These are still early days.
17 months is too short a time to evaluate any government, let alone one
which was ushered in with such great expectations. Having said that, even PM Modi’s worst
critics will concede that this govt has accomplished more in its short tenure
than any previous dispensation. The
question is, will it be enough for BJP to retain power in 2019.
To put it bluntly, as things stand today, it won’t be enough.
I’m not suggesting that a Rahul Gandhi led UPA will trounce
a PM Modi led NDA in 2019. The trick is
that he doesn’t have to. Back in 2004,
Sonia Gandhi did not trounce an Atal Bihari Vajpayee led NDA. Their seat counts were almost identical. But she did manage to defeat the NDA.
Moreover, under current circumstances the bar is set even
lower. All Rahul and his cronies across
the secular spectrum have to do is ensure a hung parliament where BJP does not
cross the 272 mark on its own.
Any scenario where BJP is kept close to the 200 mark is a
victory for the opposition. Because it
forces PM Modi’s hand by compelling him to seek support from the likes of Shiv
Sena and AIADMK and other morally ambiguous political outfits. A hungry, wounded Shiv Sena, for instance
would definitely demand its pound of flesh and handicap NDA to such an extent
that governance would take a back seat with survival becoming the primary
purpose of PM Modi’s second stint.
Why this despondency you’re probably asking? Here’s why.
A. ‘Perfect’ is getting in the way of ‘Good’
BJP’s primary voter – the urban middle class has started sensing
the green shoots. India’s GDP growth
rate is now the highest in the world, it has becoming easier to do business in
India, PM’s foreign trips have started yielding results in the form of strong
FDI infusion.
But these are middle class metrics. The lower middle class and the poor don’t
understand these metrics. Most
importantly these do not represent tangible data points to this segment of the
voter base.
This voter base has one primary data point and that is
inflation. While it is rightly argued
that inflation rate has been brought down, prices are still increasing and that
increase is occurring off of an already inflated base gifted to the country by
the previous UPA govt.
Everything any govt. does is viewed by the poor through the
prism of prices - even corruption.
Corruption acquires the requisite political potency only when
accompanied by a back breaking rise in prices.
And frankly PM Modi has failed on this account. His heart and the measures he has taken are
in the right place.
But the PM may be letting the ‘Perfect’ get in the way of
the ‘Good’.
The PM’s plan is sensible and appropriate one:
Get land bill passed so that vital infrastructure can be built.
This infrastructure will include a strong and wide network
of interstate highway and rail system, powered by renewable power sources, which
in turn will entice investors to build value added industries along the
industrial corridor.
These industries in turn will generate the jobs and trigger
an economic boom.
The logical thinking is that voters will associate the
economic boom with NDA’s policies and initiatives and reward it handsomely at
the hustings.
But what if this train of events is halted or muted and BJP
is forced to enter 2019 with a slew of half-finished projects and a lopsided,
uneven economic recovery? PM Modi’s
‘Make in India’ is only just taking off.
Most factories required 2-3 years from project conception to roll-out. That puts us bang in the middle of 2018 and
start of the election cycle. That gives
no time for people to imbibe benefits of these initiatives and associate the
accompanying feel-good factor to the BJP.
Moreover, there are just too many links in this chain of
‘trickle down’ economics. Every link
must be delivered in record time across a large swath of a diverse
socio-economic and geographic terrain to be able to make a difference in 2019.
One component of the aforementioned industrial corridor will
constitute the much needed ‘cold chain’.
Though this plan is on the right track it disregards ground
realities. By the time the PM executes
on his plan and implements it, he may have run out of time. An electorate reeling under burden of high
prices and little tangible improvement to their daily lives will be willing to
vote against the BJP or at the very least stay at home come Election Day.
It is important to note that all other issues ranging from
relations with Pakistan to even war on terror are peripheral to electoral
outcomes. Surely certain segments of the
electorate are swayed by these concerns but those segments are already in BJP’s
camp.
