During his Prime Ministership, Narendra Modi has kept journalists at arm’s length as a matter of policy. While he has been very successful in India, he has been occasionally forced to face difficult questions from the press during overseas visits. For instance, during his trip to the US in June, a Wall Street Journal reporter, Sabrina Siddiqui, questioned him inside the White House about human rights, freedom of speech, and minorities in India. Modi readily answered her, but she was immediately subjected to such a vicious online harassment campaign that a senior American official had to step in and call out the trolling as “completely unacceptable” and “antithetical to the very principles of democracy”.
Earlier, in 2015, during his first visit to the United Kingdom as PM, Modi got a taste of what independent media is truly like when he was pointedly questioned about intolerance in India by the BBC’s Justin Rowlatt and the Guardian’s Nicholas Watt in the course of a joint presser with then British Prime Minister David Cameron. Watt didn’t even spare his own premier; he publicly asked Cameron how comfortable he was hosting Modi, embarrassing both. Modi, who had studiously avoided the domestic press after becoming PM in 2014, was visibly stunned by the directness and bluntness of the British journalists, but he managed to give expansive replies. Full transcripts of the exchanges in November 2015 as well as in June 2023 are easily accessible to anyone genuinely interested in knowing how Modi fared in London and Washington. I think he fared pretty well.
Today, in the middle of Assembly elections in five states, if Modi miraculously decides to hold a press conference, he would definitely be asked if the general elections in 2024 would be the last election he will contest. And it would be a fair and legitimate question to ask. Modi turned 73 in September — and there is an unwritten rule in the Bharatiya Janata Party that no one above the age of 75 will be given a party ticket. So will Modi subject himself to the very same rule to which he has subjected BJP leaders like LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Sumitra Mahajan and Kalraj Mishra? After crossing the retirement age of 75, BJP leaders are expected to practice electoral celibacy — shun Parliament and state legislatures, and simply bide their time in the waiting room of God.
At present, there is no way to find out whether the upcoming Lok Sabha polls will be Modi’s last election as I don’t foresee Modi suddenly having a change of heart and holding a press conference so that reporters can quiz him about his career plans. But let us assume that the 2024 general elections will indeed be his last in strict accordance with the BJP rulebook. In that case, the outcome of the ongoing assembly elections in the five states is going to be critical, as it will prove whether the “Modi magic” is intact or has dissipated. If it is intact, the BJP is assured of victory in the 2024 general elections and before that in the Assembly elections now underway, whose results will be announced on December 3. But what if the BJP stumbles on December 3? Can Modi then still pull it off in 2024 — his last election?
Modi’s hands are full these days. He has sidestepped Mizoram but is trying to steer the BJP ship singlehandedly to the shores of victory in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Telangana. We are witnessing a straight fight between Modi and the Opposition in all the four states. State BJP leaders are being systematically played down and Modi is centrestage taking the fight into the enemy camp.
For the first time, the BJP is fighting state elections without a chief ministerial candidate in four key states. Modi’s face dominates all posters, banners and hoardings, with state BJP leaders reduced to footnotes. Modi is directly appealing to the electorate to vote for him. Additionally, he is pitting the lotus as the party’s “face” in the battle with Congress Party’s Ashok Gehlot, Bhupesh Baghel, Kamal Nath and Bharat Rashtra Samithi’s K. Chandrasekhar Rao, and urging voters to ensure its victory. It is crystal clear that Modi is sidelining tried-and-tested old warhorses like Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Vasundhara Raje and Raman Singh — and projecting himself as the BJP candidate across states. Of course, this strategy flies in the face of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s advice to the BJP after this year’s rout in Karnataka not to rely solely on the PM’s popularity and charisma, but to energise and operationalise regional leaders.
If the BJP flounders in these crucial states, its task in 2024 will become very, very tough. In 2018, while BJP didn’t figure in Mizoram and Telangana, it lost to the Congress in MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. But it must be said to Modi’s credit that after losing the state Assembly elections he turned the tide in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls; BJP won nine seats out of 11 in Chhattisgarh, 28 out of 29 in MP and 24 out of 25 in Rajasthan. BJP had also won four Lok Sabha seats in Telangana. Similarly, in Karnataka, which the Congress had won early 2018, BJP grabbed 25 Lok Sabha seats out of 28. Hence Karnataka, MP, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Telangana sent 90 BJP MPs last time. Karnataka is again in the Congress’ pocket. Now, if the BJP loses the ongoing Assembly polls in the remaining four states but Modi somehow manages to get 90 BJP MPs again elected from the five states, he is assured of becoming PM for a straight third term. Then he can hang up his boots in five years — and announce that at his first and last press conference in India.
The author is an independent, Pegasused reporter and commentator on foreign policy and domestic politics
