Saturday, 19 February 2022
Friday, 18 February 2022
Thursday, 17 February 2022
BJP Will Be Defeated in UP, Samajwadi & Allies Will Get Clear Majority: Former Delhi LG Najeeb Jung:
The BJP’s ‘2ab’ factor that’s missing from SP, BSP, Congress in UP elections
Dilip Mandal in The Print
The Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, and the Congress in Uttar Pradesh are mostly banking on the anti-incumbency factor to dislodge the Yogi Adityanath government. But is it enough? Discontent is only one part of the electoral matrix and who the voters choose also depends on what they are offering.
Here, I see a lack in the opposition parties. I call this deficit the extra ‘2ab’ factor. In his 2015 speech in Toronto, Canada, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that while India and Canada growing separately would be a² + b², when joined together they would be (a+b)², which is equal to a² +b²+2ab, with the ‘friendship’ giving an extra ‘2ab’.
I would like to extrapolate from this formula and say that if ‘a’ and ‘b’ are the general, run-of-the-mill-type poll promises, then all four political parties— BJP, SP, BSP and Congress—have made more or less similar announcements. If we check their manifestos/pledges/speeches and social media posts, we can easily observe identical poll promises like improving law and order, women empowerment, development, capacity enhancement in the education sector, creating employment and so on. As all the four political parties have ruled the state of UP and that too for a considerably long spell, everyone knows that no party is going to do miracles.
The ‘2ab’ factor is missing in the campaigning of opposition parties, if we use Modi’s maths.
Policing, development, increasing capacity in education and hospital beds are matters of governance and all parties deliver something in such areas. Take the example of expressways. Mayawati and the BSP can claim that the Yamuna Expressway was made during their tenure. The SP government led by Akhilesh Yadav can claim the Ganga Expressway, whereas the BJP made the Purvanchal Expressway. Similarly, all parties are claiming that their performance was better than others in the field of law and order. Most of these claims are contested by rival parties, and voters have to depend on the pitch and tone of the claims to reach some conclusion. This is the limitation of a² and b².
So what about the extra ‘2ab’?
Also read: Samajwadi Party promises social justice, but look who got tickets in 2022. Not enough Muslims
Extra ‘2ab’ that BJP offers
I call ‘2ab’ the emotive factor. If a politician ignores voters’ emotions then they are taking a big risk. Most people make decisions or form opinions on the basis of emotions. That is the reason that many despots, despite performing quite badly on all economic and human development fronts, win electoral battles.
Donald Trump won in the US in 2016 not because he was promising anything great for jobs and growth, but because he vowed to make (white) America great again. Narendra Modi wins not because people believe that he will make India a $5-trillion economy, create two crore jobs every year, ensure that by 2022 every Indian lives in a pucca house and bring back black money from Swiss banks. His voters never ask for accountability on these counts. He wins because he connects to the emotions of a majority of Indians — Modi came back in 2019 without having delivered on his economic and human development promises.
In the UP elections, the BJP made promises about the economy, job creation, agriculture growth, health, education and so on. This is its general a² and b². But it has something extra, the ‘2ab’ factor. That consists of things which Yogi Adityanath and Narendra Modi are talking about or hinting at. For example:
– We will not allow Yadav Raj to return.
– We are making a grand temple at Ayodhya. We have transformed Kashi. We will also deliver the promises on Mathura.
– Prominent Muslim leaders are in jail. In some cases, their properties have been confiscated. They will not be allowed to grow again.
– We will ensure that cows and other Hindu religious symbols are protected.
– We will not allow ‘Love Jihad’ to happen. Your girls are protected from Muslim boys.
– We will not allow Muslims to turn India into Ghazwa-e-Hind.
– We will work for Hindus. But more importantly, we will not work for Muslims.
This does not mean that BJP is not campaigning on the basis of development and welfare schemes. The short list above only demonstrates that it is promising something extra.
Also read: ‘Time to vote for Ram’: BJP plays Hindutva card in Ayodhya as it fights anti-incumbency
UP is not great again
The problem with the SP, BSP and Congress is that they do not have the ‘2ab’. In the battle of emotions, they do not have substantial offerings. They have failed to provide a counter-narrative to the communal emotive campaign of the BJP. The opposition parties are mostly talking about governance and trying to invoke memories of a time when they were ruling UP and trying to compare it to Yogi’s tenure. The SP, BSP and Congress are hoping that voters will go down memory lane to remember how things were 5, 10, or 30 years back, respectively.
SP has that extra bit in terms of assurance to the Muslims that they will be safe. But the Muslim vote is not enough to win many seats. The BSP used to have its own mojo — it would usher in Bahujan Rule. But now it is going soft on this plank due to electoral arithmetic. Despite that, the promise that a Dalit will rule UP again will certainly fetch it votes.
