WHEN WILL PM MODI BREAK HIS SILENCE? ADVANI SOUNDS THE BUGLE

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, normally garrulous to a fault, has fallen completely silent since the Sushma Swaraj-Lalit Modi story broke. The image of the government and the Bharatiya Janata party has taken a beating, compounded by PM Modi’s silence and inability to act decisively.

The Opposition has been demanding the resignation of both Minister Swaraj and now Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje. CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury summed up the Opposition demand for an independent probe, until which he said it was incumbent for the two leaders to resign. Charged with helping former IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi get his residency papers in the UK despite being wanted by the law in India for alleged fraud and embezzlement, both BJP leaders have come under fire that has been further ignited by PM Modi’s silence.

The Citizen had reported on the Hobson’s Choice facing PM Modi that remains. If he removes the two leaders he stands to face dissension from within the party, if not immediately but definitely in time. If he does not act against them he will face attack from the Opposition and other supporters of the BJP who had been particularly impressed with his election campaign slogan: Na khaunga na kisi ko khane doonga” (I will not be corrupt and will not allow anyone else to be corrupt), a slogan that the Opposition has already started ridiculing. And in the process further embarrassing the government.

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A taste of the kind of resistance he can face from the party if he dismisses Raje and Swaraj has come from veteran leader and former Home Minister L.K. Advani who has broken his self-imposed silence after about a year in an interview to the Indian Express. Advani has spoken of the possibility of a second Emergency being imposed, saying that this cannot be ruled out. The timing is significant.

Some quotable quotes: “ I don’t think anything has been done that gives me the assurance that civil liberties will not be suspended or destroyed again. Not at all.”

“If the Emergency could happen with so many of us being there (who were opposed to it), I don’t rule it out totally in the future. I don’t think the last word on this has been said.”

“ Of course, no one can do it easily, because of the experience we have had in 1975-77. But that it cannot happen again — I will not say that. It could be that fundamental liberties are curtailed again. The legal structural safeguards in the Constitution and the law were in place even earlier — yet the Emergency happened. There aren’t enough safeguards in India in 2015.”

“I do not see any sign in our polity that assures me, any outstanding aspect of leadership. A commitment to democracy and to all other aspects related to democracy is lacking.”

“It is also possible that as it happened in Germany — where Hitler’s rule appears to have inoculated the system against Hitlerian tendencies and because of which today’s Germany is more particular about democratic norms than even perhaps the British — we are saved from another Emergency by the Emergency.”

Despite Advani’s slightly indirect style it still remains clear that one, he does not rule out Emergency under PM Modi with his reference to 2015; and his expressed lack of faith in the absence of a commitment to democracy. He brings in Hitler as well in a not so guarded comparison between now and then. Not once does the senior BJP leader stop to add that while Emergency is likely it would certainly not happen under the present regime. Instead he drops broad hints to suggest that he is actually not speaking of the distant future but the immediate future.

Reports suggest that the Rajasthan BJP is divided over Raje’s resignation. The state health minister close to her has now said that she will not resign. There is no word from the central leadership so far, with the rumour mills working overtime.

The Opposition has been making statements, holding press conferences in Delhi and across the country demanding the two BJP leaders resignation, but now focusing even more on the Prime Minister and his silence. Leaders of the Congress, Janata Dal(U) and CPI(M) have started directly questioning PM Modi, openly wondering about his silence, and his inability to act. He is sheltering the guilty is a charge voiced in different words by the different Opposition parties with protests being held by Congress units in different parts of the country.

The Opposition focus is shifting from the two women leaders of the BJP to the Prime Minister directly. This, sources said, will gain momentum till the monsoon session of Parliament that begins in the third week of July. And if Swaraj and Raje are not asked to stepped down by PM Modi, Parliament will not be able to function.

The PM’s silence is feeding into the electoral campaign for the Bihar Assembly elections with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar questioning him with, “a person who monitors his ministers to minutest detail and asks one minister clad in jeans while travelling by a plane to get down and change his clothes, cannot be expected to be not knowing what his senior minister is doing.”

This is being echoed by several Opposition leaders with the Congress asking, “is the big Modi helping the little Modi.” And turning the fire directly towards the PM the Congress has now started holding him liable. "That means, there was consent of the Prime Minister (for granting travel documents to Lalit Modi)...he is liable. Prime Minister Modi should come out of political Vipassana, and keep truth before the nation," Congress spokesman Tom Vadakkan told reporters.

The social media is aflood with questions and comments about the PM’s silence; as is the electronic and print media. As the sources said, that he is losing time with perceptions strengthening on his and the BJP “dual speech” on corruption with every passing day. More so as the Opposition that will be facing key Assembly elections starting with Bihar this year, and going into Punjab next year has not let time pass and is in the midst of a hectic campaign against the government and the BJP.