Varied verdict; China meltdown; German right turn
Opinion Watch
Varied verdict
Five years ago, the people in Gujarat had warned the Bharatiya Janata Party to not take elections in the state for granted. The BJP had won 99 seats. The BJP set out poaching Congress MLAs, and got seven of the nine of them to its side in Saurashtra. The BJP addressed all the red pointers – Patidar unrest, rural anger and tribal disquiet.
Almost all the dailies in their Editorials have focused on the Gujarat verdict, and credited the BJP for the organizational works in the last five years for its record victory in winning 156 of the 182 seats. The dailies dissected that Congress is decimated for being organizationally fragile after a large exodus of known faces, and the last nail in the coffin was hammered by the Aam Aadmi Party, which made a spectacular entry in the Gujrat politics with five seats and 13 per cent vote share.
The dailies have also argued that there were indeed disquiets on the ground in Gujarat on education, employment, price rise front. But the Opposition was too weak to turn any of them into a poll issue, while the BJP organizational is so superior, riding on Narendra Modi’s Gujarati ‘asmita’, that there is no stopping the saffron juggernaut.
Yet, the dailies have also underlined that the verdict in Himachal Pradesh and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi would not cheer the saffron spin masters. The people have tasked the Opposition to sit together and get serious about the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
China meltdown
Chinese President Xi Jinping had made scientifically bogus ‘Zero Covid Policy’ a prestige issue. That is true to all dictators. But the people know the ways to strike back. Xi has been forced to dilute the floundering ‘Zero Covid Policy’.
The Economic Times in its Editorial has noted that Xi’s climb down is also on account of the economic collapse of China. Housing bubble has burst. Exports of China have been severely hit. Domestic consumption demand has vanished. That has been the commentary for the Chinese protests, which have seen convergence of the unrest among the students, labour, farmers and even the Communist politicians.
The ET has warned that China’s attempt to reset its economy may have adverse impact on India and the other emerging economies. The daily has also noted that the bids of the Europe and the US for a diversified resilient global supply chains is a work in progress. The daily has been carried away with Xi’s Covid relaxations, ignoring the fact that the global aversion to China is only deepening, and it may not be business as usual even if Beijing corrects mistakes of the last five years to harm the global order.
German right turn
Germany is not only at a crossroad in its economy but also socially and politically, for there’s an evident rise of the extremist far right, which thrives on conspiracy theories. The German administration arrested as many as 25 people for charges of being involved in a conspiracy to overthrow the government. The accused includes members who have had career in the armed forces and also hailing from higher echelons of the society, including a sitting judge.
The Hindu in its Editorial opined that “Germany faces two types of far right challenges – that posed by extremist groups such as Reichsburger and the other by the mainstreaming of the far right groups”. The daily also mentioned that Germany had disband its elite special forces after extremists were found in its ranks. The Chennai-based daily also stated that the Germany needs to tackle the rise of extremism politically.
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