8 lethal costs of 2020’s
Covid-19 lockdown

Posted on April 12, 2020 by Sunil Rajguru

1. Physical Health: As it is in today’s lifestyle we sit by the desk all day and stare at the screen continuously. We get less exercise. Now a lot of people in strict areas are unable to go for morning and evening walks altogether. What about those living in packed apartments and short of fresh air? What about people having minor ailments which may become major ones by the time the lockdown finally ends? Everyone is not cut out for doing intense household chores and that may lead to both a physical and mental strain.

2. Mental Health: Everyone is not suited to work at home. People like going to office and gossiping and attending meetings to break the monotony. Forget extroverts, even the average person likes going out and meeting people. What about cinema halls, malls, plays and the like? People like going on vacations for a change of scenery. Now the scenery is the same day in and day out. Then there’s the issue of being packed with the family all day and that does not suit everyone. There will be a great toll on mental health.

3. The poor: The middle class survives no matter what. It is the poor who are always hit the hardest. They suffer in normal times. They suffer even more in abnormal times. They cannot work from home. Labourers, construction and low wage workers, small farmers and mainly daily wage earners who have no savings have it bad. In many areas they are finding it difficult to even procure the basic goods: This even as it was announced recently that the world removed record people out of poverty in the 2010s. The clock has been set back for many of them. Migrant workers stranded far from home face further uncertainties.

4. Small businesses: Many of them do not have deep credit resources and small factories are losing out a lot by being shut. These businesses survive on a month to month basis and cannot afford to pay their workers regularly if there is no work being done. Even after the lockdown is over, new business is uncertain.

5. Supply chain disruptions: Global supply chains have been disrupted. Nationals ones have too. Many trucks have been abandoned along the highway. At the lower levels many workers have simply gone home. It’s going to be difficult to start certain supply chains during the lockdown and others even after. Global supply chains will be hit for the entirety of 2020.

6. Wastage: We don’t have hands to get all the crops from the fields, to distribute them to the mandis and get them out of the large godowns. While non-perishables can stay for months and some even for years, perishables will simply go bad. Even in the best of years there is a lot of wastage and now that will only go up during the lockdown.

7. Life disruptions: If you are in a stable working job, you can still manage and work from home. What if you had just quit or was on the verge of joining and now couldn’t? What if you were about to get married or pregnant? What if you were about to emigrate? If you were not planning changes in 2020, then you can manage, but what if you were bang in the middle of something life changing? Now that’s some disruption to your life.

8. Students: Final exams got cancelled. Entrance exams got cancelled. Admissions have got postponed. For students it could have not have come at a worse time towards the end of the academic year. As it is there is enough pressure on the students of today and now add uncertainty to the mix.

The 10 deadly Corona Truths

Posted on March 31, 2020 by Sunil Rajguru

#1 School was created not to educate children, but because parents can’t handle their children sitting at home all day, picking their brains to nothingness and demanding food on the hour every hour and generally getting on their nerves.

#2 Nuclear family is not suited for the modern age. We would all rather jump into our mobile screens and be blissful and alone.

#3 Collaboration tools are enough to run most departments and do meetings, make plans and discuss important things. International travel is way over-rated. We can do without the airlines industry.

#4 There are essential services and certain stuff where presence on the ground is required. Everything else can be simply WFHed, maybe to the tune of billions.

#5 Netflix, Amazon Prime & OTT rules when you have tonnes of work.
Netflix, Amazon Prime & OTT rules when you have absolutely nothing to do.

#6 You get that sinking feeling that you really maybe be redundant one day. A combination of AI, ML, drones, driverless cars, robots and Robotic Process Automation can take over the world. Maybe Hollywood wasn’t wrong after all.

#7 The chief enemy of mankind is not disease or inequality, but boredom. We all need to just pass time, no matter how productive or unproductive it is. Boredom can kill in the long run.

#8 We can do much more with less. And we can even prosper doing it.

#9 There is no concrete civilization, absolute truth or settled life. It can all come crashing down with the click of a finger.

