Rise of Priyanka in 2024

Congress' 2019 campaign made no sense from the get go.  After winning a morale boosting victory in December, Congress lost the plot. What seemed like a easy 120-140 seats and a shot at the top job, Congress seems to be fighting to survive and keep upstarts from usurping what little is left of the Congress. 

Congress started by peddling a dream i.e. The MahaGhatBandhan (MGB) to take on the Mighty NaMo-AmSh combo. 

And everything seemed to be falling in place.  But in a few short weeks reality seemed to have caught on.  A MGB was only possible if Congress ceded significant territory to accommodate partners in key states. 

Doing this would be prove to be the last nail in Congress' coffin.  With every 2-bit regional satrap salivating over the possibility of pulling a Deve Gowda, Congress was caught in a bind.  

Stitch up a national level MGB and defeat the BJP or concede defeat to BJP and live to fight another day.  And Congress strategists have decided to go with the latter. 

Enter PriyankaV (PV).  

Pappu is least interested politics.  Like most Babalog he's in it to protect his ill gotten wealth, which only political power can protect. 

PV seems more passionate for the job and given her religious upbringing, sees politics as an extension of religious crusade as proposed by the holy father. 

Pappu and his team has not realized that his time is up.  This is his last election.  Either he steps aside or becomes a figure head.  In either case the power moves to PV post May 23. 

Team PV has done the right political calculation.  In their mind the best scenario is a severely fragmented mandate with NaMo as head of a very weak coalition govt. 

There's no way she would want an Akhilesh or a Tej Pratap or even a Kanahiya kumar grow stronger and permanently wipe out Congress from the Hindi Heartland. 

It would not be a surprise if PV was behind all attempts to form local alliances across India between relevant regional parties such as AAP, SP, BSP, etc. 

Every opposition leader has invested heavily in anti-NaMo campaign.  A resounding NaMo win will discredit every leader from Akhilesh to RajT.  Which in turn will create a massive political vacuum in opposition ranks.  And here's where PV will make her move.  To become the crusading woman who  will take on NaMo.  

The fulcrum around which a long term alliance could be built.  With the Muslim-Dalit-Bramhin  (MDB) votebank as its bedrock. 

BJP must do one thing right of the bat.  Define PV as the Queen Of Corruption.  The power which allowed Robert to become a billionaire. 

Force her into a reactive mode from the get got.  Unleash the legal hounds on her and keep her in a state where everything she says reminds voters of her role in the big loot. 

Going soft on her could prove disastrous in 2024.  UPA scams will be a distant memory by then and NaMo may be considering retirement or at the very least a massive war of succession will be underway within the BJP. A war to occupy that coveted #2 spot. 

In that backdrop, if PV has been allowed to emerge as the face of the opposition, she could become a real threat in 2024.  Most regional satraps will be old and retired or gone.  SharadP, Babu, Maya, etc. would be well past their prime with no successor in place. 

All factors aiding the emergence of PV as the prime (if not the sole) inheritor of opposition space. 

BJP cannot afford a formidable leader of opposition i.e. PV to occupy the space and take India by storm. Ignore her at your own peril BJP. 

p.s. I had maintained from day one that Pappu was pappu and would never emerge as real threat.  PV is a different cup of tea

And so it Begins - Gazwa-e-Hind and its implications for China

One would expect the long awaited Mother of all Wars - Gazwa-e-Hind to begin with a bang.  Fire and Brimstone, Cannons and War Cries.  Instead we have witnessed an informal declaration of war in a relative backwater of the region - Colombo, Sri Lanka. 

What has baffled all of us and what seems to make little sense is this: why would ISI (make no mistake, this was an ISI operation, with IS providing the necessary cover to avoid an international backlash) pick Sri Lanka (if not an ally, a neutral entity in the region).  

Moreover, why pick on a minuscule Christian minority.  

The answer is simple:  Pakistan, facing imminent economic meltdown and a potential balkanization has decided to up the ante and drown India and the region in an endless wave after wave of Islamic attacks. 

Gazwa-e-Hind has begun. 

The sub-continent is being primed to become another Syria.  And therein lies Pakistan's only hope to destroy India. 

Certain factors are clearly in Pakistan's favor.  An undivided subcontinental India from Afghanistan to Burma has 45% Muslim representation.  Almost all of it Sunni.  That demographic advantage is the only real leverage Pakistan enjoys, in addition to the Islamic bomb. 

But the Islamic bomb would destroy as many Muslims as non-muslims, rendering it of very little use.

What we're witnessing is the start of a continental scale, asymmeterical war which would dwarf anything the world has witnessed in Iraq over the past 20 years. 

Even educated, prosperous Muslims across the subcontinent view themselves as victims.  This is the preferred psychological state of Muslims across all geographies.  #GrievanceMongering is built into the very fabric of Islam. 

It is this very attitude which fuels Muslim men (and some women) to wage a war against Infidels. 

Pakistan's calculation is sound.  

As Predicted in these two earlier pieces Pakistan has few real options:  

https://inflextionpoint.blogspot.com/2015/06/pakistan-is-screwed-heres-why.html

https://inflextionpoint.blogspot.com/2016/08/chinese-acquisition-and-balkanization.html

Pakistan is on life support.  ISI has decided upon a scorched earth strategy.  "If we drown into non-existence, then so will India" seems to be the prevailing wisdom inside the twisted, bigoted minds of Pakistan's leadership. 

Despite their public support for China, and despite the restraint shown by Pakistan's mullah military leadership, it must hurt them deeply, to watch the disdain with which China treats Pakistan and its own muslims. 

Muslims are most touchy about their women.  Islam goes to extraordinary lengths to preserve the imagined 'chastity' of Muslim women.  

To watch Chinese men come to Pakistan in droves, propelled by their lust for Pakistani women, surely cuts deep to the bones. 

China is also acquiring Pakistan at a steady pace.  Just as India is consolidating its own economic future and is poised to break through the shackles of poverty and uneven, anemic economic growth. 

All said and done, Pakistan can choose to sit back and watch its 'Country of the pure' become a footnote in history, watch as its dream of a Green crescent stretching from Arabia to Indonesia, evaporate right in front of its eyes, or it can ignite an inferno. 

An inferno, which will consume the subcontient and lead to a final battle between Muslims and infidels.  A battle they hope to win given the aforementioned demographic edge they now enjoy.