Mr Modi: justice will speak in Gujarat elections (Teesta Setalvad)

From: Hindustan Times, 10 October 2012

Elections are a unique business, deciding the fate of some, reflecting, or denying the faith of hundreds of thousands of those who cast the ballot. In the absence of a better or more effective means to reflect popular sentiment, electoral democracy is the best system we have, we know of no better. Money power, paid news and election spending are some of the 'undemocratic' factors that influence the ballot and though we try, we have not produced an effective remedy. As insidious if not worse is the creeping influence of hate sentiment and majoritarianism within our electoral framework; despite some legal restraints, political parties across the board have benefitted electorally from fielding men, and women indicted for leading mobs to violence against our own.
A quiet verdict delivered by Judge Jyotsana Yagnik on August 29 put a brake on what might have otherwise been the BJP, and their mascot chief minister's attempt to yet again, brazen out 2002. But for the verdict delivered and convictions read, we may have had Mayabehn Kodnani in the electoral fray and Bajrangi used as an unrepentant campaign tool.
We've seen it before. The man who rose to become Maharashtra's chief minister and Lok Sabha speaker had been named and indicted for rioting in Bombay in the late 1960s. In 1984, the Congressmen named for inciting mobs were given tickets in the December election and romped home from the capital. Post 1992-1993 Bombay saw the saffron combine, clearly named and blamed by Justice BN Srikrishna in his report, field two of the ring leaders--an MP and an MLA--from seats in the country's capital. Both won. After the killing of 100 Christians in Orissa's Kandhmal the BJP had no compunction in fielding, both for the assembly and parliament, men indicted for inciting mobs to kill and loot.
For the first time, the Gujarat polls, now two months away, see some of the men and women who led mobs to murder and worse in 2002, punished. The party at the helm that hogs television debates and adopts the moral high ground on fiscal matters, (though the track record of their chieftains in Gujarat and Karnataka seriously blemish this self created halo) has no compunctions defending the indefensible.

How then will Gujarat vote and what will be the result? Will the money and the face power that its chieftain has in abundance, sweep, yet again the dust and dirt that has begun to creep out, if not actually hit the ceiling? In 2007, the chief turned high-tech during his poll campaign. He hired US firm Apco Worldwide, which specialises in creating images of public figures through communication technology. The firm's clients have included the Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha; Nursultan Abishuly Nazarbayev, president for life of Kazakhstan; and ex-Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The company promoted Modi's image at an estimated $25,000 a month, though the six crores of Gujaratis do not still know who's paying. (November 2010, The Outlook magazine)
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