Given PM Modi’s personal charisma and appeal, it won’t be
difficult to fire up the faithful and drive them to election booths. But would that be enough to win in 2019. And it wasn’t in 2014. 2014 was won thanks to a massive surge in
independent and even minority voters who voted for Mr. Modi (and not the BJP).
As described here (http://inflextionpoint.blogspot.com/2011/06/understanding-indian-electorate.html), BJP starts
with 65% of the population as a potential voter base. The poor and lower middle class don’t have
the luxury of time to watch TV debates, read Op Eds and carefully sift through
party manifestos to come to an informed decision.
Most will vote based on how and what they experience in
their daily lives. The trickle-down
economics PM Modi is attempting will fall short in 2019.
Neither BJP nor India can afford that.
B. Rahul as a ‘Non-Starter’ leads to
Opposition Unity
There’s one other political dynamic which has started
playing out across India. Anti-BJP votes
have started to coalesce behind BJP’s primary opposition. More so if this opposition has a credible
face and a modicum of a track record in governance BJP will have its hands
full.
With Congress weakening across India, the resulting vacuum
will create a very 2004-like dynamic in the run up to 2019. Rahul will (much as Sonia did in 2004) be
willing to concede significant political space to opposition parties to engineer
a ‘Maha-coalition’. With an undeclared
PM candidate, such a coalition could easily reduce BJP to 200 or 220
seats. If by some miracle the
‘Maha-coalition’ is able to settle on a credible face (an aggressive, untainted
MMS like figure), BJP will find itself in a soup.
We’re seeing this process of ‘unity’ already playing out in
Bihar (after first working out in Delhi)
C. Media’s anti-BJP strategy is working
To war hardened Right Wing core BJP Supporters issues of the
day such as - Suite-boot ki sarkar, Endless foreign trips, anti-LAB, Parliament
deadlock, Beef ban, Dadri, Khattar, Church-attacks, etc. seem like random,
darts-at-a –board actions on the part of BJP’s opponents.
But make no mistake; this is a carefully calibrated strategy
on part of Sonia’s empire. It is
striking back. The objective of this
strategy is not to score a decisive KO against the government. It is to create a perception amongst the poor
and lower middle class that BJP is a government for the rich, by the rich and
off the rich.
Try explaining to India’s poor masses how PM Modi’s foreign
trips will attract much need FDI which in turn will drive India’s economic
recovery. There are just too many dots
to connect for a segment of voters more concerned about how they will feed their
families.
This voter forms his/her perception based on how they are
treated. When the rich and mighty can
get away with looting the nation (and the PM promised he would go after them –
hammer and tongs) why are they being harassed on a daily basis by their local
police and local administrations?
Despite giving their favorite leader a decisive mandate why can’t he use
his “absolute” power to bend the rules to do them some favors? They
aren’t asking for 1000s of crores in right offs. A mere guarantee of financial-security would
do for now.
If rules can be ignored for a Mallya or Ambani why not for
the Khushwaha driving his cab on the streets of Mumbai or Delhi.
Arvind “thulla” Kejriwal understands this sentiment and was
able to trounce BJP by using rhetoric to win big. That he’s a miserably incompetent
administrator will restrict his political appeal. But he did get the first part of this
political equation right.
Media and their Congress masters also understand these
factors and have spent the last year single mindedly painting the PM as an
elitist who has lost touch with his roots.
And the mud is beginning to stick.
Surely, initiatives such as Swaach Bharat and Jan Dhan Yojana
are exactly what the country needs.
These are also the ‘Efficient Mai-Baap’ strategy proposed in this post. But the
PM needs to extend these even further.
So that people can experience the ‘Modi Miracle’ first hand and not
through ‘trickle down economics’
So what is the fix?
The Fix: Reverse
Engineer Campaign 2019 – Coming up in Part 2
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