Modi's lonely battle against heavy odds

When Narendra Modi persuaded LK Advani and others in the BJP's old guard to retire from active politics, he must have felt happy over establishing complete control over the party. But he may not have realised how heavy a burden he will have to carry. Now the Assembly elections cannot but have made him aware of this onerous responsibility.

As has been obvious over the last few weeks, Modi has been conducting the campaign virtually alone. BJP president Amit Shah has also been addressing a fair number of rallies. But no one inside or outside the party can have any doubt that victory or defeat will depend solely on Modi.

It is not only in the present elections that Modi is the sole vote-catcher for his party. This has been the case since 2014. The difference, however, is that while the BJP was winning in 2014 in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand, and Jammu and Kashmir, it is no longer as fortunate. Since a burden seems heavier at a time of failure rather than when one is faring well, the BJP may feel that the road to success is becoming steeper than in 2014.

Moreover, the stakes are now higher for Modi and the BJP. Having lost six elections in a row in the last two years in Delhi, Bihar, West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry – notching up success only in distant Assam – Modi cannot afford to come a cropper in this year's Assembly polls.

It's a must-win situation for him, especially in UP, India's largest state where success or failure sets the tone for a party's prospects at the national level. A victory – or at least an emergence as the largest party in UP's 403-member state legislature – is all the more necessary for the BJP because it cannot be too sure of coming out on top in some of the other states.

In Punjab, for instance, it is virtually a sure loser because of the Akali Dal's heavy anti-incumbency burden. As a partner in the state's ruling alliance, the BJP will have to go down with the losers. In Goa, the party will be wary of the fissures in its support base caused by the breakaway RSS faction, led by Subhash Velingkar.

All these years, the BJP used to depend on the RSS cadres to mobilise its supporters. This time the party and the head of the Parivar will be working at cross-purposes in Goa. In normal circumstances, the Congress might have been able to gain from the rift in the Hindutva camp. But the X factor this time is the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

It is the same in Punjab. There, too, the Congress would have been expected to benefit from the Akali Dal-BJP government's poor image caused by the prevalence of the drug menace and the dynastic ambitions of Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal. But the AAP is the fly in the Congress's ointment because of the belief that the average voter may dump both the Akalis and the Congress and opt for new faces and the promise of clean governance which is the AAP's trump card.

If the unfamiliar faces of the warriors from the AAP pose the primary challenge in Punjab and Goa, it is the all-too-familiar face of Akhilesh Yadav in U.P. who has the potential to upstage Modi where the development plank is concerned. Behind Modi's phenomenal success in U.P. in 2014 was the promise of 'achhe din' based on economic growth. But his government's performance at the Centre has belied such hopes. To make matters worse, demonetisation is threatening to slow down the economy.

While Akhilesh Yadav's government hasn't done well in the state – it lags behind in nearly all sectors, whether it is agriculture, where the growth rate is 4.2 per cent against Madhya Pradesh's 18.8, or industry where the growth rate is an abysmal 1.9 per cent against neighbouring Uttarakhand's 12.3 and even Bihar's 9.07 – the failures are likely to be ascribed to the Chief Minister's adversaries within the Yadav clan who did not give him a free hand.

Now, having rid himself of the baggage of his father, Mulayam Singh, and uncle Shivpal, Akhilesh will be expected to live up to his promise of bringing UP into the modern age. The jury is out on whether the electorate will repose its faith in the new poster-boy of development or the old one, but the growing shrillness of Modi's rhetoric – he has chosen the acronym SCAM to stand for Samajwadi Party-Congress-Akhilesh-Mayawati – hints at his nervousness as he fights a lonely battle.

A possible reason for his unease is the tie-up between the Samajwadi Party and the Congress which is likely to secure the Muslim votes for the alliance as it will be seen to have a fair chance of success. If the two parties hadn't been able to strike a deal, it is possible that the Muslims, who comprise 19.3 per cent of the voters in UP, would have opted for Mayawati. Now, they may well vote en bloc for the SP-Congress combine.