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'Democracy Will be Weakened In Modi 3.0'

June 03, 2024 18:01 IST

'Modi's image has no takers among the masses.'

IMAGE: Dr Sandeep Saurav, the Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist candidate for the Nalanda Lok Sabha seat, second from left, speaks to a supporter. All Photographs and Videos: Rajesh Karkera for Rediff.com

"Such a frenzy was created about Modi till about 2017, that if you criticised him in public there was a good chance of people attacking you, but it is no longer so. The same janta that voted for him overwhelmingly in 2014 and 2019 is openly against him," says Dr Sandeep Saurav, the Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist candidate from Nalanda.

Dr Saurav gave up a teaching career as lecturer of Hindi literature to join politics and successfully contested the Bihar assembly election from Paliganj in 2020.

This time, he is locked in a tough fight with three-time Janata Dal-United MP Kaushalendra Kumar. The CPI-ML is part of the INDIA formation, while the JD-U is part of the NDA.

IMAGE: Sandeep Saurav's election office.

A former student leader at JNU and All India Student Association, Dr Saurav is an impassioned speaker. "The youth has understood that Modi cannot give them jobs," he says and vehemently condemns the government's attack on universities.

"This government is 'managing' youth anger due to unemployment," he says, sitting in a room with party workers in Bihar Sharif, the headquarter of Nalanda district.

IMAGE: CPI-ML activists have their meals before they set out to campaign.

At the entrance, a large group of INDIA party workers and CPI-ML comrades are having a meal prepared in an area designated as the kitchen. "The cook is our comrade," informs a lady CPI-ML member from Sitamarhi district.

IMAGE: The INDIA campaigners have a cuppa tea before spreading out in Nalanda district.

"Sarkar badlegi (the government will change)," says Dr Saurav, "The BJP will lose Maharashtra, Bihar and Purvanchal."

"Another message that has reached the poor and deprived that that Dr Ambedkar's Constitution is in danger and Modi wants to change it."

 

Watch: Part 2 of the interview:

On Youth resentment due to unemployment

 

On combating the allure of Hindutva, the power of caste and Modi's unquestioned popularity

 

Modi's 'choreographed' roadshows in Bihar

 

On what the result will show on June 4

 

On the inability to raise funds

 

On Nitish Kumar's future

 

On Modi 3.0

 

Three things that will change if Modi returns

 

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com

ARCHANA MASIH, RAJESH KARKERA, NIKHIL LAKSHMAN