In 2005, Sanjay Joshi, the RSS man in the Gujarat BJP, was caught amid a sex CD controversy in the backdrop of BJP's silver jubilee celebrations. At the time, Joshi was a 39-year-old man. A mechanical engineer by qualification, Sanjay Joshi was famous for his organisational skills. However, he avoided the media like the plague.
In 1990, he wanted to contest elections from Nagpur but the party didn't give him a ticket. So, he opted for Gujarat.
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The CD cut short Sanjay Joshi’s career right when it was peaking.
Cut to 12 years later.
He is a 24-year-old-bachelor with a long political career ahead. The Sanjay Joshi CD was first circulated within the BJP top leadership. And then an insider leaked it to the media. The Hardik Patel videos surfaced in right wing news websites and social media. Both CDs served the same purpose: to defame and discredit the rising figures.
Let’s compare the situations.
Joshi was the RSS' model worker, so for him to be caught in the act was like a slap in the conservatives' collective face. In contrast, Hardik is a flamboyant energetic leader with several criminal cases filed against him. He has raised his voice publicly against the BJP.
In 2017, in the age of smartphones and free internet, we are bombarded with information and our memories are sketchy. If the videos had surfaced just days before the elections, they could probably have influenced poll results and benefited the BJP.
From farmers to traders to unemployed youth, everybody is concerned about the real issues of development.
Gujaratis do not seem to have bitten the ‘Hardik CDs’ bait. They are now demanding the ‘Vikas CD.’ So far, three videos of Patel have been leaked. The women in the videos appear to be adults and seem very much at ease.
More questions are being raised about the ethics of putting secret cameras in someone’s bedroom than as to why Patel switched off the lights in the room in the video. Those who are watching the videos are also scared of the thought that they themselves can be recorded in private acts that can be made public.
Most know that drinking tears don’t cause pregnancy. So far, not a single leader of the BJP has condemned the act of snooping on Patel. Each one of us are products of consensual sex (sometimes, not always so), usually performed behind closed doors. People usually detest voyeurs and want them to be punished.
During elections, political parties are in the people’s court.
(The writer is a painter and professor with a passion for politics. This is a personal blog and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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