BJP
A simple tweet, all of 140 characters, can be hazardous to one’s health as I have discovered to my cost yet again. Last Sunday, as Narendra Modi went in for his first Cabinet expansion, I tweeted: “Big day for my Goa. Two GSBs, both talented politicians, become full cabinet ministers. Saraswat pride!” I was referring to the induction of Manohar Parrikar and Suresh Prabhu in the Union Cabinet.
Indian voters have a knack of surprising political pundits. Just a few weeks ago, Narendra Modi and Amit Shah could do no wrong; now, after a series of byelection reverses, the Modi-Shah duo is being blamed for losing the Midas touch. Neither is the euphoria nor the harsh criticism valid: No two elections are the same and the extreme responses that accompany every election result are perhaps uncalled for.
We live in an age where a Hindi film is declared a hit if it has a strong opening on its first weekend: The era of the silver jubilee is well and truly behind us.Politics too, is experiencing a similar compression in time. So, Narendra Modi’s first 100 days are already being seen as a verdict on his government. A 100 days is just over 14 weeks.
A few months ago, I went for lunch to the new Maharashtra Sadan in the national capital. The first look was impressive: marble flooring, bronze statuettes, spiral staircases, you could have been in the lobby of a five star hotel. This was no staid government accommodation and the extravagance seemed to confirm reports of how the local contractor had inflated the construction costs well beyond the original sanctioned budget.
