Agartala, Jun 04, 2024, Manas Pal
Narendra Modi has returned but he is now hugely constrained a crown. The election results are unexpected for Modi himself and the party-BJP, in general. His over confidence has killed.
It actually became clear after first phase of polls that the Hindus were not coming out to vote the way Muslims were—thus ringing an alarm bell in the saffron quarters. That’s why PM Modi after the first phase tweaked his poll campaign with ‘Hindutva overtures’ and asking “all” to come out and vote.
One can safely feel that the high bar of 400 mark and overconfidence of Modi, as well as his leaders, affected the poll prospect as complacency set in, and even BJP’s committed Hindu electors did not prefer to face the sweltering heat wave and remained homebound on the polling day thinking that one or two less votes won’t make any difference. These absent one or two votes ultimately turned out the spoiler as it pulled the NDA figure down from high bar.
The way entire campaign and BJP politics by and large, of late, became ‘Modi oriented’ with a ‘larger than life’ figure being projected also had negative impact in the Indian psyche. The RSS, as reported, being particularly peeved at this ‘growth of personal cult’ may have some truth in it. There are already speculations in the circulation that the Sangh this time did not throw its entire weight behind Modi.
Now, with the constrained mandate Modi will face difficulties in implementing several important tasks, especially reforms like enforcement of Uniform Civil Code, NRC etc although the ongoing programmes and projects might continue as expected.
But, at this moment what must be worrying Modi is Nitish Kumar. Nitish is an infamous snollygoster and if he is properly coerced and offered the ‘Prime Minister’s position’, he may very well leave Modi in the cold and join the INDI bloc happily. But then the INDI bloc also would need some more. Chandrababu Naidu is unlikely to ditch Modi but then every thing is possible in politics that time and again tends to offer strange bed fellows.
This election in many ways taught BJP many things. While several Union Ministers including firebrand Smriti Irani bit the dust, the ‘Performer’ Nitin Gadkari sailed through smiling.
One of the worst shockers came from Uttar Pradesh.
It is said that when a saint or a Yogi is disgraced, take it for granted that there is a role of a woman behind. History and mythology are replete with such examples. So when the BJP’s UP results came in, much to the consternation of Yogi Adityanath, one may find that it was a woman who played a key for his worry – Mayawati. Both she and her party BSP had already lost credibility amongst the Dalits and SCs over the last several years. Still this time BJP was of the opinion that BSP would pick up a considerable Dalit and SC votes taking away the wind from Akhilesh Yadav’s sail. That did not happen as during these elections BSP and Mayawati remained virtually irrelevant in the political arena giving the SP a free field to play the caste politics freely and pool the Dalit and SC electorates against the BJP.
Then, what are on the cards at this moment? Too early to say, but off hand it seems Amit Shah will be brought back to run the organizational matters as it would need weeding and overhauling in an aggressive manner. At this moment only Amit Shah can do that in a proactive manner.
It was a matter of debate whether the idea to bring back PoK, as espoused in the election time, mostly by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Home Minister Amit Shaha, was a good idea –whether it would ultimately turn out a carbuncle on the head, but there was by and large agreement amongst the educated voters , even amongst many of the Left inclined intellectuals despite all popular pretensions that UCC should be implemented to preserve the ‘secular character’ of the country. But now, this is not going to happen. At this point it is quite likely that the BJP would have to relook at its strategy and seek to consolidate the ‘Hindus’ in a more intense campaign , especially at the backdrop of near total absence of Muslim votes in its kitty.