UP is still largely an underdeveloped, agrarian economy with hardly any big ticket foreign investment or big industrial projects. It lies at the bottom of state rankings in terms of health, education and women empowerment. Uttar Pradesh’s per capita GDP is comparable to the most underdeveloped countries such as Vanuatu and Benin. The only solace is that its numbers are still higher than Bihar. No party can claim that it has made UP great.
So, in the last five years, the BJP has delivered on emotional factors and promises instead. And in the end, the electoral outcome will probably depend on that emotive ‘2ab’.
Wednesday, 16 February 2022
Why the panic among Boris Johnson’s allies? Because they know Brexit is unravelling
There is an air of desperation in attacks from those on the right and their supporters in the press. They fear if Johnson falls, the Brexit deception will crumble too writes Michael Heseltine in The Guardian
‘
Did something change this month? Having proclaimed the Brexit referendum triumph of 2016 as the unique achievement of Boris Johnson and praised his historic success in the election three years later with the slogan “get Brexit done”, did the wreckers of the European dream slowly begin to realise that if Johnson goes, it shifts the sands from beneath their feet?
I’m the president of European Movement – Andrew Adonis is chair – and between us we agreed that this link needed a public airing. Learning from the direct and simple messaging of the anti-European newspapers, we felt the phrase: “If Boris goes, Brexit goes” said it clearly enough. Adonis duly tweeted it, to the horror of the pro-Brexit press.
The past few weeks have been a torrid time for the prime minister. He designed a set of restrictions he said were of critical importance for our safety and for the ability of the NHS to cope with the pandemic. He was right to do so. But disclosures since give the clearest impression that he not only broke the rules, but that he also misled parliament.
Johnson said he would accept the findings of Sue Gray’s inquiry, in stark contrast to his treatment of Sir Alex Allan’s report into the home secretary’s behaviour in 2020.
I believe he is entitled to insist that matters are not prejudged prior to the release of the full findings of the Gray inquiry, and the completion of the Metropolitan police investigation. I do not believe in the rule of the mob.
But a great deal hangs on this. If the prime minister is found to have lied to parliament and to the people, what defence is there to the allegation that the Brexit cause – mired in similar controversy over lies and dissembling – was conducted with the same disregard for the truth?
We all have a clear memory of the Brexit campaign and what was said. That we were being run by Brussels. That European restrictions were holding back our economy and lowering our living standards. That we could keep all the benefits of the single market and customs union, while negotiating trade deals with faster-growing countries in a world that was shifting east. That we had to regain control over our borders. That there would be no new border between Northern Ireland and mainland Great Britain, and that the Good Friday agreement, having ended years of strife, would be fully honoured
Theresa May became prime minister and immediately handed important offices of state to the three leading Brexiters. Boris Johnson went to the Foreign Office. David Davis went to the Department for Exiting the European Union, and Liam Fox to the Department for International Trade. They had their hands on the levers of power for two years before Johnson and Davis resigned, claiming their jobs were impossible.
Having ousted May, they claimed that a bare-bones trade deal – without most of the benefits of the customs union and the single market – was “oven ready” and would “get Brexit done”. In a straight contest with the unelectable Jeremy Corbyn, Johnson secured his mandate.
Except their deal didn’t “get Brexit done”. Within months it had seriously frustrated trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, and the government threatened to tear up the very deal it had itself negotiated to safeguard the position of Northern Ireland. Lord Frost resigned from the cabinet as Brexit minister last December after less than a year, complaining of the Covid strategy but also bemoaning that, regarding Brexit, the correct agenda was not being pursued.
Characteristically, he gave no detail as to what that agenda should have been or who was holding it up, but the villains were familiar: the metropolitan elite, the civil service, the BBC, Brussels, the remoaners – more or less anybody, and now including myself and Andrew Adonis. Everyone except the actual people in positions of power.
That is why February 2022 feels so significant. The cry has been growing louder. The right wing has been circling. Letters have been landing on the chairman of the 1922 committee’s desk. Something must be done. Reshuffle the pack, create a new government department and put yet another Brexiter in charge to pluck all those low-hanging plums that proved beyond the reach of predecessors.
Anyone with experience of Whitehall knows what happens next. The nameplates will change and the same civil servants will have new titles without actually moving their offices. But they will face exactly the same questions that have now been unanswered for five years. What is Brexit all about?
Jacob Rees-Mogg, Lord Frost’s spiritual successor in his new role as minister for Brexit opportunities, has a novel approach. He told the Sun last week that he is bypassing the civil service to ask if anyone else in the country has any ideas about Brexit benefits. Sun readers are invited to write to him with suggestions and he will see what can be done. But that too is revealing. One of the first tests officials apply to new ministers is to ask if they know what they want and to assess whether they have the ability to communicate that to them. I am afraid that Rees-Mogg has not passed this test, which is all the more surprising as he had plenty of time lounging on the government frontbench, listening to suggestions from Brexit-supporting Tory MPs.