#10 The rich don’t care. They have it really good. The middle class can survive anything. It is always the lower classes that suffer in normal times and abnormal times.

The Great War on Prithvi, a sc-fi mythology adventure novel

Posted on December 31, 2019 by Sunil Rajguru

You can order the book on…

Amazon India

Prithvi: A mysterious parallel and beautiful world with no science and religion, but fantastic astras (or Mahabharat style missiles)

Vishnu Shastri: A confused directionless 16-year-old finds himself pulled into Prithvi.

Guru: An ageless astomi and a mysterious astra expert, who throws up more questions than answers.

Shakti: The beautiful, evil and demented , Prithvi’s foremost assassin.

Duryodhan, a megalomaniac king bent on taking over the world and forcing a destructive Great War, the planet’s 8th, but potentially the most dangerous.

The Great War on Prithvi: A roller coaster ride full of twists and turns…

What if Earth had a quantum twin?
The philosophy behind the book
Alternative realities. Parallel Universes. The multiverse theory. Constructing astras and pushpak vimans. The rule of gods…
—India Today’s DailyO.in

A unique mythological experience. Definitely worth a read.
—Sify.com

The spacing of the sentences in the pages actually quickens the pace of the reading. Short, sharp sentences. All statements. Almost like in bullet point style.
—The New Indian Express

Beautifully written, against the back drop of Mahabharata. I liked the way the author drew parallels from two different times like past and present for developing Vishnu’s character. His character is complex yet relatable. New but old.
—Kavis Take

***

If all goes well, then I will ultimately convert this into a series of seven books with the second one being…
Vishnu Shastri and the Day of Doom.

Sunil Rajguru is a journalist based out of Bengaluru. This is his first published book, though he is in the process of writing many books on multiple genres, mainly science fiction. His second book, Durga’s Revenge, is ready to be published.

Rajguru is an Editor with CyberMedia, India’s oldest tech media house. In the past he has been a columnist for websites like Sify.com, IndiaFacts and India Today’s DailyO. Rajguru has worked for the Hindustan Times newspaper and website, Living Digital magazine, the Centre for Science & Environment and IT market research firm IDC India.

Check out his podcast on Spotify.

Check him out on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Catch his writings at PCQuest, CIOL, Sify.com, DailyO.in and IndiaFacts.

60 of my predictions that came true…

Posted on June 7, 2019 by Sunil Rajguru

It is very difficult to predict, especially the future. But still we all keep trying. While I’ve been wrong a number of times, I’ve had my share of successes. In the last century I was unable record my spot on predictions, but now thanks to social media and blogging, it’s quite easy to do so and verify later.

So here’s looking at 60 of my predictions-conjectures-premises that came true-stood the test of time…

Just click on the date next to the prediction and the relevant Column-Blog-Tweet will open in another tab.

1. BJP would be about 300 and NDA about 360 in the general elections
6 April, 2019

2. BJP could get the highest number of seats in every region
21 May 2019

3. The NDA vote count could be 250 million plus
17 May, 2019

4. BJP would be the single largest party in these States
9 April, 2019

5. I predicted a Modi landslide in 2018 itself…
9 reasons…
22 July, 2018

6. Even before the 2019 polls I said it would be a great year for Modi… 10 reasons…
30 April, 2019

7. 2019 would be a Modi tsunami as against a 2014 wave
8 March, 2019
4 April, 2019

