Modi’s success can be a BJP failure
17 Oct 2012 10:54 PM GMT
The Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP] faces a curious situation wherein neither the success nor the failure of Narendra Modi in the Gujarat elections is conducive to the National Democratic Alliance’s [NDA] political health. If the Hindu hriday samrat wins, as seems likely, then he will set off the process of the NDA’s dissolution, since there is no way that Nitish Kumar can accept the possibility of the Gujarat strong man emerging as a prime ministerial candidate.
Yet, the same dismal fate may overtake the alliance if Modi loses, since the resultant boost to the Congress’s prestige will undermine the NDA even more dramatically than the 2004 and 2009 defeats. Moreover, the Bihar chief minister may reconsider his future in it as the West Bengal and Odisha chief ministers did in 2009.
The BJP’s hope, of course, is that the party itself will fare well enough in 2014 to keep the NDA afloat. As one of its spokesmen has said, if it can get 150-plus seats, then it will act as a magnet for some of the others. This confidence is reflected in the party’s Bihar chief, C P Thakur’s assertion that it will contest all the 40 parliamentary seats in Bihar this time.
But, there are several imponderables. One is that the BJP may not find it easy to return to the days of the 24-member coalition in Atal Behari Vajpayee’s time since none of the party’s present leaders can match the former prime minister’s stature as a pan-Indian personality despite all their pretensions.
Although Vajpayee’s moderate image was described as a mukhota or mask by, among others, a saffron ideologue, K N Govindacharya, the former nevertheless inspired a sense of trust even among his opponents because he was seen as a gentleman. Since there is virtually no one in the BJP today who can measure up to this standard, the chances of the NDA-plus, as it has been called, crossing the 272 mark in the Lok Sabha do not seem all that bright.
It has to be remembered that even Vajpayee could not save the NDA once it began to unravel in the aftermath of the Gujarat riots. So, if the ‘modern day Nero’, as Modi was called by the Supreme Court of India in the context of the riots, is seen as a prospective leader of NDA-plus – even if someone else is chosen as a stopgap replacement to rally the ditherers – then the alliance is unlikely to be stable.
It is possible, therefore, that L K Advani’s expectation – or hope – that a prime minister will emerge from a non-BJP, non-Congress party will come true with the rath yatri of 1990 anticipating that he will be seen as a possible answer since neither Sushma Swaraj, who is Bal Thackeray’s choice, nor Arun Jaitley has a mass base.
As for Modi, his first target in the ensuing elections in Gujarat will be to ensure that the BJP gets at least 117 seats [out of 182], which it won in 2007. Anything short of that will mean that his popularity is waning. Since the party won 127 seats in 2002, even the figure of 117 denotes a marginal slide, especially when the much discredited Congress raised its tally from 51seats in 2002 to 59 five years later even as its vote share remained static – 39.2 in 2002 and 39.6 in 2007.
The year 2002 was, of course, the crucial year for Modi. If the BJP won the highest ever number of seats in the state in that year, the reason was the surge of support that the party received from the communal-minded Hindus. Ever since then, however, Modi has been distancing himself from the riots, which won him the support. Instead, he has been focussing on his developmental record and even sought to erase the past by going on sadbhavna or goodwill fasts in aid of social harmony.
But, none of these efforts has been of much help in refurbishing his image. As a result, even if the BJP wins 117 seats or more, the ‘modern day Nero’ will remain in the doghouse so far as the secular camp is concerned, which includes the Janata Dal [United]. Normally, a third successive victory is an occasion for special celebrations, especially for a chief minister who has a wide base of support in his party and among a sizeable section of the population as well as the corporate sector.
But, in Modi’s case, it will entail intense political calculations by both friends and foes because his success is expected to create problems rather than provide solutions. And the reason is the shadow, which will be cast over his victory by factors which are at odds with the country’s pluralistic ethos. The pride, therefore, which the BJP once used to take in presenting Gujarat as a model state for its experiments with Hindutva is no longer very relevant for the party. [IPA]
Yet, the same dismal fate may overtake the alliance if Modi loses, since the resultant boost to the Congress’s prestige will undermine the NDA even more dramatically than the 2004 and 2009 defeats. Moreover, the Bihar chief minister may reconsider his future in it as the West Bengal and Odisha chief ministers did in 2009.
The BJP’s hope, of course, is that the party itself will fare well enough in 2014 to keep the NDA afloat. As one of its spokesmen has said, if it can get 150-plus seats, then it will act as a magnet for some of the others. This confidence is reflected in the party’s Bihar chief, C P Thakur’s assertion that it will contest all the 40 parliamentary seats in Bihar this time.
But, there are several imponderables. One is that the BJP may not find it easy to return to the days of the 24-member coalition in Atal Behari Vajpayee’s time since none of the party’s present leaders can match the former prime minister’s stature as a pan-Indian personality despite all their pretensions.
Although Vajpayee’s moderate image was described as a mukhota or mask by, among others, a saffron ideologue, K N Govindacharya, the former nevertheless inspired a sense of trust even among his opponents because he was seen as a gentleman. Since there is virtually no one in the BJP today who can measure up to this standard, the chances of the NDA-plus, as it has been called, crossing the 272 mark in the Lok Sabha do not seem all that bright.
It has to be remembered that even Vajpayee could not save the NDA once it began to unravel in the aftermath of the Gujarat riots. So, if the ‘modern day Nero’, as Modi was called by the Supreme Court of India in the context of the riots, is seen as a prospective leader of NDA-plus – even if someone else is chosen as a stopgap replacement to rally the ditherers – then the alliance is unlikely to be stable.
It is possible, therefore, that L K Advani’s expectation – or hope – that a prime minister will emerge from a non-BJP, non-Congress party will come true with the rath yatri of 1990 anticipating that he will be seen as a possible answer since neither Sushma Swaraj, who is Bal Thackeray’s choice, nor Arun Jaitley has a mass base.
As for Modi, his first target in the ensuing elections in Gujarat will be to ensure that the BJP gets at least 117 seats [out of 182], which it won in 2007. Anything short of that will mean that his popularity is waning. Since the party won 127 seats in 2002, even the figure of 117 denotes a marginal slide, especially when the much discredited Congress raised its tally from 51seats in 2002 to 59 five years later even as its vote share remained static – 39.2 in 2002 and 39.6 in 2007.
The year 2002 was, of course, the crucial year for Modi. If the BJP won the highest ever number of seats in the state in that year, the reason was the surge of support that the party received from the communal-minded Hindus. Ever since then, however, Modi has been distancing himself from the riots, which won him the support. Instead, he has been focussing on his developmental record and even sought to erase the past by going on sadbhavna or goodwill fasts in aid of social harmony.
But, none of these efforts has been of much help in refurbishing his image. As a result, even if the BJP wins 117 seats or more, the ‘modern day Nero’ will remain in the doghouse so far as the secular camp is concerned, which includes the Janata Dal [United]. Normally, a third successive victory is an occasion for special celebrations, especially for a chief minister who has a wide base of support in his party and among a sizeable section of the population as well as the corporate sector.
But, in Modi’s case, it will entail intense political calculations by both friends and foes because his success is expected to create problems rather than provide solutions. And the reason is the shadow, which will be cast over his victory by factors which are at odds with the country’s pluralistic ethos. The pride, therefore, which the BJP once used to take in presenting Gujarat as a model state for its experiments with Hindutva is no longer very relevant for the party. [IPA]
Next Story
