The Modi Mantra

Though the grass might look greener on the other side of the fence for BJP workers, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is well aware of the challenges that lay ahead of him. In the race for the 2014 General Elections, he is already pushing party leaders to focus on various issues of great concern. Though he might ride high in opinion polls and surveys and also be the most talked about politician in the country, the ground realities can be way more different than what is being projected. Winning opinion polls and winning the parliamentary elections in such great magnitude is a completely different ballgame and he understands it well.

In his first strategy meet which happened with party General Secretaries at Delhi a few days back, Modi supposedly cautioned his colleagues not to be “overconfident”, and instead get down to some hard work. The party has by far made no coherent plans as such to take against the Congress in the upcoming general elections as well as elections happening in key states such as Rajasthan, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. If sources are to be believed, the two key issues that he mainly focused on are the following.

The first issue that he is really worried about is that the BJP is losing key allies and it is important for the party to look for and engage prospective allies in all regions, no matter how big or small they might be. For instance, prospective allies could be AGP in Assam, INLAD in Haryana, TRS in the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh and even possibly enticing BS Yeddyuruppa back to the BJP or at least the NDA. Nitish Kumar’s dramatic exit from the NDA has given them a big blow and has also shaken the foundation of getting more allies which are otherwise not easily available.

The other important issue that he focussed upon is the decreasing vote shares in the most populous and politically significant state of the country: Uttar Pradesh.  The BJP won 58 seats from UP in 1998, but since 1999 parliamentary elections the party’s tally has been on a continuous slide. Narendra Modi has posted his close aide Amit Shah as party’s in-charge of UP, and the former Gujarat deputy chief minister is expected to begin his campaign soon. For the BJP, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Odisha are key states where it needs to make substantive gains if it had to dislodge Congress. The party’s leader in Uttar Pradesh are optimistic and believe the current situation the state could allow the party to make significant gains, possibly doubling or tripling their tally since the last polls.

According to some leaders, there are three groups of voters in the state that NaMo can appeal to. For upper caste voters, Modi presents a perfect combination of Hindutva and strong administrative skills. Younger voters could also find appeal in his development oriented leadership. And among the lower castes, except the Yadavs, the psychological pride of electing a Prime Minister from among the OBC community could just evoke the right sentiments in favour of the BJP. In this context, his supporters are already toying with the idea of Modi contesting the next general elections from UP, preferably from one of the urban seats, Lucknow, Allahabad or Kanpur.

 What we need to understand out of this is the fact that Narendra Modi has a tough battle against him. While the ghosts of the 2002 riots will continue to haunt him, the fact that the BJP is losing on prospective allies is an issue of great concern for him. Even at the peak of their popularity in 1999, BJP barely retained its tally of 180 seats but at that time it had the solid allies in all parts of the country like the DMK, TDP, TMC, BJD JD(U) and there were a total of 24 allies. While now they are barely left with any allies except for Shiv Sena and Akali Dal which have limited electoral significance. In such a situation, it would be interesting to observe in the coming months, how Modi leads the election campaign for BJP and if he can really deliver as it is being boasted by his followers.

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