Tag Archives: MNS

BMC elections that were

Coming to the recently held BMC and Maharashtra, both the Shiv Sena and BJP strategically aligned together. Then Sena broke off, but at the end it seems like a scripted finish. The huge void of no opposition, both the parties traded accusations & counter accusations, as a result the public focused only on these 2 parties- Sena & BJP. Nobody spoke of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) or worse still Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), which in order to keep itself in public domain made a few personal and other mentions. Eg: the Son’s illness, which Raj Thackeray courageously hinted, but his son refuted. Then the friendly overtures with his cousin, which were ignored even by media, but few still give that party a platform.

Congress has been a disaster where its image is concerned. But mind you, winning 31 seats is NO joke. How they won, is a miracle. In-fighting, bickering, bitching the party has been reduced to worse than AAP. One has lost track of the number times Gurudas Kamat has quit the party in a huff & rejoined claiming massive demand & popularity. He only issues releases & nobody questions. The party next time he quits should tell him sternly, accepted & simply move on.

Milind Deora, a fine person, truly nice guitarist & what is he doing in politics he needs to ask. Wish he had learnt many things from his father, Murli bhai. Well, except for that surname else he would have had zero chance of getting into the party. Then Priya Dutt, another who is a daughter of former MP late Sunil Dutt. Now this very issue has destroyed Congress, the nepotism and dynasty rule. These all MPs NEVER step out of their airconditioned homes & cars, have never given surprise visits, walking in the heat, checking if the roads, gutters & footpaths in their constituencies are fine. Instead they complain they are MPs and such civic issues are brought to them. Exactly, so at the time of BMC elections they need to SHUT UP and allow the MRCC president, even if they consider him an outsider to do his job. But the petty politics they play & myopic visions they have they will dabble in the party politics at lowest civic level and instead of tackling the issues, winning over the voters & their trust they complain the voters have no understanding.

If these endowed & privileged off springs of veteran politicians & even Gurudas ever understood then the Congress did have a fine chance of bettering their seats. I am nowhere hinting that they would have outshone Sena-BJP, that is no chance, but they had chances of doing better. The NCP as a party is worse than Congress. It was started on a negative note, to oppose Sonia Gandhi wanting to PM and then the party president, Sharad Pawar, true to his behavior promptly went in alliance with Congress. The one strong factor he looks for in his cadre, that is loyalty, is something he himself lacks. The number of times he has extended support to Modi & number of times he has denied & gone back to praising him is no joke. Everyone knows he has been awarded Padma Shree and that is where his story ends. The party foundation is only family based. So It is shocking when Ajit Pawar recently criticized Bhujbals and regretted giving the reigns of Nasik in the hands of Bhujbal’s family. NCP is born out of Pawar family. Imagine the misfortune of political journalists first one has to chase Senior Pawar, then they have to chase his nephew, Ajit & then daughter Supriya. All so full of themselves as if the journos are dying to chase them. The party members will do Maharashtra a favour by merging with other parties then they will know their true standing in politics. The fact is this arrogance and pompousness of Ajit Pawar led to his severe loss in Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad elections Municipal Corpns and local bodies polls.

After all the fighting and bickering the CM Devendra Fadnavis was called by the PM and after over an hour’s talks he was adviced to give up claim on BMC. His last Press Conference was complete anti-climax. He not only gave up claim but extended support to the Sena.

The entire elections have been a gimmick and a sham. The 2 saffron parties consolidated majority of seats between themselves. Life is not likely to change drastically. But that also does not mean that the Congress leaders have the right to be thankless to the voters. Deora tweeted out of frustration & lacked graciousness in the loss. He wished the voters potholes, malaria problem ridden BMC. The larger picture he missed, that the voters have REJECTED him in 2014 & moreover his party. If this is the point he has not learnt it’s a huge loss to the party. They need a better leader than him.

There are many new faces, smart ones, but the sad part is they are with the leading parties and then voters like face a moral dilemma, thankfully we have been given the right of NOTA.

