Narendra Modi lands in Uttarakhand, flies out with 15,000 Gujaratis - Will Haunt in Elections 2014

On June 23 we all heard about of read the news that highlighted Narendra Modi lands in Uttarakhand, flies out with 15,000 Gujaratis. Though I had reserved my comments then, a friend shared that news with me on email and that opened up a long email discussion that is reproduced for the readers as below - 

My reply to that mail was - "The story highlights his Rambo act but again the act was only for "Gujaratis". I applaud his efforts, but they have not been to the level of a Politician who would target PM position in next election. This news right now may be doing rounds to earn him laurels, but in 2014 election it would hurt him the most.

It is like short term Marketing gimmick to me. Please recall the Pepsi's slogan "Nothing Official About it" and that surrogate marketing was targeted at gaining mileage against Coke, but had harmed Pepsi by instigating consumers to lookout for the official Sponsor "Coke" and the sales of Coke had gone up sharply... 

So, with the news headline "Narendra Modi lands in Uttarakhand, flies out with 15,000 Gujaratis "it is certainly be praise in Gujarat, but people would then start thinking "Why didn't he save others" when there were more..." 

I got an interesting reply from my friend - Somehow I have a slightly different opinion here. I see this as a great step. As far as rescuing only Gujaratis is concerned, as a state CM he is first responsible for them, which he proved. No other state did such major thing for their state people. So, given a change to head the country, he will do similar for the countrymen, which the existing government has failed majorly.

Also, another way to look at it is that by rescuing few thousand people, he has reduced the load of Uttarakhand government. In a way, it’s a contribution in itself.

Secondly, he has also given some offers to rebuilt the temple etc.

So, I don’t think what he did was wrong. He is doing for whom he is responsible for.

The above is also the viewpoint from all the Modi Supporters, but then is it so? But now what you have to do is to flip the coin and look at the other side of the aspect. Because there is other side too. Below points are based on your points in the order they are mentioned above - 

1. No other CM - Rajasthan as well as Punjab CM were in Uttarakhand. But why did Media not write a news about them? Incidentally they have a passing reference in the article as NAMO also discussed with X & Y. Isn't this a news that media is cashing on because NAMO is PM candidate? 
2. He did for Gujarat for which he is responsible for. Agree, bur disagree. A Politician and a PM candidate is responsible for the entire nation and not just a region or a sect. 
3. No other state did it - Gujarat has that sort of money to drive it. It is a rich state. Other states from where pilgrims mostly were stranded are - UP, Rajasthan, Punjab, Bihar, MP etc. And well let me state that except Punjab, other states are not that well to do and interestingly only Rajasthan has Congress government. 
4. If he did for Gujarat when he is CM for that state, he would do it for the country given a chance. Wrong notion, because he rescued, eh sorry, because he got 15000 Gujaratis transported from Uttarakhand. But weren't these the ones who were already rescued by the Army? Weren't these the one who were already at places from where they could easily be transported? Or do you want to actually believe that there were only 15000 Gujaratis in the whole load of tourists in Uttarakhand? 
5. By rescuing 15000 he reduced the load. Eh yeah let's find out how much??? Not even 5%. Do the simple calculation 15000 out of total number of tourists and Localites stranded. And what about the time that was wasted during his aerial survey. 4 hrs of rescue work was impacted. 
6. He has offered some help to rebuild the temple. Please, am surprised at the height of biased opinion. Please also check the news that Gujarat offered only 2 crore as the aide for these victims. Center offered 1000 crores, UP 25 crores, MP 5 crores, Bihar 5 crores and incidentally Shattrughna Sinha alone 50 lakhs. So wouldn't you see that Gujarat offered 2 crores only!!! 

So looking at the above points "from a critic" and NOT as pro congress, you should re-analyse the whole case. By doing what NAMO did, he indeed created an image, but this would haunt him. 

Positive side of looking at it - at least he did something and was not celebrating #whereispappu with his set of jokers in some distant land. 

Before concluding, I would like to state that the point as mentioned above have had been later reflected in the Editorial of "Saamna - The Shivsena Mouthpiece" by none other than Udhav Thackery. This can be accessed at - "Shiv Sena hits out at Modi for rescuing 'only Gujaratis' from Uttarakhand"

I know there would be a lot of lashing on this article and many would disagree with the viewpoint as expressed above, but then those who are political observers and are following the development clearly would tend to agree with the above points. Clearly a time to do some damage control here.....