So did something happen in February 2022? Maybe it’s just a feeling, a cloud no bigger than a man’s fist, the first breath of wind before the storm when the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph employ two of their most renowned columnists to attack Andrew Adonis and myself, merely for making the point that their hero may have feet of clay and take the Brexit house down with him. Perhaps they have smelled the wind, just as I have.
‘ Did something change this month? Having proclaimed the Brexit referendum triumph of 2016 as the unique achievement of Boris Johnson and praised his historic success in the election three years later with the slogan “get Brexit done”, did the wreckers of the European dream slowly begin to realise that if Johnson goes, it shifts the sands from beneath their feet?
I’m the president of European Movement – Andrew Adonis is chair – and between us we agreed that this link needed a public airing. Learning from the direct and simple messaging of the anti-European newspapers, we felt the phrase: “If Boris goes, Brexit goes” said it clearly enough. Adonis duly tweeted it, to the horror of the pro-Brexit press.
The past few weeks have been a torrid time for the prime minister. He designed a set of restrictions he said were of critical importance for our safety and for the ability of the NHS to cope with the pandemic. He was right to do so. But disclosures since give the clearest impression that he not only broke the rules, but that he also misled parliament.
Johnson said he would accept the findings of Sue Gray’s inquiry, in stark contrast to his treatment of Sir Alex Allan’s report into the home secretary’s behaviour in 2020.
I believe he is entitled to insist that matters are not prejudged prior to the release of the full findings of the Gray inquiry, and the completion of the Metropolitan police investigation. I do not believe in the rule of the mob.
But a great deal hangs on this. If the prime minister is found to have lied to parliament and to the people, what defence is there to the allegation that the Brexit cause – mired in similar controversy over lies and dissembling – was conducted with the same disregard for the truth?
We all have a clear memory of the Brexit campaign and what was said. That we were being run by Brussels. That European restrictions were holding back our economy and lowering our living standards. That we could keep all the benefits of the single market and customs union, while negotiating trade deals with faster-growing countries in a world that was shifting east. That we had to regain control over our borders. That there would be no new border between Northern Ireland and mainland Great Britain, and that the Good Friday agreement, having ended years of strife, would be fully honoured
Theresa May became prime minister and immediately handed important offices of state to the three leading Brexiters. Boris Johnson went to the Foreign Office. David Davis went to the Department for Exiting the European Union, and Liam Fox to the Department for International Trade. They had their hands on the levers of power for two years before Johnson and Davis resigned, claiming their jobs were impossible.
Having ousted May, they claimed that a bare-bones trade deal – without most of the benefits of the customs union and the single market – was “oven ready” and would “get Brexit done”. In a straight contest with the unelectable Jeremy Corbyn, Johnson secured his mandate.
Except their deal didn’t “get Brexit done”. Within months it had seriously frustrated trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, and the government threatened to tear up the very deal it had itself negotiated to safeguard the position of Northern Ireland. Lord Frost resigned from the cabinet as Brexit minister last December after less than a year, complaining of the Covid strategy but also bemoaning that, regarding Brexit, the correct agenda was not being pursued.
Characteristically, he gave no detail as to what that agenda should have been or who was holding it up, but the villains were familiar: the metropolitan elite, the civil service, the BBC, Brussels, the remoaners – more or less anybody, and now including myself and Andrew Adonis. Everyone except the actual people in positions of power.
That is why February 2022 feels so significant. The cry has been growing louder. The right wing has been circling. Letters have been landing on the chairman of the 1922 committee’s desk. Something must be done. Reshuffle the pack, create a new government department and put yet another Brexiter in charge to pluck all those low-hanging plums that proved beyond the reach of predecessors.
Anyone with experience of Whitehall knows what happens next. The nameplates will change and the same civil servants will have new titles without actually moving their offices. But they will face exactly the same questions that have now been unanswered for five years. What is Brexit all about?
Jacob Rees-Mogg, Lord Frost’s spiritual successor in his new role as minister for Brexit opportunities, has a novel approach. He told the Sun last week that he is bypassing the civil service to ask if anyone else in the country has any ideas about Brexit benefits. Sun readers are invited to write to him with suggestions and he will see what can be done. But that too is revealing. One of the first tests officials apply to new ministers is to ask if they know what they want and to assess whether they have the ability to communicate that to them. I am afraid that Rees-Mogg has not passed this test, which is all the more surprising as he had plenty of time lounging on the government frontbench, listening to suggestions from Brexit-supporting Tory MPs.
So did something happen in February 2022? Maybe it’s just a feeling, a cloud no bigger than a man’s fist, the first breath of wind before the storm when the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph employ two of their most renowned columnists to attack Andrew Adonis and myself, merely for making the point that their hero may have feet of clay and take the Brexit house down with him. Perhaps they have smelled the wind, just as I have.
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