Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to have pivoted back to a rather comfortable position after appearing to stumble for a few weeks. Since the general elections began in India, Modi has been on his lowest ebb. The media had even begun to discuss the possibilities of “minus Modi” India.
Now, the tone of the discourse is back to discussing Modi’s continued reign in India. This is despite the PM having made gaffes in his campaign speeches and media interviews, and even turning to tears which is now not considered a show of real pathos, but scripted theatrics.
Most reporters and independent analysts contacted by The Friday Times however are unwavering with their observation that there has been a sharp slide in the popularity of PM Modi and subsequently, the prospects of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government.
While those predicting doom for Modi still seem to be in the majority, there are also some reputed observers who have noted that the BJP has high chances despite its struggles.
The most prominent pollster, who has a premonition of the BJP returning to power is professional political consultant Prashant Kishor, who says that despite not gaining in the south and the north east, the BJP will still manage to chalk up a comfortable walk to the majority mark with its shining performance in the north and the west.
He suggested in a TV interview that for the BJP to lose power at the center, it would have to lose at least 100 seats in the north and the west. He said that in the east and the south – Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala – there are at least 240 Lok Sabha seats. Of these, the BJP has less than 50 seats.
“But still, the BJP walks away with 300 seats because the remaining 300 seats, which are in the north and the west, BJP has won 260-270 seats,” Kishor said. He said BJP could not lose the Lok Sabha elections if it did not lose 80-100 seats in the north and the west.
“Chances are that it would struggle to hold onto seats it won in the last elections even as polling is now entering areas where it performs the best – the Hindi heartland,” he told journalist Barkha Dutt in an interview. Yadav was categorical in stating that the BJP, based on present observations, is below the 272 mark.
Predicting the Lok Sabha elections results, Kishor said that he doesn’t believe that BJP will lose 100 seats in the north and the west. According to him, BJP will suffer a setback of at best 20-30 seats. It means the BJP will comfortably eke out 272 plus – the mark needed for a simple majority in the Lok Sabha.
In another noteworthy reading of the BJP’s good performance under the stewardship of PM Modi is the The Economist’s estimate of popular votes. The magazine’s analysis based on local surveys reveals that young voters, which make up the majority of the overall electorate in India, are in favor of PM Modi and see him as a mascot of the “forward and progressive march of India.”
NDTV, once a credible news channel, and now under the ownership of the Adani Group, a business conglomerate close to PM Modi, has claimed in a ground report called “Battleground” that the BJP’s chances of scoring big in UP are high, as the party, under its chief minister Yogi Adityanath, has managed to keep people bewitched with its Hindutva planks and good governance record. The report says that the herding of Muslims behind the Congress-SP alliance has also consolidated Hindu votes in favor of BJP whose communal tricks, like building the Ram Temple in Ayodhya just before the polls has worked by shepherding Hindus in the name of Ram.
Besides, says the report, PM Modi contesting the election from the holy city of Varanasi and Congress’ Rahul Gandhi contesting from his family stronghold of Rae Bareli has also heated up the election and the more the contest becomes about Rahul versus Modi, the more the BJP stands to gain.
Psephological stalwarts like Yogendra Yadav negate such prophecies. He has toured India extensively during the first four phases of polling. His understanding is that the BJP’s NDA bloc has already lost around 40 seats and it might lose 10 more seats in the coming three phases. “Chances are that it would struggle to hold onto seats it won in the last elections even as polling is now entering areas where it performs the best – the Hindi heartland,” he told journalist Barkha Dutt in an interview. Yadav was categorical in stating that the BJP, based on present observations, is below the 272 mark.
Why is this so? Yadav said that unlike previous elections, the mood and frenzy among BJP supporters has fizzled out. “Plus, for BJP, the elections didn’t go as it intended and as it had expected. The situation has changed with every stage of polling,” he said. Yadav added that in several pockets, he saw a “big shift” of votes away from BJP, even in its strongholds like Rajasthan and Haryana.
This multi-pronged prognosis of the election outcome has intensified the debate on how India will look - with or without Modi. Will the country tread on the path which bodes well for the economy, but regresses into socially divisive communalism? Or will the BJP subdue its communal rhetoric after a significant third time victory and roll out much-awaited reforms? Will the election results usher in an era of rejuvenated Congress-led rule which will fold up the malaises of the ousted BJP regime and embark on a social justice agenda, as it has pompously promised in its manifesto?
