Indira Gandhi was known to hold her Darshan durbar every morning on lawns of her residence. Visitors to Delhi, mostly tourists who came to Delhi in a hired bus from different states were invariably brought to her durbar by their tour operators. A visit to Parliament House, a symbol of their hopes and Darshan of the Prime Minister in the lawns of her residence with least paraphernalia of security guards were a must part of their visits. Once when a group of visitors from Tamil Nadu were with her, Indira Gandhi noticed a frail old woman with a lathi to support her walk was trudging at the gates. Indira Gandhi virtually jumped out of her chair to rush to the gates. She held the arm of the old woman to help her walk. She loudly said, ”Amma why did you take trouble to all the way to come here? If you have sent me a post card, I would have come to your house.”

Indira Gandhi did not know the old woman, her name or her village. Yet she created an impression as if she had known her for a while. She later explained, the old woman and her village crowd would never cease talking to all the visitors of their experience of this visit. Imagine what will be impact? Indira Gandhi knew her politics. She knew how to build her support base and yet she lost the game in 1977 due to her isolation of twenty one months during the emergency raj.

The political storms over the morality of her decision to impose emergency apart, the emergency declaration isolated her as if she was imprisoned in a solitary confinement. No political colleague, bureaucrat or other visitors would tell her of happenings around for the fear of invoking he displeasure. Even the sleuths avoided. The censorship had made media an instrument barred of all politics. Even though she had emerged as unassailable political power, she lost the gamble in March 1977. A different signal emanated from six states with 204 seats. She captured 153 of them though got only one in 339 in other parts.

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also pushed himself in isolation. His slogan in the last election was for a vote for Modi government. In the election and after his unprecedented feat of a clear mandate and after formation of the government he reduced the status and stature of every leader of his party. It made them to refrain them from communicating him of the real impact of his grandiose. He had used the Newton’s law to give his response to the allegations of his communalist regime after the inferno of communal passions had begun to char Gujarat. He had said every action has reaction. He forgot it after his demonetisation, a harsh step. He may believe that he had controlled the flow of black wealth to his opponents for use against him in elections. No one informs him of rampant growth of corruption at lower levels. The slide back of the economy is merely a temporary phenomenon for him. But he cannot comprehend the distress of farm sector in getting the MSP for their produce due to withdrawal of public sector agencies from markets. Unemployment has reached the higher levels ever in 45 years. This is more hurting as low grade jobs are lost.

Does he refuse to read the signals emanating from the results of assembly elections and bye-polls for the Lok Sabha? He barely managed to retain power with the party in Gujarat but won none of other six states. He may have ignored the loss of Gorakhpur seat in Lok Sabha but he cannot brush aside that he had lost all seats in bye-polls with overwhelming rural vote proportion.

He is no doubt a shrewd politician to comprehend importance of chemical catalyst for the elections. He not only matched and overcame the impact of the charity offered by his only opponent the congress led by the Gandhi family. He attempted to convert the war hysteria into a catalyst by converting it to be pride of Indians but was quick enough to give it up on realization that it did not work. The galore of full page advertisements in all newspapers speak of charity he delivered in five years. It does not mention his failure to deliver dignity of life with a job that he had promised.

After the sustained campaign to replace NaMo with Nitin Gadkari as the lead man for the next election for virtually three months, Gadkari suddenly issued a clarification that neither he aspired nor the Sangh conspired to change the leader. Significantly Gadkari has spoken for the Sangh and not the Sangh chief or any of seniors to clarify the position. Can NaMo take it as the assurance that he would be allowed to win and form the government again. His style of functioning in isolation does not allow him an opportunity to gauge. He is excellent actor. He does not allow the Green Room facades to be reflected on his performance on the stage. It will be known in two months only after curtains are dropped and the count begins.