It couldn't have been more symbolic than this. On September 17, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Sardar Sarovar Dam (SSD), over five-and-half decades since its foundation was laid. It was a big moment for Modi ahead of the Gujarat Assembly elections scheduled later this year for SSD is equivalent to Gujarati pride and it is around the much talked-about dam that the BJP has arranged its poll plan for the state.
The prime minister also struck the right chords by claiming that several quarters, including the World Bank, had stood against the project but yet the government went ahead to complete it. Modi also said that the temples of the state came forward with funds to ensure that the world's second largest concrete dam saw the daylight. And Modi presented a picture perfect even while it was unclear how much of the project had been complete.
Fast forward to September 19, a portion of a dam under the ambitious Gateshwar Panth Canal Project in Kahalgaon near Bhagalpur in Bihar collapsed on the eve of its inauguration by the state's chief minister, Nitish Kumar.
The dam worth over Rs 389 crore had taken four decades to be completed and just when it was about to be inaugurated, the structure gave in, resulting in inundation of low-lying residential areas and panic among the local people. Sources in the government said the dam had broken because of release of water in full capacity. The CM had to cancel his visit to the venue and the media termed it as an "embarrassment" for him. The Opposition RJD also did not spare the Nitish government, accusing it of indulging in corruption.
PM Mod smarter than his contemporaries by far
The two incidents might be unrelated apart from the fact that they both feature a dam each. But they are also related by the fact that they throw light on how the PM plays his political cards much more smartly than anybody else.
Till 2013 when Modi went on to become the BJP's prime ministerial candidate, he and Nitish Kumar were seen as two of the best chief ministers the country had. The models of governance in Gujarat and Bihar were often compared with supporters of the respective leaders claiming their man to be ahead. The script had changed from that point of time with Kumar leaving the NDA and Modi going on to become the prime minister of the country after a dream Lok Sabha election in 2014.
Kumar had his moment when his alliance with Lalu Prasad humbled Modi's BJP in the Bihar Assembly elections in 2015. But the drama went on unfolding with Kumar returning to the NDA earlier this year making it evident that he was fed up with the RJD.
Nitish Kumar perhaps played his card well understanding that not many are in a position to challenge Modi at the moment and it is wise to ally with the PM instead of taking the uncertain route of opposing him but the dam collapse is definitely a body blow to his image. For those who have been praising Kumar's transparent governance all along, this is not a good news. It also lays bare the facts that a dam takes four decades to be made in Nitish Kumar's Bihar and yet when the time of inauguration comes, it breaks apart. If the excessive water pressure is considered a valid reason for the mishap, what were the senior officials doing about the high-profile project?
Modi & BJP presented the SSD story as one encompassing Gujarati pride
Just compare it with how Modi handled the SSD project. It was the birthday of the PM which was chosen for its inauguration and despite being the prime minister now, Modi did not forget to link the dam with the Gujarati pride, even going to the extent of eulogising the Gujarati resolve to make it happen in the face of great many obstacles.
The SSD is just not a dam for Modi and BJP. It is a well-knit story that features, apart from development, water supply to the arid North Gujarat region and in the process, cooling angry caste and community sentiments and also temples coming up with help – the cumulative effect of which is likely to earn the BJP profits in the next Assembly elections.
The narratives of 'white revolution' and to turn Gujarat's agrarian economy for the better also make the SSD an integral part of the state's history of progress. Amid all the positive feeling, there is very little space for discussion about the number of people it displaces. The SSD is a complete package of a success story that Modi sells to the nation.
The dam's collapse in Bihar said the same-old story
In Bihar, the exact opposite happened and Nitish Kumar was nowhere near Modi to turn a story of a dam into a national headline. On the contrary, the breaking apart of the dam near Bhagalpur made people more suspicious about practices of corruption and the reliability of Kumar who took a shocking U-turn recently to join his 'ideological' enemies. It also let the Bihari pride down as the TV audience and readers laughed at the collapse of one of the temples of modern India and felt elated over the embarrassment of Nitish Kumar.
While Modi's SSD plan seemed a perfect dose of sophisticated populism, the story of the collapse of a dam in Bihar reminded one of the ramshackle stories of political failure dating back to the concluding decades of the 20th century.
Nitish Kumar has already withdrawn from the race to the premiership in 2019 by joining Modi's camp but there are still other leaders who harbour the ambition of toppling Modi in the next big fight but still miss the smart ploy that the prime minister effects to win people's hearts.