8. In 2015 itself I had said that Trump Haters could well end making him US President
14 December, 2015

9. I said early on Hillary would never be US President…
8 reasons…
1 January, 2016

10. Trump would win because he had more Twitter followers than Hillary
1 April, 2016
30 June, 2016

11. I called him a Trump card even before the Republican primaries concluded… 10 reasons…
19 March, 2016

12. I said Trump would rise and win and surprise in 2016 much the way Modi did in 2014
28 January, 2016

13. Trump may win because he’s less hated than Hillary
7 June, 2016

14. Shah Rukh Khan’s superstar career would end with Dilwale
4 January, 2016

15. Fan and Raees would not be genuine blockbusters
9 January, 2016

16. SRK’s continued alienation of Bollywood fans wouldn’t go down well…
15, October 2016

Bonus: Multiplex would be the new superstar
03 May, 2016

17. 2011—Why India will win the World Cup
5 March, 2011

18. A Kovind type dark horse would be India President
31 March, 2016

19. Smriti Irani would bounce back despite losing HRD (2016)
8 July, 2016

20. AAP would perform poorly in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls…
9 January, 2014

21. …but AAP could make a comeback in the Assembly despite the above…
26 February, 2014

22. …and AAP would implode in the long run…

AAP won’t survive: 14 April, 2014

7 AAP contradictions: 26 February, 2014

AAP under siege: 22 April, 2014

Kejri is afraid: 19 May, 2014

7 Kejri myths: 31 December, 2013

23. 2016—Mrs Vadra would fail if she entered politics
13 May, 2016

24. 2014—Mrs Vadra may not even contest an election
28 April, 2014

25. Modi would do nothing for Ram Mandir in his first term
30 November, 2015

26. 2011—Modi can still be PM
At that time very few people gave him a chance
19 September, 2011

27. Modi is actually a great unifier (2014)
Time magazine called him a divider before the 2019 polls and a unifier after it
26 April, 2014

Modi’s 7 unifying themes: 16 February, 2016

28. 2013—Only Modi could save the BJP
The party was in a really bad shape at that point of time
9 January, 2013

Bonus: Why I support Modi (Despite the opposition)—2013
21 June, 2013

29. DeMo wouldn’t dent Modi and he was in it for the long haul
11 March, 2017
18 November, 2016

10 long-term goals of DeMo: 22 December, 2016

Why you shouldn’t complain about DeMo: 11 November, 2016

25 great Demo Stories: 2 December, 2016

Bonus—Confessions of someone totally unaffected by demonetization: 20 November, 2016

30. 2016—Kanhaiya would fail big
4 March, 2016
2 May, 2016

31. Shortly after he took over, I said Trump would be a great effective disruptor
5 March, 2017

32. I said Trump was undergoing a Rajyog and hence unbeatable
29 December, 2017

33. 2017—US Trump-Russia collusion is a big hoax, Mueller was dead in the water
30 June, 2017

8 shifting goalposts of the Mueller probe: 24 April, 2019

34. 2017—Star Wars was crashing
23 December, 2017

But the problem started with Episode 7: 26 April, 2019

35. 2005—Kodak on road to bankruptcy
Finally happened in 2012
October 2005

36. 2016—Global Right will keep rising
January 2016, Updated

2013—India’s Rightward journey
19 February, 2013

37. 2014—Pappu would be effectively last of his dynasty
31 May, 2014

38. Congress peaked in 2018
19 March, 2019

How the Congress keeps sabotaging itself, updated after the 2019 loss: 24 November, 2018, Updated

39. Modi would make a comeback after the 2015 Delhi-Bihar losses
9 November, 2015
Modi bounced back after his Annus Horribilis 2018 too

2017—Modi undergoing Rajyog
June 2016, Updated

40. Decline of US mainstream media post-Trump
15 December, 2015

41. 2014—Mamata would destroy West Bengal
3 July, 2014

Terror musings: 27 October, 2014

7 Mamata flop shows: 22 November, 2012

42. 2015—IPL owners’ curse…
…after which Mallya had to flee, SRK’s fortunes declined, Wadia arrested
4 April, 2015

43. IPL Icons were unlucky. Dravid, Yuvi Sehwag never won.
MI, KKR and DC won after Sachin, Dada and Laxman left. Dhoni was never officially an icon!
10 March, 2010

