#ManojTiwari: Actor, performer and able soldier of the BJP

The Delhi BJP chief led the way in employing theatrics to convert the airstrikes into political capital.

WrittenBy:Mihir Srivastava
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The media and social media are abuzz with conversations around the Pulwama attack and the subsequent airstrikes on a Jaish-e-Mohammed camp in Balakot inside Pakistan territory. This one single act of aggression might swing the pendulum in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the upcoming general elections. The former chief minister of Karnataka, BJP’s BS Yeddyurappa, already said the airstrikes would “help BJP win”.

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The BJP has established itself as a patriotic-in-chief party and all those who question this narrative are, essentially, anti-national. The Congress party is no good for the security of the nation by blocking the Rafale deal, alleging corruption. Speaking at a media event, Prime minister Narendra Modi said, “Results would have been different had we Rafale jets.” What results is he referring to? To the best of our knowledge, India did fairly well in Balakot. Was he hinting at the results in the upcoming general elections? That we will have to wait and see.   

To suggest that the BJP is playing politics on the dead bodies of martyrs and using surgical strikes as an image-building exercise may sound blasphemous. But if there was any doubt, the actions of BJP Delhi chief Manoj Tiwari laid it to rest. Dressed in Army uniform, Tiwari goes about campaigning on a bike, leading the Vijay Sankalp Bike Rally. This act was described by the Opposition as an insult to the Army and one which shows the BJP’s desperation.

Sharing a picture of Tiwari riding a bike dressed as a soldier, National Conference leader Omar Abdullah tweeted that despite Tiwari, the Opposition was being lectured about “politicising the recent military action”.

Tiwari was quick to respond.

He even claimed to be part of the NCC. One doesn’t know what his level of engagement with the NCC is, or whether he learned to respect the uniform as an NCC cadet.

Being a superstar in Bhojpuri films and a singer too, Tiwari sometimes ends up role-playing in real life. After all, the sorry fact is the elections can be won and lost by playing out games of perception—fuelled by rhetoric, devoid of substance. Theatrics is an important political tool, and the BJP is good at employing it.

Tiwari was born in Varanasi—the prime minister’s constituency—and did his higher studies from Banaras Hindu University. His friendship with Aam Aadmi Party leader Kumar Vishwas, a poet who has a penchant for making riveting speeches, cost the latter the Rajya Sabha seat. Tiwari, now 48, has always had political ambitions. He tried his luck in 2009 when he contested on a Samajwadi Party ticket but with little success. He then joined BJP when the tides turned in the party’s favour and was made the president of the Delhi BJP in November 2016.

The idea to make Tiwari the Delhi BJP chief—ignoring old hands and defying local party cadres, and reportedly at the behest of BJP president Amit Shah—was to win the Purvanchal votes from eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar that account for one-third of the electorate in Delhi. A senior local BJP leader and former MLA, now sidelined, argues that the high command has little confidence in the local leadership after the debacle in the Assembly elections four years ago. To resurrect the BJP in Delhi, they need a performer, a singer, a crowd-puller, a headline-grabber.

Tiwari keeps the party bosses in good humour. He shared a picture on Twitter recently, of him standing in front of Modi’s portrait with both hands folded in adulation, as if standing in a temple, and called it “my selfie with PM Modi!”

The picture carries a caption in Hindi which says: “Sir, in you I see the images of Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi, Jaiprakash Narain and Ajal Bihari Vajpayee.” Sycophancy has no limits and is part of the theatrics that Tiwari is good at. He’s prolific in pointing out how Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal bluffed the people of Delhi by making false promises.

The flavour of the season is patriotism. It will deflect attention from the state of the economy and other pressing issues that cost the BJP three states—Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh—a few months ago. Politics is the art of the possible, a battle of perceptions fueled by popular and social media. It’s all gimmicks. How do you reconcile with the fact that despite 40 CRPF men being massacred in Pulwama on Valentine’s Day, less than a week later, Tiwari and other cine-stars were seen making fun on Kapil Sharma’s show? Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu was shown the door from the same show for airing views not consistent with that of the establishment.

Tiwari is doing what he’s good at or perhaps expected of him as the Delhi BJP chief: pulling crowds, creating a ruckus—even if it means defying the Supreme Court. He even led an unruly mob last year and broke open the lock of a building sealed by the Supreme Court. The bench sent him a contempt of court notice for his “defiant attitude”. He replied in person to the bench that he did what he did “to pacify an agitated mob” maintaining that he felt “officials were arbitrarily sealing illegal structures”. The contempt proceedings were later dropped.

In the same fashion, during the inauguration of the Signature Bridge, Tiwari engaged in a fistfight with AAP supporters and the police while claiming credit for reinitiating work on the bridge. He was unhappy that an invitation to the inaugural wasn’t extended to him.

But the armed forces should not be part of the political discourse. We’ve seen signs of it before: in 2016, the government in power has the dubious distinction of putting the Army at the service of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar to help organise a mega event on the floodplains of the Yamuna. Now they hold press briefings, along with the spokesperson of the ministry of external affairs, but with no details. Perhaps it’s a strategic move to not reveal too much, but details come from party sources, like Amit Shah, who said 250 people died in Balakot while the nation waits for an official confirmation.

All said and done, Tiwari is an able soldier of the BJP.

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