India, Plus Modi
Modi is often compared to former PM Indira Gandhi. Both popular and powerful, these two Prime Ministers arguably remade India synonymous with their person. Gandhi won and lost elections. Modi hasn’t. If he wins a third term, he will eclipse Gandhi as being the second longest reigning Indian Prime Minister after Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.
But listen to his campaign speeches and his interviews, you can easily gauge what India has been and could be under him in the future. He is eloquent. He makes promises clearly. He targets the opposition leaders with a perfect mastery of theatrics, but it is also undoubtedly true that he is stumbling. His gaffes, which were routine, are now more ludicrous, leading to an increased number of cartoons and memes about them doing the rounds on the internet. He spells out the record of his government and future blueprint with a convincing clarity. However, he is making claims which only he can make like “he almost instrumentalized a pause in the Gaza fighting during Ramzan.” He has never had any remorse for his communal rhetoric and so his anti-Muslim wording in campaign speeches is in line with that tendency. But he has also learnt to mollify Muslims, even without much success.
Modi has largely been groomed by his party BJP and RSS – their parent organization – to be exactly like that: a man who could talk big, who could get things done, and browbeat opponents and still be seen positively.
His reign in Gujarat as chief minister was never torpedoed. His shot at power as PM of India was even grander. His magic kept the media spellbound, perhaps until very recently, when social media created its own space.
Modi will not change and neither will his style of working as a BJP campaigner and his handling of the administration. His government, however, may change, finally leading to his banishment from the political scene. That will be the only “minus Modi” moment for India.
BJP actually chose to highlight its developmental record and sold an aspirational set of ideals as its blueprint to govern India. Its punchline has been “Modi Ki Guarantee” – which means PM Modi guarantees to ensure Indians’ development, which is claimed to be both inclusive and multidimensional. The party also has a sound record to show off.
But before that moment comes, Modi is out there pleading his case before the people of India to elongate his era at the helm.
The election manifesto of BJP this time was somewhat different. It didn’t make references to the Ram Temple and the revocation of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir. These two promises, along with introduction of the Uniform Civil Code, with the obvious purpose to do away with Muslim personal laws that make Muslims look specially privileged, used to be the signature tune of the party to lure Hindu votes. While the party has fulfilled the first two, the third is no longer a gung-ho echo, even though the party persists with it.
BJP actually chose to highlight its developmental record and sold an aspirational set of ideals as its blueprint to govern India. Its punchline has been “Modi Ki Guarantee” – which means PM Modi guarantees to ensure Indians’ development, which is claimed to be both inclusive and multidimensional. The party also has a sound record to show off. The road network in the country has been built with unprecedented speed. The number of airports in the country has doubled, and even small towns like Noida, Aligarh and Ayodhya have their own. Housing and health schemes for the poor have been implemented with praiseworthy dexterity, sans discrimination.
The Modi government introduced and implemented the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) despite huge protests by Muslims. The government didn’t back out, and has now started to distribute citizenship certificates to Hindus, in the first batch to those who migrated from Pakistan.
Similarly, it has refused to yield to farmers who are demanding constitutional guarantees for a minimum support price for their crops and other reforms. They are still agitating in Punjab and Haryana – the two states where BJP is being touted to be the weakest in the ongoing elections. The government nevertheless is adamant to introduce its own reforms, which will be market-friendly and will introduce competition for peasants.
The word “market” or “economy” assumes actually a thematic importance in the party’s lexicon. In an interview, apart from other issues, Modi has laid greater emphasis on economic strides his government has made and how he plans to take India into the comity of developed nations by making India the world’s third largest economy by 2027.
He has openly batted for businessmen like Adani and Ambani – two giants of corporate India that he cohorts – as wealth creators whose prowess of generating capital must be lauded and encouraged.
PM Modi has actually claimed to have charted a 100-day roadmap for his next government. According to him, this roadmap will be premised on suggestions from 2 million youth across India.
Modi’s development plans for his next government provides glimpses into how India will look under the tenure of his premiership.
There are plans for a new interest subsidy scheme on loans for affordable homes, which were first announced by Modi last year. The subsidy is aimed at driving growth in the real estate sector.
Modi, who started his campaign with boasting about record of his government and promises in his party’s manifesto, soon lapsed into his “communal campaigner” avatar and called Muslims “infiltrators,” illegal entrants into welfare schemes, unjust claimants of reservations and those who have more children. His party colleagues, including his close confidante and Home Minister Amit Shah, are echoing the same.
