The power of Shivaji

There is so much to write these days but then these statues keep popping from everywhere. I was just done with Mayawati's concrete avatar and now there is already competition to her. I wrote about him two years back. If it would have been a plan to do something good for the people, impacting them directly and adding some value to their lives, it would have surely been long forgotten. But then how can you forget Shivaji? Specially when elections are fast approaching. So the plan was taken out of the dust, file was cleaned and now they have taken the decision (Though a formal government's approval is still pending). It seems whenever a state grapples with fears of drought, they tackle it by planning the statues. First UP and now Maharashtra.

The entire project of putting Shivaji Maharaj in sea complete with plush gardens would cost the exchequer a cool 350 crores. Those who are not too fond of Shivaji can enjoy books at the library, if you are not too much of a 'sea' person you can visit the museum and the foodcourts there or if you are not into statues there would be a 200 seater amphitheatre.

What a monumental waste of money!

Cheers!

BJP At The Crossroads

The party with a difference is surely a different party these days. It’s limping badly. One can draw parallels with Jinnah. The preacher of communal harmony in 1916 became the sole messiah of Muslim in 1946. Same way as BJP from the single largest party and the ruling one in 2001 is now, in 2009, an organisation that resembles more like Pakistan Cricket Board as far as infighting, bickering and power struggle is concerned. The change is swift and radical. The party which sells itself for its ideology is struggling to define it.

In the last 5 months, party has spent most of its time in defending venom spewing Varun Gandhi, trying to satisfy the ego of Jaitley and Rajnath Singh (remember Sudhanshu Mittal episode), ignoring the poll debacle, mishandling Vasundhra Raje episode and the expulsion of the veteran leader, Jaswant Singh. Yesterday, Sudheendra Kulkarni dissociated himself from BJP because of ideological differences. All these are clear signs of breakdown.

With A B Vajpayee out of active politics, at 81, Advani cannot be seen as the future of the party. In fact, many say that the decision to expel Jaswant Singh was taken to douse the chants (RSS chief among them) of instating younger leader at the helm. With no clear succession plan in place, this ego tussle between the individuals is bound to grow exponentially and there is no dearth of second string leaders in BJP. For every Rajnath Singh, there is Murali Manohar Joshi, for every Sushma Swaraj, there is Vankaya Naidu and for every Yashwant Sinha, there is Arun Jaitley. Not to forget the state stalwarts like Narendra Modi, Sushil Modi, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Kalraj Mishra, Ravi Shankar Prasad etc and then there is RSS burden to tackle.

BJP catapulted to the national scene with the emotive Hindutva issue and managed to encash it for few years. But, to be honest, the issue practically died down with the demolition of Babri masjid. Now there is a makeshift temple at the disputed site and everyone in the BJP knows in their hearts that the talks of proposed temple at Ayodhaya are mere fiction. They briefly tried to reignite same agenda on the name of Kashi and Mathura but realised that people don’t buy stale food. They then tried to tread the aggressive tone with the nuclear tests in Pokhran, Kargil and then Operation Parakram. Then there was the aggressive economic agenda which they tried to sell through much maligned 'India Shining' campaign and failed miserably. Since then, Congress has patented the idea of economic progress of India.

BJP now stands at crossroads, unable to decide what its core ideology is and what agenda to pursue. With only a handful of states in its bag and the ever diminishing seats in parliament, BJP now plays the role of opposition which can be passed as laughable at best. And with a herd of leaders with fat egos sitting at various influential positions within the party, their future looks bleak, atleast for the time being.

Cheers!

WTF!

Read this.

The Cricket Board on Thursday cleared the deck for ex-ICL players, who have been granted amnesty, to take part in the third edition of the Indian Premier League with a cap on their payment being a maximum of Rs 20 lakhs.

Great!! I thought. First line of the article probably carried the best thing BCCI has done in recent past, amnesty to ICL players. By the time the line ended, BCCI was at it yet again proclaiming, “We are fools but love to flaunt it”. Cap on their fees, maximum being 20 Lakhs in a scenario where others including foreign players are minting money? Poor lads are still being discriminated. After being banned from playing any sort of serious cricket for more than 2 years, they are now being welcomed to IPL with the ICL tag firmly pasted on their purse by BCCI. If BCCI would have its way, they would have asked the ICL players to complete a period of 6 months rigorous imprisonment before being eligible for national selection or IPL. Niranjan Shah would have asked each player to polish his shoes one by one for a week before being given amnesty.

