Thus the Rubicon was crossed by BJP

It was in 1991 that I was first becoming aware of the political buzz going on in the country. I was 9 years back then mand it was a period of intense political churning caused by the fall of Chandrasekhar govt, assasination of Rajiv gandhi, Mandal & Kamandal. There was buzz about Bharatiya Janata Party even in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, where I hail from.

The next five years were very eventful starting with liberalization of economy,Ayodhya movement and babri masjid demolition, lots and lots of scams ranging from fertilizer scan, telecom scam(sukh ram), hawala scam etc. That was when BJP started  becoming more of a household name.

As a youngster, I used to hear arguments from elders that BJP will never come to power as it is a north Indian party with a paltry presence in south India and that it was too right of center to be able to become a ruling party. Then came the 1996 elections, where BJP was the since largest party, though  way away from the simple majority mark of 272. vajpayee govt came and left within a span of 13 days, which was followed by united front govts headed by deve gowda and ik gujral.

The instability of the United front govt, political compulsions and efforts of BJP slowly started paving way for more alliances across India. They found  alliance partners like Rama Krishna Hegde in Karnataka, Naveen Patnaik in Odisha and Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, ADMK in Tamil Nadu in addition to the existing alliance partners like SAD, Shiv Sena and Samata party. Then came the 1998 elections, with BJP emerging as the single largest party and in a striking distance of power through the alliances it had built. Vajpayee became the prime minister for second time and ws able to win the confidence vote by mustering post poll support of parties like INLD and TDP. This was the first rubicon that was crossed. Yes, BJP was able to form a govt at center through a collation of different parties.Though this govt survived only for 13 months, the NDA govt that came to power in 1999 did complete its tenure.

Now the goalposts has changed with arguments that BJP will never be able to form a govt by itself as it is way away from getting a majority by itself. Two tenures of UPA did create the necessary ignition power needed for BJP to cross the majority by itself in 2014.

In the immediate aftermath of the 2014 elections, we have started hearing voices that the full majority given to BJP was the result of despicable governance provided by UPA and that 2019 will not be on similar lines. When the time for change comes, as the election date nears, the strength of the wave .
increases. The necessary groundwork for the same has already been done by BJP. When have you seen a prime minister getting close to a normal man, like Narendra Modi. Through initiatives like jan dhan accounts, swach bharat,ujwak yojana, farmer support,dbt etc, he made sure that the lives of poor are impacted in a way that is easy to quantify. Apart from this he maintained a connect with the people through public meetings, Mann ki Baat etc. When did we ever see a prime minister talking about issues that effect the lives of common man of the country ranging from exam, cleanliness etc.This has made him maintain a remarkable chord with the citizens, making this election a battle between modi and the rest in all the 543 constituencies. The result in states like kerala, bengal is going to reveal the impact of this greater connect, which is being missed by the radars of journalists.

My long wait of 23 years for surgical strike

There has been a lot of brouhaha over Modi being credited for Indian response post Pulwama through Balakot air strikes and surgical strikes on terror launchpads in POJK post Uri attack. Those critical have been arguing that the credit goes to the armed forces. Lets dissect and analyze it further.


The concept of  a muscular response to the strategy of war through a thousand cuts has been around since 1993-94, when P.V. Narasimha Roa was at the helm of affairs as the prime minister. I was an 8th standard school student back then. India was in the midst of a transition, recovering from the post cold war effect coupled with political and economic commotion within. There hardly was any political will left for some action. The same continued with the United Front government which was in power for two years from 1996 to 1998. All through the tenures of P.V.Narasimha Rao and United Front governments, BJP under the leadership of Vajpayee and Advani, has been advocating a muscular response to the cross border terrorism on the lines of how Israel responds.


Following midterm elections in 1998, Vajpayee led coalition came to power, which went ahead with the long due nuclear tests. The coalition was unstable and fell after 13 months, leading to midterm elections. Then came Kargil in the period between the fall of government and elections. Even during Kargil, Indian political leadership has decided to not cross LOC. I was pursuing my 11th and 12th during this phase.


NDA(with BJP as lead partner) , riding on the Kargil victory couple with a current in favor of  Vajpayee, came back to power general elections in 1999. The NDA tenure from 1999 to 2004 had lots of terror related incidents, be it Kandahar hijacking, Parliament attack, Kaliachuk incident, Swaminarayan temple attack etc. Post parliament attack, India went for a major mobilization and the expectation was that an attack across LOC is imminent. International community succeeded in convincing Indian leadership that they will force Pakistan to stamp down on terror factories, which Pakistan never did, but used the cool off period to play its nuclear card as a blackmail ploy. BJP lost 2004 elections and UPA(headed by Congress) came to power. I completed my Bachelors in Technology in the year 2004.


UPA was in power for two terms from 2004 to 2014. Of this, the period from 2004 to 2008 was particularly horrendous in terms of terror attacks and casualties. There were major terror attacks in Jaipur, Ahmadabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad,Varanasi, Assam, Mumbai train blasts, Mumbai(26/11) etc.  Such destruction and the ensuing public anger failed to make the political leadership press the button to hit across LOC. After two terms, UPA was kicked out of power in 2014 and then came in NDA-2 headed by Modi.  By the end of  UPA-1 and UPA-2, I  completed my masters in engineering and worked for eight and half years as a software engineer)


By now, Pakistan was very confident that Indians lack the spine to bite the bullet. All they do is bark loud about teaching a lesson and then go back to their hibernation. Then came a major strike in the at Uri in the year 2016, which was avenged by Indian forces by crossing LOC to hit the terror launchpads. 23 long years after I first heard about calls for surgical strikes across LOC,  India went for it. Pakistan surely is not going to change so fast and it did indulge in one more monstrous act at Pulwama, which made the political leadership order airstrikes on camps at Balakot, which is inside Pakistan(not  POJK).


It is clear for every one except those pretending to be asleep to see who bit the bullet and who called the Pakistani nuclear bluff. Modi deserves the credit for political decision and armed forces for the execution part. The armed forces were ready all along, while the political will came in late. As I write this article, I have a masters in engineering and a work experience of 13.5 years.