KS Muralidharan
Suddenly, there seems to be a sense of déjà vu about 2024 elections. Will voters now turn the electoral clock back to 2004? Will Narendra Modi suffer the fate of his guru, Atalji? These questions have set alarm bells ringing in the BJP and rekindled fresh hope in the opposition, in the light of the changes that are very much in-your-face that have happened after the first phase:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi going IPL-style overdrive in his counter-offensive, reminds you of his days when he was on the electoral trail as the chief minister of Gujarat.
There is no doubt Modi is unabashedly polarizing the voters on the issue of the alleged reservation to minorities, especially the Muslims, being propagated directly or otherwise by the opposition. But it’s fair to ask: Is it right to blame him for this without considering the compelling context behind his response? Should the BJP turn a blind eye to the opposition parties’ blatant appeasement of the Muslims?
Hindu consolidation is a necessary corollary of votebank politics in the BJP’s electoral playbook and you cannot expect the BJP to be ostrich-faced in a high-stakes political battle, not just for political power, but for the idea of India which will define the future of the country.
Modi may seem to be antagonistic towards Muslims but the core of his proposition that any reservation as per the Constitution can be only on the basis of caste, as it was originally proposed as a historical corrective to the persecution of the lower caste Hindus, and cannot be extended to other communities on the basis of religion, is indisputable and completely in line with the Constitution.
At the same time, Modi has broken fresh ground with his appeal to the educated Muslims to view the BJP with new eyes emphasizing that his government is not discriminating against anyone, least of all Muslims, while implementing any of the government schemes. This is significant for Modi has never made such a specific overture to the Muslims in the past. But will the Muslim community heed his reasonable plea?
Another departure from the past in Modi’s campaign is the way he has aggressively responded to Rahul Gandhi’s serial abuses linking him with Adani-Ambani, by asking whether Rahul Gandhi’s recent reticence or silence on the issue in his campaigning was because he had received funding from them.
On the face of it, it appears unnecessary and unbecoming of the PM, but in this elections, Modi is going all out to finish off the opposition, which too has been going full tilt against him. So it’s more a case of you reap what you sow.
To further complicate the situation, the apparent dip in voting in a few of the four phases till now has queered the pitch. The commentariat is going to town with each one slicing and dicing the data according to their preferences. For the pro-BJP media, it is the opposition voters who have not come out to vote because the result is already a foregone conclusion. And for the secular liberal media, it is the BJP voters and the middle class who have not come out to vote for the same reason!
Conventionally, an increase in votes polled is seen as a yearning for change, while a decrease in votes underlines a broad disinterest among the people. But these are simplistic inferences and you can never accurately tell which way the electoral dice is going to roll. In the interim, there is ample scope for both sides to amplify and peddle their own perceptions.
The markets too seem to be giving out a suspicious signal: The Financial Institutional Investors (FIIs) have been continuously on a selling spree, though the broader market has remained more or less stable, despite a wobble or two. Are the FIIs selling out, because they know something we don’t? This too has added a layer of mystery to the elections.
Not to be left behind, the media too is trying to maintain the tempo till the results are out on June 4, by amplifying the opposition’s chances and doubting the ascendancy of the BJP.
The trick here is to project that the main issues bothering the people are unemployment and price rise. Ergo, Modi has failed. Granted that these are the issues on the top of the mind, but the media should ask the people who they think is better placed than Modi, in the INDI alliance who have not even announced their PM candidate. Do people really believe that Rahul Gandhi or the INDI alliance’s annual compendium of PMs, can tackle unemployment or inflation and price rise, better than Narendra Modi? The Nation Wants to Know this, and not merely about what issues are troubling them.
The Prime Minister’s take-no-prisoners macho approach has also provoked a counter-narrative in the mainstream media that a 2004 Redux is imminent for Modi. This narrative has tickled the Modi baiters in particular who are desperately praying to see the back of Modi. Let us do some number-crunching.
In a worst case scenario, the states where the BJP’s performance may be below par are likely to be Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Bihar. Here too, it is the allies of the BJP who are vulnerable in Maharashtra and Bihar, and BJP shaky only in Karnataka. In Rajasthan, the BJP can lose a maximum of 4 seats due to local factors. In West Bengal, the BJP may fail to maximize its seats tally and at worst lose half a dozen seats of its own.
Finally, if Modi has to lose, UP has to fall. But notwithstanding the dip in voting in the state, the double-engine of Modi and Yogi, and the electoral dividends from its alliance partners, the RLD (Jat votes) and other minor parties, represents too big a challenge for the opposition which also is in poor shape.
While the Congress is reduced to being a minor player in the state, Mayawati’s BSP is also not a part of the INDI alliance, leaving Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party to do all the heavy lifting on its own. But Akhilesh Yadav himself seems insecure and lacking in confidence as can be seen by the fact that he filed his nomination in Kannauj, where he began his political journey, at the last minute on the last day, when you would expect the tallest leader of the party to be the first to announce his contest. Having lost nearly 4 elections in a row, the SP is fighting for its very survival that too in its first elections it is facing without its supremo, Mulayam Singh Yadav, and all predictions point to the BJP improving upon its performance rather than just retaining its seats, leaving no hope in hell for the opposition.
In all other states, the BJP is predicted by most pollsters to either retain their seats or better their performance. Some gains are expected from outlier states like Tamil Nadu, Andhra and Punjab.
So net net, the BJP may gain nearly as much as it might lose. In the worst case scenario, it might lose a dozen-odd seats more than its gains, and fall short of the 300 mark by a few seats.
With three more phases to go, the narrative that Modi may yet lose will be further milked to the maximum. Indeed, black swan incidents are a fact of life and the only way the BJP can fail to hit the magic mark of 272 seats, is for the people to succumb to the promise of freebies by the opposition, like for example the Congress promising one lakh rupees every year and Aam Aadmi Party’s Arvind Kejriwal, free power.
But that will be a telling comment on the way people vote, leave alone the consequences for the nation and its economy.
Summing up, the worst thing that can happen for Modi, according to the script peddled by secular media spin-masters like Rajdeep Sardesai, is for the BJP to fall short of the majority by 20-odd seats, and for the pro-BJP media, the conservative estimate is around 300-odd seats. Irrespective of which of the two best case scenario for the opposition and worst case scenario for the BJP, a plausible estimate would put the numbers between the two, which means Modi’s third reign seems virtually unstoppable. Only the adjectives and the paraphernalia that celebrate his run will be open to question.