With barely a year left for next year’s general elections, matters are beginning to hot up in the ruling BJP with Prime Minister Narendra Modi gung-ho about a second consecutive term in office. Even as the task at hand is daunting, the opposition, particularly the regional satraps, are trying to knit themselves into a purposeful, cohesive combine to overcome the aggressive saffron brigade.
The non-BJP Front has put on the back burner the leadership issue despite the odd hat being thrown in the ring. BSP supremo Mayawati has taken a long shot at it. Random polls held recently puts Modi way ahead in personal popularity compared to the others but is just nudging ahead if the elections are held straightaway. The never-say-die Head of Government has already begun his party’s campaign. Compare this to Modi’s senior and party stalwart in former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee seeking a second term amid a “shining India” campaign coming a cropper in 2004.
There is no doubt the results of the general election held a decade later was stunning when the BJP earned the distinction of achieving a majority on its own for the first time in the Lok Sabha since it was formed in 1980. Before emplaning for the national capital after the results were declared, Modi expressed confidence at a public meeting in his home state of Gujarat four years back that if the people could keep the Congress in power at the Centre for nearly six decades, he did not think the people will grudge giving the Lotus party at least 120 months or two terms of five-years each on the majestic Raisina Hill in New Delhi.
The circumstances this time around is vastly different than the one when Vajpayee made his bid. During his relentness and whirlwind campaigning, Modi made a multitude of pledges. These largely failed to materialise in the 48 months that he has completed in office. The much touted “achhe din aane wale hain” slogan has just paled into insignificance.
Problems abound whether it is the distress faced by farmers leave alone doubling their income as well as the direly needed employment generation among a host of promises remaining elusive. The pluses pertain to implementing the GST with certain expensive glitches, putting in place stricter legislation for crimes against women and trying to end open defacation. Then there is the Jan Dhan Yojana and distribution of cooking gas connections to the poor under the Ujjwala Yojana.
Compounding matters is the spiralling prices of diesel and petrol which has touched an all time high having the portends of stoking inflation and slowing down economic growth. Though the NDA continues to enjoy a comfortable overall tally in the Lok Sabha, the BJP has slipped below the majority mark by a lone seat as its tally has steadily dipped to 271 from its initial strength of 282 in the 543-member House.
It is in this context that the BJP faces an immediate test in four Lok Sabha and ten assembly seats in as many states where bypolls were held earlier this week on Monday. The results will be known tomorrow on Thursday. The overbearing atttitude of the Modi government towards its allies has already led to the Shiv Sena fighting elections on its own. Now, the TDP chief and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu has ditched the NDA for going back on its promises.
He believes the BJP will not be able to form the government at the Centre next year. He has no doubt that the regional leaders ranged against the saffron brigade will play a key role. He described Modi as “a campaign Prime Minister who only gives slogans but fails to deliver on his promises. The BJP forming the government again is a distant dream”, Naidu added.
On its part, the Congress, the highly depleted main opposition party in the Lok Sabha, lampooned the exhaustive report card of the Modi government accusing it of betraying the country. The question is can the Lotus party replicate its staggering performance in the Hindi belt particularly winning 71 out of 80 seats in the Lok Sabha from Uttar Pradesh? This propelled the BJP in securing a majority in the Lower House, and along with its allies, easily cross the rubicon of 300 with a comfortable majority of 340 seats in the Lok Sabha.
Being in the last lap, BJP’s gambit will be to manage public opinion in its favour. For the opposition, Congress president Rahul Gandhi has spoken of becoming the prime minister if the oldest political party in the country gets a majority which is being highly overambitious.
Simultaneously, the show of solidarity by the regional satraps at the swearing-in ceremony of H D Kumaraswamy of the JD(S) as the chief minister in a coalition with the Congress in Bengaluru recently has been an ecouraging sign. This has facilitated keeping the BJP out of contention in the only southern state where it has held power once, thus botching its chances of finding a direly needed gateway to the South.
Opposition fronts at least on three occasions in the past failed since the Janata party government in 1977-79 fell by the wayside after the initial ethusiasm of defeating the rival. The fallout of such a scenario if the non-BJP opposition crumbles yet again, then the Lotus party is bound to retain power at the Centre with an increased majority.
T R Ramachandran is a senior journalist and commentator.
