest phrases is the new role model for the BJP to follow in the present circumstances when it has become the largest political party of the country ruling all states but few.

The BJP’s quest for power in Goa and Manipur

The BJP’s quest for power in Goa and Manipur was caused by its desperation to prove itself, under the leadership of the megalomaniac Narendra Modi, as the invincible power that no political force in the country is capable of defeating. After losing the crucial political battles in Bihar, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal in 2015-16, the BJP couldn’t take any more risk to show the people that its popularity graph is hitting southward, especially at a time when it couldn’t retain a crucial state like Punjab, where the party ruled with the alliance partner Shiromani Akali Dal since last one decade.

To show that the ‘Modi magic’ is alive and kicking, the BJP invested its entire strength to wrest Uttar Pradesh, the largest storehouse of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha seats in the country. During the political campaigning, Uttar Pradesh took the lion’s share of coverage and the politically fragile bastion of Goa was left unattended and Manipur was not even given any coverage at all. For the BJP, prior to 11th March 2017, Goa and Manipur were expendable, but not since the day the results were out.

However, in both Goa and Manipur, the BJP managed to win the highest percentage of votes. It won 32.5 per cent of votes in Goa, the largest in the state, though it could only win 13 seats while the Congress managed to win 17 seats with 28.4 per cent of vote share. In Manipur, the BJP managed to secure 36.3 per cent of the total votes winning just 21 seats, while the Congress won 28 seats with 35.1 per cent of votes. Both Goa and Manipur bestowed the largest party status to the Congress, which the party couldn’t retain.

Showing this highest percentage of votes it got in Goa and Manipur, the BJP started a marathon far ahead of the Congress to stitch the required numbers by resorting to horse-trading, i.e. buying the opposition and independent MLAs and using them to secure the magic score in the respective legislative assemblies.

A moribund Congress couldn’t even prepare a blueprint to use its numerical superiority in Goa and Manipur by the time when the BJP was ready with the required numbers and met the Governors in each state, the Governors who were yesteryear BJP leaders, to claim their majority. The BJP’s fast paced move caught the Congress by surprise and all it could do, despite having more number of seats in the Goa and Manipur assemblies, is blame the BJP of subverting the people’s mandate and moan about the lost opportunity.

The go Goa gone game

Though the anti-incumbency waves were at the peak in Goa, where the BJP has ruled since 2012, it was the split of the opposition votes among the Congress, the AAP, and the GFP, which ensured that the BJP secure its pro-Hindutva vote bank in the state by using its undying influence over the land mafia, feudal landlords, hotel moguls, and real estate barons.

Goa Assembly Election 2017 Result – Party wise tally

Party	No. of Seats	% of Votes	Total Votes
INC	17	28.4	259,758
BJP	13	32.5	297,588
AAP	0	6.3	57,420
GFP	3	3.5	31,900
MGP	3	11.3	103,290
NCP	1	2.3	20,916
Independents	3	11.1	101,922
GSM	0	1.2	10,745
Data from ECI Results.

Manohar Parrikar is the strongman of the RSS, who has protected the bastion of Goa and consolidated the upper-caste Hindu vote bank in favour of the BJP. The RSS selected Manohar Parrikar as their key man to handle the Defence Ministry, after the Modi government couldn’t afford to keep the crucial money-minting ministry with Arun Jaitley. Manohar Parrikar was co-opted in the Modi government in 2014 and Laxmikant Parsare was installed as a puppet Chief Minister. Parrikar played a crucial role since 2014 in implementing the RSS’ policy of helping the US and the Zionist Israel to exert greater influence on the Indian defence sector.

Under Manohar Parrikar the neo-colonial treaties with the US government and its military-industrial complex were concluded, which took forward the process that the previous Vajpayee led NDA and Manmohan Singh led UPA governments started in the 2000s. The Modi government, with Manohar Parrikar as its defence minister, left no stone unturned to transform India into a neo-colony of the US and its allies by executing anti-national treaties like the LEMOA, etc., which helped the US army to set-up military bases in India.
The Modi government turned the Indian military prowess to make it the watchdog of the US and its Western allies interest in the South East Asian region. The RSS also filled its coffer through the bribes offered by the US and the Israeli military hardware and software industry for purchasing the technologies, obsolete in those countries, for the Indian military.

