Editorial analysis: Maha BJP masterstroke; India camp-averse at G7; Plastic ban challenges

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In ‘Editorial analysis’, The Raisina Hills critically reviews comments of India’s top five English newspapers – The Indian Express (IE), The Economic Times (ET), The Hindu (TH), The Times of India (ToI) and Deccan Herald (DH).

Decisions of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in recent years seem coming out of the evolving political science of India than following any past patterns.

In Maharashtra, the BJP decision to hand over the Chief Ministership to head of the breakaway faction of the Shiv Sena Eknath Shinde and asking ex-CM Devendra Fadnavis to be his deputy sent political pundits on their toes to decipher the twists and turns in the state politics.

Predictably, four of the five newspapers in our basket have come out with Edits on the Maharashtra development.

IE, ToI, ET and DH have a common theme underlining their Edits that the BJP move is tactical. ToI recalls the 2019 BJP horror when Fadnavis had bound the party in the knot with his hurriedness to become the CM with Ajit Pawar of Nationalist Congress Party.

IE argues that the BJP decision to make Shinde as CM will save the party from gaining the predatory image with allies.

DH maintains that the BJP will call the shot in the new government in the state, but argues that Uddhav Thackeray should have resigned after making a speech in the Assembly.

The dailies also underline that the fight for the legacy of Hindutva of the Shiv Sena brand isn’t yet over, and more actions on the street may be seen in the coming days.

IE explains that while Thackeray is left mostly with Mumbai-based MLAs. ToI add that Shinde has MLAs from crucial Satara and Thane regions, while stressing that the BJP will now be able to counter the betrayal claim of Thackeray.

The dailies rightly list out that the immediate challenge for the new political experiment will be the BMC, the Mumbai municipal, elections due later this year.

The ET raises questions in its Edit on the validity of mandate, saying “the problem with such hyper-cynical politics is that it undermines democracy, and does so in full view. People start losing faith, the vote has little meaning…”

None of the dailies, however, mentioned that the caste dynamics was a limiting factor for the BJP to realistically think of going past the half way mark in the state Assembly on its own in the near future.

India did much of the maneuvering in the two back to back Summits, BRICS and G7, to stay away from the camp politics of the developed countries.

TH in its Edit on the G7 Summit held in Bavaria in Germany has examined India not signing the US-led USD 600 billion Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, which is widely seen as a counter to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). India, however, signed the G7 statements on ‘Resilient democracies’ and ‘Just energy transition’.

TH underlines that India will be watched out for protecting the civil society, freedoms of expression and thoughts, “which are facing challenges”.

Indeed, India is staying away from camp politics in the world order, which has been stated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in one of his speeches to the BJP’s Parliamentary party meetings. India had also not attached with anti-west rhetoric of Russia and China during the BRICS Summit on the grounds that New Delhi follows independent foreign policy driven by its own national interests.

Plastic ban is coming in force from today, and 19 of the 20 most commonly used plastics will be prohibited from Friday, including the spoons, bowls, plates, ice-cream sticks and so on.

ToI in its Edit looks at the challenges of implementation of the ban, while stating it will harm the small shopkeepers, besides compelling them to break the rules. The single use plastic ban is India’s commitment to the United Nations, given by Modi, and the country wants to demonstrate to the world that it means business in fight against climate change.

The daily rightly mentions that the plastic use has created havoc in human and marine lives, choking municipal drains, and now plastic residues are even found in blood samples, while they had already been seen in the water samples.

ToI argues that the government should work with industry for innovative solutions, but that will take too long time and by then much damage would have been done. The people consumed alloo-tikki in the past without plastic and they took meals on leaves.