Prime Minister Narendra Modi and trusted Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah are their own CBMs. No election is a challenge for the two self-confident record breakers who take victory for granted. Modi is the Usain Bolt of Indian politics, whose only target is beating his own record. There is no campaigner with enough mojo to challenge Modi. The minimum crowd at any of his election rallies is always 10 times bigger than his rivals’, even in states where the BJP is not in power. Ever since he captured Raisina Hill in 2014, the prime minister has been setting new benchmarks for himself in almost all fields by shifting the goalpost each time. Logic says that Modi and only Modi can be given the credit for every electoral win.
Modi’s obsession with numbers is obvious. Numero Uno’s numerical nuances are not about a simple majority any more. Even before the dates for any election are announced, he sets the target of the number of seats to be won at any cost. For the coming Maharashtra and Haryana elections, punters are putting their money on Modi’s calculus. The BJP has announced that it will, along with its allies, corral over 225 seats in Maharashtra as against 185 now.
The goal in Haryana is 75 as against 47 in 2014. Only a malicious miracle or an inexplicable last-minute swing can spring an adverse surprise for the saffron party. A significantly low turnout may affect the final tally but pollsters are predicting an unprecedented victory for the BJP. Not only are Modi and Shah intending to beat their own previous record, they are also determined to explode the myth that their outfit cannot get a second term in any state. It was only in 2014 that the party could, for the first time in the history of both states, instal its own chief minister. When the final results are declared on Monday, Modi hopes to prove that he is not only India’s pre-eminent mass mesmeriser but also its redoubtable record rage.
His picture is now found in almost all the six lakh-odd villages in India while previously only a couple of Congressmen could be found adorning the brick walls. Modi has percolated the mass consciousness, beaming at citizens from roadside wall posters and hoardings, entering homes through television channels and owning the airwaves with Mann ki Baat. Now, he is determined to make his omnipresence a larger reality.
Modi loves to break political convention. The leader who used to either stay away from state election campaigns or limit his appearances has converted every Assembly constituency from tiny Mizoram to gargantuan Uttar Pradesh into his battleground of power and charisma. He addressed four big rallies in Haryana and many more in the larger state of Maharashtra. Modi and Shah dominate the electoral narrative while most other central leaders and chief ministers were conspicuous by either their absence or minimal presence. Nitin Gadkari, one of the tallest Maharashtra leaders, addressed 40-odd public meetings of which, only one was outside his geographical fiefdom of Vidarbha.
Numerically neither state matters much in national politics. Maharashtra has lost its predominant position as a prized combat zone with the total collapse of the Congress party and the marginalisation of the Sharad Pawar-led NCP. Shiv Sena is losing its majoritarian moxie to Modi, the maximum Hindu Samrat.
The PM’s priority is obviously to both decimate the Congress and weaken the Shiv Sena. He has targeted Pawar viciously since the Maratha maven is the only neta capable of putting up a fight in certain parts of the state. In 2014, the BJP missed the majority mark; this time it aspires to cross the halfway mark so that it can dictate terms to the Sena. If it succeeds, its hold over India’s western belt would be total since Goa and Gujarat are already under the saffron sway.
The party has also created a new local leader in Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who has a clean image and youth on his side to carry the saffron torch into the future. In the state, the BJP is left with only friends and hardly any foes barring a few frenemies. It enjoys a similar envious position in Haryana where Modi took a calculated risk by appointing Manohar Lal Khattar as the chief minister of the Jat-dominated state. During the past five years, the Opposition has imploded in both numbers and credibility.
The once invincible Chautala clan is teetering on the verge of extinction. As the oxygen-challenged Congress gasps to survive, it is left to former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda to hold the bastion in a few parts of the state. A record victory in both states will reinforce Modi’s indispensability as the only pan-Indian vote mobiliser and vote catcher.
With an unprecedented number of seats in both houses of Parliament and Assemblies, the BJP and its allies rule nearly 20 states and union territories where over 52 per cent of the population lives. It set a new record by sharing power in Jammu & Kashmir. In 2014 the Congress was in power in 13 states; its occupancy is down to four states. The BJP scored below half a dozen five years ago. In the past five years, it has lost only three states to the Congress but gained 10 from the Opposition. Non-Congress and non-BJP parties govern six states—Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Odisha, Telan-gana, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.
Even in terms of absolute numbers, the BJP is on top. Of the 4,120 seats in states and UTs, six out of every 10 belong to the BJP or its allies against less than 500 seats five years ago. A reason could be that Modi and Shah are always in election battle gear. Once the Maharashtra and Haryana polls are out of the way and in their pockets, they will move their artillery to Delhi and Jharkhand. Modi wants to avenge his first Assembly defeat in 2015 to Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP. In Jharkhand, scoring a record successive victory is BJP’s desideratum.
From 2020 onwards, Modi will set his sights on Bihar and West Bengal followed by Tamil Nadu and Kerala. He doesn’t believe in the adage that in politics, you lose some and you win some. The prime minister is convinced that the success of Brand Moditava lies in capturing a bigger market when a smaller one is lost. His style and substance clearly indicate that after his massive Lok Sabha win, Modi 2.0 has embarked on the journey for Modi 3.0.
Prabhu Chawla
Email: prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com
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