Modi in Maharashtra
I have read some of the reports of Modi's speeches in Maharashtra and he is clearly missing the trick. I think the reason why SS didn't want Modi to campaign in Maharashtra was exactly this - he will surely get the aaghadi out hit wicket (continuing with the cricketing analogy). Even Suresh Dada Jain has found Pawar difficult to handle in Jalgaon. The best tactics for BJP-SS is to play the local game.The Assembly elections are going be held later in the year but BJP SS can surely gain lot of ground if it just focuses on the performance of the local MPs in each constituency. Why? Not because the Maharashtrian voter doesn't differentiate between local and national issues but because there is such overbearing inefficiency at the local level that they can push some of the youth voters to vote and vote against the sitting MPs and create a very good starting point for the Assembly elections. But if they are going to mock Pawar for making Pratibha Tai the President, he is not only mocking Pawar, he is also mocking Balasaheb who not only supported Tai but will go to any lengths if he sees a real chance to get a Maharashtrian elected as the PM. And when Modi talks like this, all Pawar needs to do is to brush him off as someone who just doesn't get things. There are so many things on which Pawar can lose his wicket - the state of the farmers in Vidarbha, the sugar mills in Western Maharashtra, the power crisis - things which he could and should have improved upon. I was reading reports of his whirlwind tour of Madha and other areas and was amused to find Saheb talking about those very issues - power crisis and agri prices. Because others are talking about irrelevant topics, he gets to talk of the important stuff and get away with not delivering on them!!!
I sometimes feel politics in India is so simple - you just need to be marginally smart and you will be seen as brilliant - well, that is true of our cinema, sport in general, literature and what not?
