The basic animosity towards Modi stems from the fact that the chief minister did not permit senior members of the Sangh Parivar to exercise power independently in his state.

Raw deal

The website www.saag.com is associated with RAW because it was started 10 years ago by retired RAW officers. Three former RAW operatives still write regularly for it. SAAG is an abbreviation for South Asia Analysis Group and most of the articles on the website project an Indian perspective and take a hawkish position. The channel has been hacked thrice this year. Recently, two unidentified persons approached the domain management posing as owners of the site and managed to change the website name and password. The IB is trying to track down the saboteurs, the principal suspects being the ISI and the LTTE.

Calculated gamble

It is still a mystery as to who penned the offending line in Sonia Gandhi’s “maut ka saudagar” speech, which in hindsight, many claim, was the turning point in the Gujarat campaign. Janardhan Dwivedi, who usually pens Sonia’s speeches in Hindi, is most likely the author. The speech writer was merely following instructions. The party high command took a decision to deviate from the initial strategy to focus on exposing Modi’s development claims when a poll survey showed that Modi was well ahead. It was not only Sonia who diverted the issue to Modi: the prime minister talked of re-opening the 2002 cases against Modi, and Digvijay Singh spoke of Hindu terrorism.

... contd.