In 1869, Charles Darwin gave his theory, ‘Survival for the fittest’. These days, BCCI is. They are the ones who have the power and are calling all the shots in world cricket and the scenario is likely to remain unchanged for at least a decade. So we can expect more coming from them in near future. They are in world cricket what America used to be in the world for most part of last two decades.

Cheers!

Sab Maya(wati) Hai!

On Monday, Mayawati has raised a fresh demand of Rs 556 crores from the supplementary budget of the state for the memorial projects. Not forgetting the state drought, she has asked for an additional sum of Rs 250 crores.

A prominent party functionary has asked behenji to review her demand. In a letter written to Mayawati, he has asked her to merge these 250 crores to 556 crores as the contractors working on these memorial projects are already managing all her statues and a large number of elephants on a shoestring budget. As per him, drought has become yearly phenomenon and there is no solution to it other than waiting for the next year rains. On the other hand, memorial parks and statues will remain there forever, reminding people of the glorious achievement of Behen Mayawati.

Update: The budget is now approved. Mayawati gets Rs 806 crores for memorials. Demand for the budget for drought has been dropped. In a separate letter to the above functionary, she has asked for the meaning of the word ‘shoestring’.

January 2010:
All the pending memorial projects are now complete but in the meantime 258 new memorial projects have been announced and now they are pending. Out of these, 105 are parks with statues of Mayawati, 65 are parks with statues of Mayawati along with Kanshiram, 30 are parks with statues of Mayawati, Kanshiram and B R Ambedkar, 40 are shopping malls with the statue of Mayawati with a designer bag at the entrance and 18 are women’s mega toilets where only dalit women will be allowed. All the parks will bear the name “Mayawati memorial parks” .These will be differentiated from each other only by the colour of the statues. All the malls will be christened as “Mayawati Malls”. These will be differentiated from each other by the brand of the hand bag her statue will hold. Fresh demand for budget has been made to the UP assembly.

July 2012:
All 258 projects are now completed as these were fast tracked and took priority before 27 bridges, 10 dams and electrification of 234 villages. As usual, 315 new projects have been announced. At the last count, UP has
26,512 elephants – 512 in flesh, 26,000 in concrete
6423 Mayawatis – 1 in flesh, 5000 in concrete and rest in bronze
2367 Kanshirams – All concrete
1215 Ambedkars – All concrete

December 2012:
Mayawati has just launched a ‘one of its kind project’. An order has been passed where all road dividers on state highways would be replaced by the statues of elephants. Elephant statues will be erected one behind the other and these will serve as road divider. Party supporters have expressed joy and have demanded “MTV innovative idea of the year award” for her.

May 2013:
Mayawati has made it compulsory for all the citizens of UP to display either an elephant or a Mayawati outside their houses. Citizens need to bear the cost of the statues as the state’s finances are in doldrums. In an unrelated announcement, she has banned the ‘laughing Buddha’. Instead there would be miniature ‘Laughing Kanshiram’ which people can buy from Mayawati stores after paying a ‘voluntary’ undisclosed sum. This money would be used for Mayawati’s birthday party.

April 2020:
Mayawati is serving her 6th term as Chief Minister now. Any influx of people from other city to Noida and Lucknow has been barred as there is severe space crunch in these cities. A recent census shows that the number of elephant statues have outnumbered the number for people below the age of 30 years in the state. In a new directive, Mayawati has declared that any new statues of elephants will be made hollow and big enough to accommodate one family inside it. These will be used to house dalit people who are currently staying in various shanties in slum areas. These shanties will be bulldozed and space for more such hollow elephants will be made. Party supporters have expressed joy and have demanded “MTV innovative idea of the year award” for her for 9th straight year. Fresh demand for the budget for these hollow elephant project has been made to the UP assembly.

Cheers!