Despite its swearing by the “nationalist” and “patriotic” policies, the BJP has been marred by corruption and espionage scandals, from its former President Bangaru Laxman accepting bribe during the Tehelka sting operation of 2001 to the recent arrest of IT cell leaders of BJP involved in espionage activities on the payroll of the Pakistani secret service agency ISI.

As the Man Friday of the RSS, Manohar Parrikar was also responsible for unleashing extreme violence through the armed forces in the regions under AFSPA, like Kashmir and Manipur. His support to the Indian military establishment and its hardcore Brahminical section to carry out extreme atrocities on the Kashmiri and Manipuri people, won him honour and gratification from the RSS headquarters.

When the RSS was forced to pulled out such an important man from such an important assignment and placed him to lead the richest state bordering the Hindutva strongholds of Karnataka and Maharashtra, then it became clear that the stakes in Goa are too high and the BJP can’t let it go to the Congress at any cost. Therefore, the self-righteous RSS even didn’t bother to consider the repercussions of stitching such an opportunist alliance by shamelessly buying the MLAs who won the election riding on the anti-BJP wave.

The succumbing of the right-wing small players like the GFP, the MGP, the NCP, and the independents didn’t surprise the politically conscious people of the country, who had anticipated such an aggressive posture of the BJP led saffron brigade long back and warned that the Modi government will leave no stones unturned to prove that it’s invincible and omnipotent.
So that, on one hand, its Hindutva fanatic cheerleaders can chest-thump for the unpopular and fascist government more aggressively, and on the other hand, it can implement the utmost anti-people and pro-corporate policies with extreme impunity, by showing the vote share and the growing number of governments in the states of India that are now led by the BJP to muffle the dissenting voices.

The blockade of Manipur by BJP

An unknown fact about Manipur, which is extremely uncomfortable truth for those who are unaware of the state’s affairs to accept, is that the majority of the people in the state does not believe in what New Delhi led military rule preach to them. Alike Kashmir, the feeling of being deprived and occupied by an alien force, which is keen to impose its socio-cultural values on the people of the state, runs down the veins of the state and by tightening the noose of the undemocratic AFSPA, the subsequent governments of India helped the Manipuri people to reaffirm their sense of isolation, deprivation, and oppression.
The major section of the urban elites, especially the urban Christians and Hindus who are seeking a share in the neo-liberal economic cake, are affiliated with the mainstream political system sponsored by New Delhi, while the rest of the people, especially the rural and urban poor, the working class, and the tribal people of the hilly regions are more inclined to support the separatists represented by both right-wing and left-wing forces.

As the election system in Manipur is not favoured by the broad masses of the state, who are either forced to vote by the Assam Rifles, or boycotts the election exercise on their own, the candidates like Irom Sharmila Chanu could only get double digit votes despite being in the leading position of the democratic struggle of the Manipuri people against an inhuman rule imposed through the AFSPA in the state.

There was a huge anti-incumbency wave against the rule of Okram Ibobi Singh led Congress government, however, the Congress still managed to secure 28 seats in the state assembly of 60 seats where it couldn’t reach the magic figure of 31 to form its own government.

Manipur Assembly Election 2017 Result – Party wise tally

Party	No. of Seats	% of Votes	Total Votes
INC	28	35.1	581,869
BJP	21	36.3	601,527
NPF	4	7.2	118,850
LJP	1	2.5	42,263
TMC	1	1.4	23,384
NPP	4	5.1	83,744
Independents	1	5.1	83,834
MNDF	0	1.2	20,120
Data from ECI Results.

The lone independent candidate, Ashab Uddin, from the Jiribram constituency, who was not initially supportive to the BJP, but was abducted with the help of the CISF from the Imphal Airport by the BJP and taken to Kolkata, where he later succumbed to the pressure and baits and gave his support to the BJP.

The BJP managed to win a high number of votes in the Manipur due to the anti-incumbency sentiments running strong among the people of the state who were not happy with Okram Ibobi Singh’s government and blamed it for its inefficiency in controlling the inhumane blockade of the state by the Naga agitation, for the government’s failure in curbing price-rise and black marketing, for the Congress Party’s support to the military rule, and for its involvement in corruption and nepotism.

