Modi: Gimmick?

Ahmedabad, Sept. 5: For BJP rebels in Gujarat, stumbling upon Narendra Modi in Krishna avatar may be the “divine intervention” they have long wanted.

The chief minister’s baiters today swooped on the Modi-as-Krishna T-shirts that sold like hot cakes in Surat on Janmashtami yesterday, saying the gimmick ahead of the year-end elections w as sheer “intellectual bankruptcy”.

The Modi camp washed its hands of the campaign, claiming it was the handiwork of fanatics. People who wanted to get close to the chief minister was doing it for cheap publicity, it said.

“The very idea of the campaign is sickening. It is not just sycophancy but an absurd move,” a senior BJP leader of Surat said.

“Those who think they can get close to the chief minister by portraying him as Krishna are mistaken.”

Sources said the Gujarat in-charge for the elect- ions, Arun Jaitley, had on Monday made it clear he did not approve of “any God business” after a poster depicting Modi as Krishna and rival Keshubhai Patel’s camp as the Kauravas was presented to a minister in Bhavnagar.

Political observers, however, said the Krishna campaign could not be blamed on the Modi maniacs alone. The use of the religious symbol could be a carefully orchestrated strategy to send a message to rebels about who would come up trumps in the elections, they said.

Hemmed in by rebels, Modi desperately needed to reinvent himself and portray a new image to cling to power, they claimed. The Krishna campaign could be part of that effort, they said.

“What he is doing is try- ing to project himself as Krishna who is out to kill the modern-day army of Kansa (BJP rebels),” said Gaurang Jani who teaches social science at Gujarat University.

“The campaign is all about convincing the people that those challenging Modi’s leadership are not genuine people but enemies of Gujarat who need to be eliminated.”

Jani said religious symbols would be used more and more as elections draw closer but were unlikely to have any positive impact on the people. The middle class had seen enough drama and was no longer ready to be swayed by gimmicks, he said.

Madur Swani, a pro- Modi diamond baron of Surat, claimed the chief minister did not need to resort to gimmicks as there was enough spontaneous support for him. Swani recently floated the Modi Sena, which is spearheading a campaign in Surat.