At the height of Congress rule, when Indira Gandhi was the popular, intellectual and forward looking PM, that is until her controversial decision to send troops in the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Congress ruled eighteen States.
She was at the height of her popularity when she showed the courage to send Indian troops into Bangladesh, then known as East Pakistan, when Pakistani troops expelled some ten million Bangladeshi Hindus, without a murmur from so called Western guardian of morality. No wonder she is fondly remembered in Bangladesh, as the liberator who gave Bangladesh its freedom, independence under popular politician Sheikh Mujibur Rehman who was later assassinated for being secular.
Today it is BJP/NDA in ascendency, surpassing this Congress achievement, painting nineteen States with Saffron colour while Congress practically wiped out, ruling only two major States, Punjab and Karnataka, although Congress rule prevails in two other minor States of Meghalaya and Mizoram, Christian tribal heartland in North East India.
BJP has even penetrated and outstated Congress from these once safe Congress domains, capturing Assam, Nagaland and Manipur. Karnataka, where elections are due before general election, BJP is poised to capture this lone Congress outpost in South India.
Now BJP is concentrating on capturing misruled States of Kerala and particularly West Bengal, the State ruled by dodgy Mamta Banerjee of Trinamool Congress where Hindus, especially BJP workers are brutalized, even murdered.
Hindus are uniting under BJP prompting Mamta to show her politically correct spiritually by visiting Hindu temples, once “No Go” areas for aspiring politicians, as she branded such temple visiting politicians as communal. Let us hope that people of West Bengal would see through her politics of posture, her intellectual arrogance, her shallow, power hungry nature, turning West Bengal into an extended Bangladesh and vote for development, prosperity, law and order under BJP.
Bhupendra M. Gandhi
By email