44. 2014—Rise of Yogi
11 September, 2014

45. 2014—The 2019 BJP monopoly
4 November, 2014

46. Kejriwal’s New Delhi Odd Even policy would fail
9 December, 2015

47. 2016—Djoko could get a calendar Grand Slam that year
5 June, 2016

Can Djoko be the greatest? 16 July 2018, Updated

48. After 2014, Congress never really had a chance
May 17, 2014
22 December, 2014
2 May, 2016

49. Even a Modi spoof on why he personally didn’t direct any arrests from 2014-19
17 July, 2016

50. 2014—BJP could get Maharashtra
26 September, 2014

51. 2015—Nothing would come of the Essar leaks
4 March, 2015

52. 2016—Sidhu is always unpredictable
27 July, 2016

53. 2015—Porn ban is impossible
7 August, 2015

54. 2015—Anna a spent force and now irrelevant
21 February, 2015

55. 2014—Aamir wasn’t done yet at the box office
31 January, 2014

Bonus on Aamir: 5 January, 2015
3 January, 2017

56. 2013—We can never hang on to our fast bowlers, still the story today!
11 March, 2013

57. 2005—CGI would continue to rule Hollywood
20 September, 2005

58. 2014—Why Kohli may one day be the greatest ever
7 April, 2014

59. 1991—USSR-Russia had been alternating between a hardliner and reformist.
Then reformist Yelstin was in charge and it was natural for a hardliner (Putin to follow), who faced great opposition, but subdued it.
31 July, 1991

60. 2005—Cyber activism here to stay
August 8, 2005

Our social media decade: 10 May 2014

Interesting factoid…
1948-92, India won just one individual medal.
I wrote this limerick after India’s debacle at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics where we drew a blank for the umpteenth time.
India has won at least one individual medal in each and every Olympics after that…
17 August, 1992

Now here are my 10 future predictions!!!

In the early 1980s, my biggest prediction was that the Communist regime would collapse in the USSR. I don’t know if any of my friends remember. However when it finally happened I was so shocked by the sudden coming down of the Berlin Wall and overnight collapse of most global Communist regimes and the unprecedented way it panned out, that I put it in 15 things I never thought could happen as a kid anyway. So even if we get a prediction right, we may be surprised by its suddenness and unpredicted consequences. So one’s prediction may not seem like a prediction at all!

Before the 2014 Indian central ministers’ swearing in ceremony I remarked that Amit Shah would be Home Minister only in 2019, though alas I didn’t put that down in writing at the time.

So here are some things I am putting down in cyberspace…

Note: If they all go wrong, then I still have the above.
If most of them get right, then… Should I call myself a modern day Nostradamus?

1. 2020: Trump will get a near landslide and win the Senate too and totally turn the Supreme Court conservative after that.
If this happens he would be the greatest US President ever.

2. 2024: If everything goes wrong for Modi, he will still win, but if everything goes right, then BJP 350+ and NDA 400+.
He will fix Pakistan and Kashmir once and for all.
After 2024 Modi will be declared the greatest Indian post-1947.

3. China will collapse the way USSR went down.
So in the long run India will be more powerful!

4. Global Right parties will generally continue to dominate the 2020s.

5. The following are facing a meltdown…
Indian Congress, US Democrats, UK Conservatives and EU.

6. The Leftist Climate Change debate (not Climate Change itself) will totally unravel in the 2020s.
Fossil fuels are irreplaceable in the coming decades and only nuclear energy can be a strong No. 2. That’s also why electric cars will never cross a certain threshold.

7. We may see another tech market crash due to the raw immense power of the global tech giants and their clashes with various governments and organizations like the EU. Anti-trust also an issue.
Geeks and hackers may try to build a Second Internet.

8. Federer could be surpassed by Djoko.

9. Pakistan could face collapse in the 2020s.

10. The Origin of Species could be superseded by something like Microcosmos by Lynn Margulis, which came out way back in 1997.

Bonus: In the future, every human may have access to a small supercomputer and a personal big power source. At that time a single universal blockchain cryptocurrency might become an inevitability. Till then Bitcoin is at the mercy of legislation. If all the countries ban Bitcoin, then it could become a powerful black currency. If all the countries officially recognize it, it could soar.

