Blame Modi-Amit Shah for helping Opposition unite against BJP
Recent developments suggest that Narendra Modi and his BJP can no longer afford to be sanguine about their prospects in the next parliamentary elections. Yes, there was an impressive win in Tripura less than a month ago, but that is a state with just two parliamentary constituencies, and the news from elsewhere is far from encouraging.
The BJP saved its Gujarat bastion with some difficulty in December 2017 and has lost all but one of the 13 parliamentary and Assembly by-elections held in 2018. The reverses have happened both in states where it was optimistic about maintaining its edge over the Opposition (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh and those where it had hoped to make major inroads (Odisha and West Bengal).
Another perhaps more significant portent of the changing political wind comes from the evolving stances of regional and smaller parties. BJP allies from several states have either jumped ship recently or have begun making dissonant noises, two formidable regional opponents who seemed irreconcilable till not too long ago are inching closer to each other in UP, a federal front is being talked about, and the wily Sharad Pawar has begun exploring viable anti-BJP groupings.
While the chatterati have the luxury of dismissing realignment conversations as signs of political desperation and opportunism, the BJP will take these lightly at its own peril. Even the smallest allies had a key contribution to the 2014 result, both in terms of magnifying the Modi aura and influencing votes in many more constituencies than their allotted strongholds, and their exit will hurt.
More importantly, regional and small parties usually have their ears closer to the ground, and their growing openness to considering non-BJP options suggests that they may be sniffing a change in voter mood.
There are three related axes around which the anti-BJP conversation is shaping up. The first focuses on puncturing the exaggerated claims of the Modi government and its all-round failure in delivering "achhe din", a line the Congress took with some success in Gujarat.
The second dwells on the Modi government’s callous attitude to regional aspirations and its unfair treatment of regional Opposition-led states, the factors said to be behind the Telugu Desam Party’s exit from the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s federal front initiative.
The third relates to a strong anti-democratic strain in the functioning of the ruling party and government, with sweeping decisions such as demonetisation taken without much consultation, Opposition leaders being hounded, much energy being devoted to sabotaging Opposition governments and installing BJP/NDA state governments even after electoral rejection, and meddling in the working of constitutional and other authorities. Together, these have spawned concern across the Opposition spectrum and encouraged some unlikely team-ups.
The Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party tie-up for the UP by-elections has made the most news, but there are others too. The Andhra Pradesh-Telangana parties, though not exactly friends, are on the same side as far as special status state demands go, KCR is hobnobbing with Mamata Banerjee, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha has reached an understanding with the Congress, and the Left joined Pawar’s Save Constitution march in Mumbai. Not everyone of these has the potential to mature into a firm coalition, but there is enough in them to suggest that the road ahead for the BJP has more showstoppers than before.
The BJP may have its defence against the mounting criticism it faces on grounds of non-performance, regional neglect and anti-democratic attitude, but the fact of the matter is that these have emerged as the principal themes around which the anti-BJP sentiment is coalescing. As for how and why these emerged, much of the blame must go to the Modi-Amit Shah duo.
The BJP’s top two have made no secret of their Congress-mukt Bharat agenda or their desire for a longer stint in the government, ostensibly to realise a "new India". Political ambition itself is not exceptionable, but the Modi-Shah duo’s chosen approach is. For their plans to continue in power appear to rely less on demonstrated performance, more on headline management, a systematic crippling of the Opposition, and projection of their electoral record as a popular vindication of positions and endorsement of performance
(Notably, the BJP has never spared the Congress for the propaganda and Opposition stiflement the grand old party resorted to in its heydays, and its position on electoral record smacks of duplicity. If the BJP’s election wins reflect the people’s approval of what it is doing, surely the Congress must have performed extremely well for it to have ruled the roost for decades.)
The Modi-Shah recipe, viewing the party more as an election machine than an instrument of governance, has driven the BJP to high-voltage propaganda and riding roughshod over regional sentiment and established democratic proprieties. The three attack themes the Opposition has now found - and the new alignments being contemplated to counter the BJP threat - were inevitable with it.
Modi’s carefully crafted larger than life persona is another reason for the kind of Opposition build-up being witnessed. In painting Modi as a hugely popular, unassailable political mastermind, and Modi himself seriously invested in perpetuating the image, the BJP has hastened the process of self-reflection across various Opposition parties and given a certain credibility to charges of self-aggrandisement and totalitarianism against Modi.
It is likely that the Opposition would have remained less creative in its approach and hobbled by past baggage had the prospect of a Modi-led hegemony not been pitched so strongly.
It is strange then that the men and strategies that catapulted the BJP to parliamentary majority and have delivered several important Assembly election wins since should emerge as the party’s weak links now. But then, as Shah himself says, every election is different and the past matters little.