OPERATION LOTUS 2.0 : Inside Amit Shah's Plan For a Two-Third Majority in Lok Sabha । Straight Bat

[00:00:00]that the deal was 50 crores per MP with 15 crores being paid in advance. We have been promised constituency development funds that are often delayed or have been denied to us because we are in the opposition. Will government monies paid for by taxpayers be distributed now based on party loyalties? I call it Kulam Kula political bazar the Indian political auction of our MPs. The views expressed in this blog are hosted on my own website are strictly personal and do not reflect the views of any organization.

[00:00:42]Namaskar. Hello and welcome friends once again to straight bat my weekly video blog where as the title suggests I comment with a straight bat. Now if there is one thing that the ultimate power politicians Narendra Modi and Amit Sha do not like my friends, it is losing. Yet on April 17th this year, Gujarat and India's political jodi number one as I call them suffered something that they had not experienced before. their attempt to push through a revised women's reservation bill along with a delimitation bill that would alter the political map of the country failed because they did not have the required 2/3 support for the bill in the Lok Sabha. That evening an IATE Amit Sha is said to have told a colleague We will bring this bill back soon to parliament and ensure that it passes.

[00:01:50]That remark driven partly by ego, driven some would say by a feeling of revenge and partly by a clear legislative agenda explains the BJP's current political project of merger and acquisitions by breaking rival political parties. If the 2024 elections, my friends, did not deliver the coveted charo power of 400 plus, then the next objective is simple.

[00:02:25]build the numbers gradually, steadily and relentlessly to reach that magic twoth3 figure of around 360 MPs in the Lok Sabha not through elections alone but also by weakening opponents and strengthening your own ranks between elections. So how do you move from 294 that you got for the NDA in 2024 to now 360? If it was AP last month, it is TMC last week, it is shift UBT this week.

[00:03:05]Who knows who's next in this plan? Today on Straight Bat then the inside story of what I am calling Operation Lotus 2.0.

[00:03:18]Take the party that has perhaps imploded the fastest after the election defeat, the Tinamul Congress. The Bengal setback certainly fast forwarded the process, but efforts to cultivate disgruntled TMC leaders had actually begun months earlier. Among those was four-time MP Kakoli Goss Dastidar, a longtime MTA Banerjee loyalist who had reportedly grown increasingly unhappy within the party. Dastidar felt marginalized. We were told both in Bengal and Delhi and believed that the next generation leadership around Abishek Banerjee had reduced her influence and access. There were also reports that she was upset over her son being denied a ticket. Kosh Dustidar denies those reports. But what is clear is that she established contact with Amit Sha and was then rooted to BJP's Bengal in charge and Union Minister Bupendra Yadav. Kakoli Hosh Dasidar was keen to explore her options but did not want to risk immediate disqualification.

[00:04:27]So she bided her time. During this period, she's believed to have reached out to other dissatisfied TMC MPs, helped them facilitate contacts with a few BJP leaders. Also involved was another senior TMC MP Shatab Di who had her own grievances with the party leadership. So when the TMC lost power in Bengal in May, the process was accelerated dramatically. The message from the BJP leader was straightforward.

[00:04:56]If 20 MPs could be brought together, the 28 member TMC, the third largest opposition party could be easily broken.

[00:05:06]Two BJP MPs, Nishikhan Dubet and CM Romesh, one from Jarhand, the other from Andra, both known for maintaining extensive crossparty networks, were tasked with reaching out to the potential defectors. At the same time, Shuendu Adikari was the key figure who entered the picture. Having spent years in the TMC before crossing over, the new Bengal chief minister knew many of these MPs personally. He had a grudge with Abhishek Banerjee wanted to teach him a lesson and began contacting these MPs one by one. The concerns v varied. Some of the MPs feared legal troubles because of cases against them or their followers and wanted protection. Some were worried about their own political future. Some believed their careers had reached a dead end inside the TMC.

[00:06:03]Some simply wanted proximity to power.

[00:06:07]Some were celebrities with little skin in the game. One MP described to me the assurance being given to him with a single word.

[00:06:19]loosely translated to mean we'll look after you. There were allegedly other inducements too. Suffice to say, my friends, the BJP is not short of resources or what they call vitamin M m.

[00:06:36]What followed then was a classic combination of push and pull factors. A demoralized party built around the charisma of Mta Banerjee was facing a dominant BJP determined to exploit every crack in the structure. Perhaps the most fascinating case study is that of Yuzu Patan. The former World Cup and IPL winner had been drafted into politics by Mab Banerjee only at the last minute in 2024 only to defeat her great Congress liel Adi Ranjan Chri. By most accounts, Patan had little interest in politics and was persuaded to contest largely through personal relationships he had built when he was in the Kolkata nightrider franchise in the IPL. After entering parliament, Patan remained distant from party affairs, maintained a low profile. Then came the outreach. You see, the Patan brothers Van and Yuzu are from Vodra in Gujarat. Yu has a longunning property dispute which is before the high court there where he's accused of encroachment. In politics, my friends, legal vulnerabilities often become pressure points. So when the BJP leaders reached out, Patan agreed to engage after initially telling a friend that he wanted to opt out of politics altogether.

[00:07:56]There is another intriguing anecdote recounted by National Conference Shinagar MP A Syad Mahi. According to Mahi, during an opposition protest in parliament during the winter session last year, a prominent Muslim MP warned Yuzu Patan against taking an aggressive anti-BJP position. They will bulldoze your home. He was warned. Medi claims Patan was visibly shaken afterwards and confided his fears regarding possible repercussions to him back home in Gujarat. Should we then be surprised that Yuzu Patan has also joined now the rebel group? Another interesting example being given is Syonyi Goos, actor, youth leader and someone one of the most visible faces of the TMC's generation.