Ratan says Tata

Now imagine if Indian politcs were to become completely transparent & we’d get to see or read the individuals & wc corporate honchos contributed to political parties booties…whatta fun it will be.

the need of the hour is we must know who all people, which companies & indivuduals have contributed to the party funds of all our political parties. Some regional parties like Shiv Sena came up through extortion. MNS claims its different, but its roots are very much sowed in Sena. Now they claim their president has construction business from where they divert the funds. All the more reason i would like to know how much is black money, how many ‘favours’ how many donations and of what kind.

One loyal funding family to the political world has been the Tatas. Like with their social commitment and helping the masses or poor, the Tata sons have always made a rather fat contribution to the election duty-given funds. Over a period of time from a Congress stronghold, Indian voters & political system oscillated between Cong held regimes – well they have been; to Janta party rule to the modern coalition party led regimes.

Even in democracy we have regimes, coz they all are thugs basically. Anyways the Tata sons stood strong behind Cong. Though they were compelled to fund Sena-BJP in Mah and later for NDA. see, the latest chmn Ratan Tata’s reply to Rajeev Chandrashekhar. He makes it clear that there were maximum policy flip-flops during the BJP govt.

This all comes back to the 2G spectrum controversy. All i understand is that many telecom companies were given licences out of turn, they were favoured, cuts were taken & the telecom Minister made the most. what i’ve not understood is that did the others envy the cuts & wanted a share, they expected to get licenses, motives are NOT clear…even those of the media persons along with the PR lady named.

Howevre Ratan has said his Tata to all & sundry…politicians. He is losing it over the last few months i think. I admit to hainvg a high regard for the Tatas thanks to JRD the man & his policies. I’ve personally seen Simone Tata on innumerbale occassions at West Side, she comes in quietly, shops, buys products fm her own shop, guards don’t recognise her. She pays & walks away all very quietly. I’ve seen her take a hair cut, pedicure in Lakme’ salaon. She is a classy graceful lady.

Now this next gen Ratan Tata is a simple nice man. Kept his nose to the ground, despite all criticisms he continued building and more so expanding his empire. He also continued the Tata’s tradition of being the ‘solid silent types.’ However he has moved with teh times. From being complete NO Comments, don’t cross your boundaries, how he hired Radia and handed over all this Corp comm to her is still a mystery.

She mastered the art of building the wall, not just boundary, between Media & Tata sons, full group of companies. However the one remarkable change we saw in the last decade, slowly but steadily was that RT began smiling, becoming more media savvy, however reluctantly. His business has grown, so has his confidence.

But i never understood why he opted for Gujarat. That he agreed to, despite being sooo very critical of the BJP, this is paradoxical. It confuses me. It is also way off the policy of Tata sons that they carried all these years. They have been for pro-secular rest has been ‘no comments,’ being ‘politically correct’so this sudden paradigm shift of being pro-Gujarat even if it were for Nano was a shocker to many Tata fans. Let’s not forget Tata the name was famous in India, we know the singer Tata Young of Dhoom fame…was named after this group….

Now comes the whole telecom rada…every day a shocker after another. He said India is becoming a Banana nation – well late PM rajiv gandhi’s ‘humey banana hai’ had nearly taken us to that level. Then screamed the BJP govt demanded cuts when tats wanted to float an airline. then RT kept quiet, but chose NOW to speak abt it. Latest he is screaming that BJP demanded cash.

The siutation is getting more & more interesting, though RT comes across quite pathetic. Only wish he would’ve spoken at the time these things had occurred. I always told my father there’s NEVER a right time, its always now or never. Later no one will take you seriously. I can’t help thinking like this, coz i don’t connive. One can’t be calculative & stroke when the iron is hot, one is often seen as oppotunist. Though this really nice, educated man says something which i’ve lived by all my life – “I can sleep easy at night, knowing i’ve not paid money…” i do want to believe it…he may not. But yes he has hired somoene else to do his dirty work & well how she does!