Similarly, Modi’s plans for his term to make India a developed country by 2047 and some of the steps it seeks to introduce for that goal are amending the insolvency and bankruptcy law to reduce delays and maximize returns from liquidated assets, and increasing the strength of the bankruptcy tribunal for faster disposal of cases. The BJP seeks to implement rules for facilitating Indian companies to list shares directly on international exchanges in Gujarat’s financial hub. While the rules were notified earlier this year, the process for listing is still awaited.
Modi is promising the signing of free trade agreements with the UK and Oman to expand trade networks and generation of jobs, and developing an industry for Indian-made commercial aircraft by 2035. The list of promises includes preparing a blueprint for developing India’s own credit ratings company, and pushing states for more reforms on vehicular pollution and making municipal corporations financially self-sufficient. Put together, the BJP claims its economic agenda will lead to an increase in the size of the economy to $30 trillion from $3.5 trillion currently, by 2047, and a seven-fold jump in per capita income to $18,000 a year.
Beneath the veneer of these grandiose promises, stark reality stares the Modi government in the face. Its sudden unannounced demonetization scheme in 2016 had rendered medium and small-scale industries (MSMEs) ravaged beyond repair. They are slowly recovering on their own. In addition, the haphazard introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) has similarly disturbed domestic industries. This disturbance has led to widespread unemployment and the government hasn’t introduced any measures to tackle the problem, except temporarily recruiting infantry level soldiers for the Army through the Agniveer scheme.
When reporters are going into the field, they are meeting youth who are incensed with the Modi government only because it promised “acche din” (good days) but it didn’t deliver, only doing so for big businessmen like Adani and Ambani – the crony capitalists, as most educated youth now openly say. But, PM Modi in his interview with Aaj Tak TV channel, when asked about noted economist Thomas Piketty’s recent report on capital inequality in India, said that “to whichever extent one has been able to move ahead on prosperity index, one must be content, and should take further steps from that threshold.”
Apart from economic inequality and rising unemployment, the Modi government, and especially PM Modi himself, has raised alarms about the intensity of communal and religious polarization. The number of incidents targeting Muslims have been rising almost daily in the last decade – Muslims have been lynched, killed in communal riots, their houses have been bulldozed, they have been charged under draconian laws like UAPA and a number of them continue to languish in jails.
Reams of daily reports and opinion pieces have been written about the Modi government’s vindictive and selective use of the Central agencies like Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to hound opposition leaders and hostile media persons. A record number of opposition leaders have joined BJP before and during elections allegedly because of fear of such agencies. This useful method, which works so well for BJP and its government, will continue in the next Modi term as well.
One major concern about the future Modi government is that it will alter the Constitution of India. Some political pundits fear that the coming BJP government might altogether remove the words “secular” and “socialist” from the Preamble. Plus, a number of amendments will be introduced to change the structure of governance to suit the Hindu-centric designs of the RSS, minimize the benefits or protections given to minorities and oppressed classes. PM Modi, in his interview, rejected these as illusions being created by Congress.
Put together, the BJP claims its economic agenda will lead to an increase in the size of the economy to $30 trillion from $3.5 trillion currently, by 2047, and a seven-fold jump in per capita income to $18,000 a year.
Modi, who started his campaign with boasting about record of his government and promises in his party’s manifesto, soon lapsed into his “communal campaigner” avatar and called Muslims “infiltrators,” illegal entrants into welfare schemes, unjust claimants of reservations and those who have more children. His party colleagues, including his close confidante and Home Minister Amit Shah, are echoing the same. When Aaj Tak interviewers grilled him about this, he said that he was drawing a parallel to show how faulty Congress’ way of distributing welfare advantages has been. He added that he was so Muslim-friendly that he sent his special envoy to Israel to stop the bombardment of Gaza during Ramzan. He almost said that he convinced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt Israeli strikes on Palestinians.
He has also made a number of gaffes in his campaign speeches and in one rally he mocked an opposition leader for not knowing the name of districts in his states and capitals of those districts. There are no capitals in districts! His gaffes are duly converted into memes and go viral on social media.
But, will Modi’s slips of tongue lead to his slip from power? Or will another perch as PM help him shed the communal streak and unleash the economic reforms that he is promising and bring about the transformations that aspirational Indians expect from him sorely? The answer is only a few weeks away.
India, Minus Modi
The majority of Indians have always been in opposition. They have never elected any PM, not even Nehru or Indira, with 50% or more votes. The Modi-led BJP secured 31.5% and 38% votes in 2014 and 2019 respectively. If the BJP goes below the 30% mark, Modi will be out of power. The absence of Modi and BJP from power means the rule of the Congress-led INDIA bloc. It may also mean the inauguration of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi as PM of India.