[00:08:49]Next sy for years or at least in the last year was among the BJP's sharpest critics. For much of the last month she remained undecided was even out of the country for a while. Those who spoke to her then insisted she had strongly denied rumors of a switch and yet she eventually crossed over. Why a Syan Gos changed her mind is perhaps a question only San Goss can honestly answer but her decision illustrates my friends a larger reality. The politics of carrot and stick can affect almost everyone except the very strongest and most determined.

[00:09:26]Let's now turn to the Shivena UBT. If Shuendu Adikari was the CEO of the operation to break the TMC in Bengal in Maharashtra, it is former chief minister and ships leader Aknat Shindai who was assigned self-styled mission tiger assisted by a Maharashtra MLA Prattab Sarn who interestingly himself switched sides in 2022 at a time when he was facing a series of enforcement investigations. He switched sides. No one has heard about those investigations since. Here too, my friends, a carrot and stick policy was followed. Each MP was individually contacted, asked to list out their demands and then reportedly a deal was struck. Sanjay Ralph of the SA UBT claims without proof I might add that the deal was 50 crores per MP with 15 crores being paid in advance. The amounts for Bengal doing the rounds are a little lower. The MPs I spoke to like Kakoli strongly deny that any monies have been taken. Not one PISA has changed and she insisted. The full truth my friends will never come out or may never come out. But here is what one rebel ships MP tells me and this is very important. We have been promised constituency development funds that are often delayed or have been denied to us because we are in the opposition.

[00:11:00]This is the shocking reality and a classic case of anti-constitutional discriminatory federalism. Will government monies paid for by taxpayers be distributed now based on party loyalties?

[00:11:17]Which brings me to a central issue. the increasingly transactional nature of Indian politics.

[00:11:24]Let's be honest, defections are not new.

[00:11:28]The phrase I am gaam entered our political vocabulary more than half a century ago. The anti-defectionection law of 1985 and the 10th schedule was a response to rampant party hopping. Every ruling party has sought to weaken its opponents. The BJP did not invent defections. But what has changed is the scale, sophistication and yes, brazenness of the exercise. The TMC MPs who have crossed over were not meeting in some dark corridors or secret hotel rooms. Meetings were often taking place openly, often at the residence of a serving union minister and MPs of the BJP. I call it Kulam Kula political bazar, the Indian political auction of our MPs. Ironically, when the term operation lotus first emerged during the Karnataka crisis of 2008, the BJP had sought to distance itself from the allegation that it was engineering defections. Today, there is no such hesitation. What I call operation 2.0 is not really about breaking parties. It is about understanding that every politician has a pressure point.

[00:12:42]Sometimes it is ambition, sometimes it is insecurity, sometimes it is someone denied a ticket, a family grievance, a legal problem, a need, dare I say, for some resources, or else simply to be on the right side of power. The BJP's great political strength has been its ability to identify those pressure points and tailor its approach accordingly. One leader may want protection from enforcement agencies and needs the BJP's washing machine. Another wants power. A third wants relevance. A fourth may want insurance against an uncertain future. A fifth may want vitamin M. There is no single formula. And that is precisely why the formula works for BJP supporters. This is superior political management. As the party edges closer to the 2/3 mark in parliament, it's now around 324 and counting. Expect phrases like chanakya niti and master stroke to be used repeatedly. For critics, it reflects a ruthless pursue of power where electoral victory alone is not enough. The opposition must be weakened between elections.

[00:14:02]Either way, one reality stands out my friends. Now, no party appears immune.

[00:14:07]Not even former allies like Shiva, not regional parties like TMC, not startups like AP. The defining feature of this era is not that defections happen. As I said, they always have. It is the speed with which they happen, the scale on which they are executed and the complete absence of embarrassment that now accompanies them. politicians switch sides and assume that voters will eventually expect accept whatever explanation is offered and perhaps they are right. Just look at one of my home states of Goa where defectors have often been rewarded rather than punished by voters. It is almost as if the politics of defections is now fully normalized.

[00:14:52]The Supreme Court cannot do anything.

[00:14:54]The laws cannot do anything. Which brings me to a final thought. In 1999, Atal Bihari Vajpai lost a trust vote by a single vote. Single vote. He accepted defeat, walked out of parliament with his dignity intact and then returned to the electorate. The BJP of Modi and Amit Sha belonged to a very different political age. In this BJP, the new BJP, losing a trust vote by a single vote would probably be seen not as bad luck but as a failure of political management. And perhaps that is the real significance, my friends, of operation Lotus 2.0. It signals a shift in the nature of political competition itself.

[00:15:39]Winning elections remains important but equally important is ensuring that between elections your opponents are weakened while you become stronger. That is the real story behind what you're seeing now. Mergers, political migrations and defections as I said are becoming normal. The lotus is a beautiful flower. It remains so. In politics, however, it is increasingly becoming the symbol of a democracy where power is not merely one at the ballot box, but continuously accumulated long after the votes are counted by the bruising politics of Sam Dam Dandh.

[00:16:21]By the way, with all the money talk doing the rounds every time there are defections, has anyone really asked where do these staggering amounts of cash actually come from? Clearly, there is no recession in the great Indian political bazar. That was the straight bat. Do of course subscribe to my YouTube channel for many more such videos. For now, stay well, stay safe.

[00:16:48]Jind namaskar.