Post script…
Report card of the predictions made on June 7, 2019…

Prediction 1: Totally busted!!!
But if an old distracted bumbling politician who draws crowds of dozens can beat an active charismatic politician who draws thousands of lively supporters, then I will have to rethink how people elect their leaders in this new world. In November 2020 it seemed that Republicans had taken control of the Senate, but things changed drastically in January 2021.

(Trump soon after this was written made the Supreme Court majority 6-3 and didn’t have to get re-elected for that at least.)

Prediction 2
Modi did indeed scrap Article 370 and 35-A and is on course for 2024.

Prediction 3
China may decline post-Covid, but the jury is still out on that one.

Prediction 9
Pakistan’s implosion is being clearly seen into the 2020s.

This 18 December, 2018 blog also foretells why people the Global Establishment hate, like UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, come to power in the first place as also the fall of Palestine. 21 November, 2018

Also read…

20 things nobody would have thought possible at the beginning of this mad crazy decade…

The 75 lies they told you about Prime Minister Narendra Modi…

Posted on May 23, 2019 by Sunil Rajguru

1. He will be sacked as Chief Minister in 2002.

2. He will not win the 2002 Gujarat Assembly elections.

3. He will not win the 2007 Gujarat Assembly elections.

3. His national ambitions ended after the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.

5. He will never find acceptance among the rural masses of India.

6. His only supporters are hardline rabid Hindutva males.

7. The urban masses will never identify with him.

8. He will be a misfit among world leaders.

9. He has no global vision.

10. BJP will never make him a Prime Ministerial candidate.

11. The allies will never accept him.

12. The 2013 Assembly elections itself will reject him.

13. The electorate will never accept him.

14. Since Lutyens’ Delhi rejected him, so will rest of India.

15. Twitter cannot win you an election.

16. Most of his social media support is paid.

17. He is just PR plus marketing and the people of India will reject him.

18. Pappu is a better Prime Ministerial candidate than him. (Busted in no time)

19. Kejri is a better Prime Ministerial candidate than him. (A bigger joke)

20. Even Kanhaiya and Hardik are better PM candidates (speechless!).

21. The BJP under him will never get 272 seats.

22. Forget the BJP, even the NDA under him will never get 272 seats.

23. He will face a tough fight from Kejri in Varanasi.

24. He is a 31% PM. (NDA got 38.5% vote share, high in a multi-party democracy)

25. He will not win many States after the Lok Sabha elections.

26. He will be jailed for x, y, z offence eventually. (No chargesheet even)

27. Delhi is not Ahmedabad. He won’t be able to function there at all.

28. He wore a Louis Vuitton shawl.

29. He wore a Rs 20 lakh suit. (Figure kept coming down and settled down at Rs 10 lakh)

30. America will never allow him on its soil.

31. Obama rebuked Modi over religious intolerance.

32. He was finished after BJP losses in Bihar and Delhi elections of 2015.

33. He is responsible for every crime in India even though it is a State subject.

34. He claimed to have rescued 15,000 people from Uttarakhand.

35. He said that Priyanka Vadra was like his daughter.

36. Doordarshan commissioned a 10-year serial on his community.

37. He pushed Zuckerberg aside to face the camera. (Cameraman in fact was shouting “side please” to Zuckerberg)

38. Gujarat development is a myth.

39. Gujarati people are highly communalized so they kept voting for him.

40. He masterminded Snoopgate.

41. He masterminded the murder of an innocent Ishrat Jahan.

42. He’ll convert India into a Fascist State.

43. He is totally against the idea of India (whatever that is).

44. Godhra led to Indian Mujahideen. (Parent body SIMI formed after Emergency of 1975)

45. He has introduced the concept of beef ban in India. (Around for thousands of years)

46. He masterminded Godhra.

47. He told the police to allow Gujarat riots to happen.

48. He said “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction” on Godhra riots.

49. Vajpayee said that he was not following his Rajdharma.

50. He masterminded Best Bakery incident.

51. He masterminded Naroda Patia incident.

52. He masterminded Gulbarga Society incident.

53. He will not be able to move forward till he apologizes for Godhra.

54. Christians are under attack, over a report that said 4 churches were looted as against more than 200 temples.

55. Dalits are under attack, even though absolutely no meaningful statistics were presented, just scattered anecdotes.

56. State governments under attack, even though he never dismissed State governments indiscriminately like the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and now most if the State governments are NDA anyway.

