oppn parties #MainBhiChowkidar: Turning "Chowkidar Chor Hai" On Its Head

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  • In Assam, a controversy erupted after a picture of UPPL leader Benjamin Basumatary, lying on a stack of Rs 500 notes circulated on social media. UPPL is an ally of the BJP
  • AAP's Jalandhar-West MP Sushil Kumar Rinku joins the BJP. He was the only AAP Lok Sabha MP
  • Supreme Court dismisses Centre's plea to review its 2023 verdict in the PMLA case
  • Close save for passengers as they remain unhurt after the wings of two planes graze at Kolkata airport. Pilots derostered and inquiry ordered by DGCA
  • Bengal BJP leader Dilip Ghosh gets notice from the EC as well as the BJP for making ugly remarks about Mamata Banerjee's parentage
  • Sadanand Vasanth Date, who faught terrorists in the 26/11 attack and was awarded the Preisent's Police medal, has been appointed the head of the NIA
  • Centre will borrow Rs 7.5L cr in the first six months of FY25, nearly 50% of the target for the full year
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  • Stocks recover smartly on Wednesday: Sensex rises 526 points to 72996 and Nifty 118 points to 22123
  • Tennis: Rohan Bopanna-Matthew Ebden reached the semifinals of the Miami Open
  • IPL: records tumble as SRH beat MI in a high-scoring match. SRH score 277/3 with 18 sixes and Mumbai score 246 with 20 sixes to fall short by 31 runs. Atotal of 38 sixes, highest in an IPL match were hit and both teams combined to score 523 runs, the highest aggregate in an IPL match
  • Amul will launch fresh milk in the US
  • IPL: RCB beat Punjab by 4 wickets as Kohli and Karthik shine with the bat
  • India strongly objected to German foreign office remarks over the arrest of delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, called it "biased assumptions"
Delhi Lt Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena says government cannot be run from jail, hints at President's Rule in the capital ////// In a dangerous incident, the wings of two planes grazed while taxiing on the runway at Kolkata airport, all passengers were safe but DGCA ordered an inquiry and the pilots were derostered
oppn parties
#MainBhiChowkidar: Turning "Chowkidar Chor Hai" On Its Head

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2019-03-17 18:07:35

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
With his #MainBhiChowkidar campaign, unleashed a few days ago, and today’s action of renaming his twitter handle “Chowkidar Narendra Modi”, Prime Minister Modi has firmly shown that the BJP is not going to be cowed down by the orchestrated campaign of chowkidar chor hai, started by Rahul Gandhi and now being followed by almost all leading opposition parties.

"Your Chowkidar is standing firm & serving the nation. But, I am not alone. Everyone who is fighting corruption, dirt, social evils is a Chowkidar. Everyone working hard for the progress of India is a Chowkidar. Today, every Indian is saying - #MainBhiChowkidar". This was the message Modi wrote in the video that showed Indians, young and old, from all regions and all walks of life being guardians, or chowkidars, of their homes and thereby of the nation. It also asked citizens to take an oral pledge to be chowkidars, promising a personalized twitter conversation card as a thank you note from the Prime Minister. Modi is going to interact with people on March 31 to further this campaign. Obviously, the video went viral and was the hottest trending topic worldwide for hours.

The latest action of renaming the twitter handle shows that the Prime Minister and the party are going to make anti-corruption one of the main planks, other than the surgical strikes and the mahamilavat nature of the alliance of the opposition parties, of their campaign in 2019, despite the daily accusations being hurled by Rahul Gandhi over the Rafale deal. The chowkidar plank fits in perfectly now as the government is also reported to have decided on Justice (Rtrd) Pinaki Chandra Ghose as India’s first Lokpal. The decision is expected to be announced in a few days. It will not be surprising if the Lopkal is named the Mukhya, or Head, Chowkidar.

Once the Lokpal is in place before the elections, the chowkidar campaign will receive a huge boost. While it will silence the opposition parties (the Congress might create controversy for Mallikarjun Kharge had refused to join the panel mandated to select the Lokpal as a special invitee. He was invited thus because no opposition party got the minimum 10% or 53 seats in the Lok Sabha in 2014 to have a member designated as the leader of opposition, who would have been a co-opted member of the panel), it will prove to the people that the government is serious about curbing corruption in high places.

This overdrive by the BJP to turn the chowkidar chor hai cry on its head is going to put the opposition in a fix. If lakhs of Indians take the pledge and declare that they are also chowkidars, by saying chowkidar chor hai the opposition will be insulting them. Already posters of the Congress and many regional parties have been printed with the theme of declaring Modi chor. But now, there has to be a rethink on the subject. The opposition can take the line that those pledging to be chowkidars as part of the campaign are likely to be BJP voters and their chor campaign is not meant to impress them in any case. But the fact remains that the BJP has made a huge hole in the opposition campaign by unleashing the #MainBhiChowkidar drive.