My Opinion

It is strange that despite the PM having said that there would be no change in the reservation policy, RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat has reiterated his stand on it. He has repeated once again that the policy would have to be relooked at. This could prove costly for BJP at a time when it is fighting the high stakes electoral battle in Bihar where Caste is perhaps one of the main issues. Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad could well be proved wrong when he remarked that this issue of reservation will not benefit Nitish and Lalu in these elections. If that were indeed true, why would the BJP President Amit Shah keep repeating in all his rallies, that the fight in Bihar is about development and not so much about reservation!

Netaji’s death has always been shrouded in mystery – a mystery that is buried deep in secret files. There have been various rumours and conspiracy theories floating around pertaining to his death. Some felt he was alive for many years, some felt he was living incognito as a hermit…all these theories sprung from people’s feelings for Netaji. After the West Bengal Chief Minister decided to declassify the secret files a few days back, today it was the Prime Minister’s turn to announce that files connected to Netaji would be declassified. This will finally put all rumours to rest.

As campaigning in Bihar reaches a frenzy, the war of words between political adversaries has reached a new low. I have been a witness to many electoral battles in Bihar but in my thirty five years of journalism, perhaps for the first time I am seeing how political leaders are crossing all limits in their quest to verbally attack each other. ‘Brahma pishach’, ‘narbhakshi’, ‘shaitan’…these are some of the insults never heard before and sadly the volleys continue unabated!

It is no secret that Mulayam Singh Yadav loves to shoot from the hip and there are few leaders in the country who are as candid as him. In no uncertain terms, he lashed out at the RJD-JDU alliance. The Samajwadi Party chief accused Nitish Kumar of having sided with the Congress at the last minute thereby deceiving Lalu into forming an alliance. He also wondered why Lalu failed to see through this and instead fell for the trap.

A high 57% voter turnout in the first phase of the Bihar elections has given BJP reason enough to cheer. In the first phase out of one crore thirty five lakh voters, thirty five lakh are under the age of thirty and four and a half lakh are first time voters. This time in every seat there are 85,000 under-30 voters which is more than the average winning margin of 15,000 votes in the last assembly elections in 2010. Therefore the sizeable number of young voters this time could well be the deciding factor in an election where the stakes are high.

Probably even the Shiv Sena is unware of the spotlight it has brought on Kasuri’s book. Had Shiv Sena not smeared ink on Sudheendra Kulkarni, the former Pakistan Foreign Minister’s book might not have even generated so much interest. But what is worse are the consequences of its irrational act. Not only does Shiv Sena have egg on its face, the party should realise that such acts of intolerance bring about a disgrace to the country’s name.

Most clashes now a days are triggered off by a rumour and rumour breeds in an atmosphere of suspicion. Mainpuri too is a classic example of this. What is important is to reassure people – reassure them enough so that faith replaces this trust deficit. The political class, the civil society and the police will all have to come together and work towards restoring a sense of confidence amongst people.

Russia has defended its attack on Syria on the pretext of destroying the ISIS but whether it has succeeded or not, is difficult to ascertain. The ground reality in Syria makes it all the more difficult to find out whether the Russian missiles have strategically hit the ISIS or have hit civilian areas instead!

It was a video that went viral. A video on social medial that brought out the Nation’s outrage towards the plight of the Dalit family in Dankaur. Similarly it was the picture of a young boy studying under a streetlight outside a metro station that prompted the UP Chief Minister to reach out to him. While there is no doubt about the power of Social Media, it is equally important to check the veracity of such images and videos. It is important to avoid a knee jerk reaction without knowing what the truth is. In the Dankaur case too what was initially considered to be a result of police atrocities, turned out in reality to be a form of ‘nude’ protest by the Dalit family when the police failed to register their FIR despite repeated requests.

The outcome of the Bihar Polls is anybody’s guess. It has left everybody baffled. Political pundits are speculating and there is no parity amongst the various Opinion Poll surveys. However if one were to go purely by the mammoth crowd presence at Prime Minister Modi’s rallies, it has definitely given the BJP alliance an edge over the Nitish-Lalu alliance.

Nothing is more shameful than what happened at the Jammu & Kashmir Assembly today when Independent MLA Engineer Rashid was thrashed by the BJP MLAs because he had hosted a beef party in an act of defiance. While there is no justification in what the BJP MLAs did, Engineer Rashid was no less. Instead of trying to maintain peace, he was bent upon provoking the BJP by continuously threatening them with shoes and dire consequences.

It is noteworthy how Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a reference to the Dadri incident came down heavily on all communal forces. It came as a fitting reply to questions being repeatedly raised by leaders like Lalu, Nitish, Rahul and Owaisi on the PM’s silence over the issue. The PM’s frontal attack came at a time when his cabinet minister Nitin Gadkari lashed out at the opposition earlier during the day saying that they would always raise a stink irrespective of whether Modi spoke or chose to keep mum. And today there was no stopping the Prime Minister as he finally broke his silence.