57. Dadri violence happened because of him, even though Akhilesh was one of the worst law and order Chief Ministers ever.

58. He was responsible for Rohit Vemula’s death, even though he was a Leftist student politician and Hyderabad/Andhra Pradesh/Telangana has never been under direct BJP rule.

59. Intolerance rose under him, even though his haters are the most intolerant of the lot.

60. There is an undeclared Emergency, even though he is attacked 24X7.

61. UP 2014 70+ seats was a flash in the pan, disproved by UP Assembly elections tally of 300+.

62. Demonetization is a failure, the UP elections itself will show that.

63. The Modi Wave was firmly over in 2017 despite the fact that the BJP won 6/7 Assembly elections.

64. The surgical strike never took place.

65. He is unfairly targeting JNU, even though they agitate against India 247.

66. He is indirectly behind Justice Loya’s death.

67. Judiciary is under attack.

68. GST will ruin the economy.

69. People are rebelling against him… via fake agitations, bandhs and uprisings.

70. Award Wapsi campaign and Supreme Court judges press conference were valid movements against him.

71. abc was killed for xyz reason and it can all be ultimately be attributed to Modi.

72. His is nothing but a suit boot ki sarkar.

73. The economy is actually not doing great or figures are fudged or it’s to the credit of Manmohan.

74. Rafale is a scam and is his Bofors moment.

75. 2014 was a fluke. There is no way he will be able to repeat it in 2019, especially after the 2018 losses.

They have told you 75+ lies and totally got away with it.

They will tell 75+ more and totally get away from that too.

And how many truths have they told you about Sonia?

Zero.

So she too may totally get away despite controlling the most corrupt government in the history of independent India.

Here’s how the Congress keeps sabotaging itself again and again and again…

Posted on May 23, 2019 by Sunil Rajguru

When we got Independence, the Congress Party was the Freedom Movement and the Freedom Movement was the Congress Party. They seemed destined to rule forever and could have been in power today, but nobody spoils the fortunes of the party like itself.

A look at some of these things…

Congress was invincible till the 1970s, but imposed Emergency and that created the Janata Party which became the first ever non-Congress government at the Centre.

It has been more than 40 years since Emergency. And today it could well be called the most disastrous move it made in retrospect. Till 1975 the Congress strode like a colossus at the Centre. No other party could dream of even being a strong Opposition let alone a ruling dispensation for at the Centre. Then Indira Gandhi gave the rest of the parties a huge lifeline.

Indira imposed the Emergency and this led to her fall and the first non-Congress government at the Centre in 1977. The Janata Party may have disintegrated in 1980, but its successor Janata Dal and all its factions ruled first from 1989-91 and then 1996-98.

But the biggest result of the Emergency is rarely discussed: The formation of the BJP. The RSS was formed in 1925 and was rudderless after Independence for some time. The Bharatiya Jana Sangh was formed in 1951 but wasn’t that effective till 1977.

The RSS powered the protests that led to the Emergency, the 1977 government gave a solid political direction to the Sangh Parivar and it marched on after 1980 to become the dominant political party in India in 2014 having first tasted power in 1996 at the Centre.

Congress became invincible yet again after the Janata Party imploded, but created the Ramjanmabhoomi problem thereby boosting the BJP.

Under Jawaharlal Nehru, Ram idols appeared in the mosque premises. Under Rajiv Gandhi, the locks to the complex were removed to counter the Shah Bano case appeasement. Under PV Narasimha Rao the Sangh Parivar managed to knock down the domes right under the Centre’s eyes.