A full-fledged corporate supported RSS could flex its muscle in the state elections due to the immense support the Hindutva group got from its outfits working among the Hindu population of the state, which was earlier ruled by a Hindu king. The Hindutva evangelism is working to convert the Tribal people of Manipur, Assam, and Arunachal Pradesh into incensed Hindutva fanatics, is a mission the RSS is pursuing in the North Eastern states where the society, culture, food habit, and belief of the people doesn’t conform to the North Indian upper-caste Hindu culture that the RSS wants to impose on the whole country.

The RSS and the BJP got support from its newly formed government in Assam and the RSS organiser, Ram Madhav, who took a personal interest in cobbling the BJP’s fortune in the state, so that the Indian military rule continues unabated and the fear of a tyrant Delhi is strongly felt in Manipur and neighbouring states.

There was no option to look back as the Congress was to be ousted and the RSS led BJP government was to be imposed on the people, though the majority of the cabinet members are turncoat Congress, TMC and other party members. Ram Madhav did the job finely as he had done it in Jammu and Kashmir.

Biren Kumar is chosen by the BJP to ensure that the anti-India and anti-junta protests and rebellion in Manipur is doused with strong action and the path of extreme bloodshed is pursued to ensure that the people of the state are subjugated by the military to work as the slaves of the Indian crony capitalists like Tata, Ambani, Adani, etc.

The fascist menace and resistance against it

It’s an undeniable fact that the neo-liberal economy has commercialised elections and the democratic establishments, which now serve the interests of one corporate house over another in lieu of money. Hence, despite campaigning with an extremely pro-poor and pro-people agenda, no political party can sweep the elections in state and general elections unless they are funded well by the big foreign monopoly and finance capital owned corporations and their Indian comprador allies like Tata, Reliance, Adani, Vedanta, etc., which are now plundering the resources of the country at each and every corner.

With every passing day, the BJP, powered by the huge propaganda machinery of the RSS, is able to spread misinformation, deceits, and lies to the corners of the country and are able to affect the minds and action of the upper-caste Hindus and a broad section of the backward castes too. The saffron propaganda is making the majority of the Hindu believe that they are a minority community in India and they are under siege due to a purported attack launched on their religion and way of life by the Muslim community. The anti-Muslim rhetoric unfortunately sells in a country with huge number of literate, yet less number of educated people, who belong to the Hindu community.

Using the anti-Muslim rhetoric the Modi-led BJP government has turned itself as a self-styled messiah of the Hindus and identifies the state machinery as the machinery of the broad masses of the Hindus, while, in reality, it only serves the interest of the arch-reactionary section of the elite upper-caste Hindus, who virtually owns 90 per cent of the country’s economic resources.

As the BJP cannot be defeated instantly in the electoral battle due to its extensive control over the Brahminical administration, bureaucracy, due to its tryst with the corporate sharks and foreign powers, therefore it’s going to take the country en-route the journey that once Indira Gandhi took India through.

The BJP’s transformation into the Congress, and the vice versa, is the signal that only the Hindutva ideology conforms with the demanding neo-liberal economic system, which calls for utmost and unconditional submission of the people to the needs of the corporate sharks and the dismantling of the last vestiges of a popular welfarist state, which exist in a microscopic form now.

The only way the majority Hindu community can be freed from the clutches of the Hindutva monster, is by building up of a popular nationwide democratic movement against the fascist Hindutva menace by the anti-fascist forces that should be essentially against the neo-liberal economic system and its promoters. The movement can only be build up if the deceitful Goebellian propaganda of the RSS is combatted with counter-propaganda based on truth and facts and is spread to all section of the downtrodden people.

Such a large-scale democratic and progressive movement cannot develop overnight, but will take time, however, once it gets into a shape that’s lethal enough to defeat the RSS led Hindutva brigade, the anti-fascist front can surely bring down the fascist regime by smashing its ideological hold on the enslaved people of the nation and by establishing a new, democratic, and progressive popular government with a visionary leadership that can lead the country out of the mire of the neo-colonial system, which all mainstream political parties of all hues support and hails. It’s only then that the incidents of horse-trading like those took place in Goa and Manipur assemblies after the election, can be prevented forever.