But will it bode well for India? Let’s understand this by dissecting the manifesto of Congress – the first blueprint of their possible rule. The party has named it Nyaya Patra (Justice Document) to highlight loopholes in the BJP-led government’s development and promised schemes.
It talks about the five largest sections of society and promises to give them justice or nyay. It vows to address social justice issues through hissedari nyay, youth issues through yuva nyay, the problems of farmers through kisan nyay, women’s concerns through nari nyay and those of workers through shramik nyay.
In order to achieve its nyaya target, the Congress manifesto says “we will conduct a nationwide Socioeconomic and Caste Census (SECC) to enumerate castes and sub-castes, and their socioeconomic conditions. Based on the data, we will strengthen the agenda for affirmative action. The Congress guarantees that it will pass a constitutional amendment to raise the 50% cap on reservations for SC, ST and OBC.”
Congress leaders, most specifically Rahul Gandhi, are playing up this promise as the most potent counter to BJP’s politics of exclusion. In his Lucknow address last week, Gandhi said that without a proper count of castes in India, it is not possible to bring about proper equality in society.
Congress’ big promises may be mired in doubts about their execution feasibility, one change that the future opposition alliance government will definitely ensure is that it might immediately help free people incarcerated on trumped up charges.
But both Congress and Gandhi’s promise is riddled with a major flaw. While the promise to raise the reservation cap is welcome, the manifesto should have mentioned that this would be in proportion to the population of these sections. Here the Congress also missed out on the concept of “true social justice and complete inclusion.” Proportional representation is the essence of any democracy. The Congress manifesto should have gone beyond the SECC and clearly said that the SC, ST and OBCs would be given representation in all positions of power in proportion to their percentage in the population. Thus, it seems very unfeasible that Congress, once in the government, will conduct a caste census. If it doesn’t do so, it will soon lose credibility and will make way for BJP’s return.
Political analyst Kubool Qureshi says that Congress will not back out from its caste census promise. “First, caste is the counter to communalism that is the BJP’s mainstay in politics. Congress will continue to latch on to it. Besides, all Congress allies in the INDIA bloc are caste leaders and they will force the alliance government to go ahead with it. In addition, since no party, including BJP, can afford to anger castes, the census will be conducted without hassle,” he said.
But Saad Usmani, a journalist with Hindi daily Punjab Kesari, sees Congress’ promise as only a tactic to hoodwink social justice movements run by lower castes. “Congress has borrowed social justice planks from caste movements. It has been and still is a party of upper caste leaders like the organizational hierarchy in the RSS. These upper castes will not easily cede power to lower castes. It could only be used as an election weapon to win the favor of the masses to come to power,” he said.
Given Rahul Gandhi’s insistence on the caste census and his rhetoric on social justice, Congress will very likely go ahead with its caste census promise. Gandhi also repeated this promise during his two pan-India on-foot walks before the elections. However, Congress governments in states like Karnataka and Telangana have not initiated such a move on their own. Bihar, on the other hand, under BJP ally Nitish Kumar, has already conducted such a census.
The caste census will either open a pandora’s box or popularize the party whoever will introduce it and implement it.
Similarly, another grand scheme that the Congress government plans to introduce to race past the Modi government’s welfare for women is to distribute INR 100,000 per annum to women living below the poverty line. This populist sop will require a sound reserve in government coffers to meet the target. During a campaign in Rae Bareli, when a reporter put this question to Rahul’s sister Priyanka Gandhi, she shot back that when PM Modi’s government could write off bank loans worth hundreds of millions for some capitalists, why couldn’t poor women be paid Rs 8,500 per month? She didn’t elaborate on exact statistics.
In the section about youth issues, the future Congress government promises to fill 3 million vacancies in the central government. This is a welcome promise, but Congress should have first talked about inclusion of all the state-level OBC castes in the central OBC list. If these jobs are filled without including all these OBC castes in the central OBC list, they will all be left out. This would be a grave injustice. Most of the poor, educated and unemployed youth belong to the OBC section.
Congress’ big promises may be mired in doubts about their execution feasibility, one change that the future opposition alliance government will definitely ensure is that it might immediately help free people incarcerated on trumped up charges. It might restore confidence in minorities about their security. It might free independent media persons from fear of persecution and harassment. A failure on this front or deliberate strangulating of minorities and media is the most glaring drawback of the Modi government.
Meanwhile, as hinted by senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram, the economic and foreign policies of every government only change clothes - their bodies remain the same. Even the “minus Modi” Congress government will continue to woo crony capitalists. It might not serenade them, but the tune of the music will not change much.