The Ramjanmabhoomi problem was created and sustained by the Congress and maximum progress happened only due to the action/inaction of various Congress Prime Ministers. But only one entity benefited politically from all of the above: The Sangh Parivar.

Congress brutalized the Naxalites and hence is out of West Bengal for nearly 40 plus years.

When the Naxalite movement came up in West Bengal, the ruling Congress government used such brute force, that they lost the State forever. Today it is out of power in the State for a whopping 40 years and look in no position of forming a government in the future.

Congress made a comeback in Punjab in 1980 but single-handedly created the Punjab problem.

Why Indira Gandhi and her son Sanjay wanted to deal with a person like Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale we will never know. But they kept backing him and making him more and more powerful till he turned against them. The Centre launched a military operation against the Golden Temple more than once. The Khalistan problem became a raging one. Finally Indira herself was assassinated, leaving an inexperienced Rajiv, who squandered a majority Congress rule at the Centre for good.

Congress became pally with the LTTE and they assassinated Rajiv.

Bhindranwale wasn’t the only such person that the Congress dealt with. Another was LTTE supremo V Prabhakaran. The story is that during an Indo-Sri Lanka meet when the Lankan authorities heard that India was hosting Prabhakaran, they were livid.

There were reports of India giving financial aid to the LTTE and aid was dropped in their territories against the will of the Lankan government. The Indian government soon turned against Prabhakaran and he took his revenge by assassinating Rajiv.

Congress backed Bal Thackeray to counter Communists and he ended Congress majority rule for good in Maharashtra in 1995.

When Shiv Sena’s Bal Thackeray emerged in the 1960s instead of countering him, the Congress secretly backed him in a bid to counter the Communists. In fact it was in the 1980s that Thackeray and Congressman Sharad Pawar joined hands to finish off the unions.

Thackeray had the last laugh though. A Shiv Sena Chief Minister was sworn in in 1995 and after that the Congress has not had a single majority government in Maharashtra, a State which it had really dominated till that year right from Independence. Subsequently we had the first BJP Chief Minister in 2014.

Congress still had the largest political network in 2014, but totally decimated it for 2019.

The Congress always returned after being booted out at the Centre. 1980. 1991. 2004. These are three such momentous years. However 2014 seems to be a year with a difference. What many people don’t realize that though the Congress lost in 2014, it still had the most MLAs across the country and the largest organizational network and that with the greatest money and muscle power.

Instead of consolidating that and making a comeback, the party backed the disastrous mother-son Sonia-Pappu duo to the hilt, started decimating leaders at the regional level and attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi 24X7 instead of coming out with a coherent effective strategy to regain their paramount national status.

Congress was given a last chance in December 2018, but…

Despite everything, the Congress got a get out of jail free card in 2018. It was Modi’s Annus Horribilis. First despite being the single largest party in Karnataka, the BJP totally messed up the trust vote and ceded ground to a JDS-Congress government. Then the NDA government in Jammu & Kashmir fell. Finally at the end of the year, BJP won 0/5 State elections while the ailing Congress got a real shot in the arm and formed governments in the key states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. Congress supporters and Modi haters finally smelt blood at the end of 2018.

But what did the Congress do? They should have given excellent governance in MP-Rajasthan-Chhattisgarh and shown the rest of India that it too was a viable alternative. But nothing of the sort happened. Governance crashed and law and order crashed. Karnataka was even worse.

Then Pappu launched a highly negative campaign with the “Chowkidar Chor Hai” nonsense and motor mouths like Mani Shankar Aiyar and Sam Pitroda went mentally ballistic. The Congress showed that it had nothing new to offer in the matter of governance and for Modi it had nothing but abuse.

This was a strange policy because Modi was attacked virulently in 2002, 2007 and 2013-14 with disastrous results. The mantra seemed to be: We have nothing to offer to the people of India, but we will continue to abuse the Prime Minister non-stop. So as expected, the 2019 general elections proved to be a landslide for the BJP and a disaster for the Congress.

Sunil Rajguru's World

A little bit of everything under the sun.