The Congress is busily trying to create a barrier reef by stitching together an anti-Modi coalition and stop the Modi Wave from rising again. It is for Modi and the BJP to act before it is too late
Eighteen months after taking charge as Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has reconciled himself to a reality that is not going to change soon. It is possible that it will not change, or indicate a change, during the remaining three-and-a-half years of his tenure. Whether or not he will get a second term in office, which was beyond debate and dispute till the Opposition drew and tasted blood in the Bihar Assembly election, is at this point an irrelevant issue.
That reality is to do with the impossible arrangement in the present Parliament. The NDA has an absolute majority in the lok Sabha. But in the Rajya Sabha the numbers are stacked against the Government. Given the system of legislation in this country, a system that is being rejected elsewhere, law-making becomes virtually impossible.
A Bill passed by the lok Sabha can be blocked by the Rajya Sabha. There is nothing that can be done by the Government to prevent this. We saw it happen with the landn Acquisition Bill. The Government had to back out, drop the Bill and admit defeat. This dented the image of the Prime Minister and his Government. It also boosted the morale of the Opposition. With 45 MPs in the lok Sabha, less than a 10th of its total strength, the Congress looked far more powerful than it actually is.
There is a well-thought strategy behind the Congress taking a belligerent position. That strategy is based on the view that if it is able to block legislation and key economic reforms, it will be able to stop Modi sarkar from implementing policies that are crucial to fulfilling BJP’s promise of achhe din. The classes may look through this game but the voting masses do not care for, or understand, the nuances of how Parliament functions.
It is against this backdrop that we must view Modi’s decision to personally get involved in breaking the logjam over the Goods & Services Tax Bill. The Congress has refused to allow the Bill through Rajya Sabha although it has been passed by lok Sabha. Now Modi has invited Congress president Sonia Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for a discussion over tea to iron out differences. The Government also indicated that it is open to amendments. Had this been done earlier, GST would have been through.
More important, poor floor management (the BJP must be missing Pramod Mahajan) in the previous Sessions, especially the wasted
Monsoon Session, not only allowed the Congress to demonstrate that it may be out of power but it still wields clout, but also enabled Sonia Gandhi to forge a loose alliance of Opposition parties that remarkably included the Marxists and Mamata Banerjee’s TMC which are otherwise daggers drawn. That, in turn, led to the grand alliance, or Mahagathbandhan, in Bihar with Nitish Kumar making common cause with sworn enemy lalu Prasad.
Divide and rule is an art that was mastered by the Congress long ago. During UPA1 we saw how the Congress, more so Sonia Gandhi, skillfully kept the Opposition divided. The 2008 trust vote was no doubt tainted but it did not stop the Congress from either ruthlessly pushing its agenda or winning in 2009. Both Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav were manipulated, not once but several times, by using the CBI and the disproportionate assets cases against them.
This is not to suggest that the BJP should play by the same rules. Nor is it to suggest that political foes should be tamed by abusing instruments of the state and misusing organisations like the CBI. That would rob the BJP of all that remains distinguishing it from an utterly cynical, totally venal Congress. Yet two points need to be made, and made forcefully.
First, given the current, and if one may add, absurd, parliamentary arithmetic, whose stark reality appears to have at last dawned on the Government, the BJP should have worked towards twin objectives. It should have sought to forge a loose coalition with parties that are not inclined towards collaborating with the Congress and not entirely hostile to the BJP. These include the BJD, the AIADMK, the TRS and, of course, the BSP.
In the immediate afterglow of the BJP’s spectacular win in 2014, even Mamata Banerjee would have been amenable to not playing an obstructionist role. Reaching out to the JD(U) would have been a worthwhile effort. After all, there are no permanent foes and friends in politics. This would have, in the long term, prevented the formation of a grand opposition alliance that now seems increasingly likely in 2019.
Second, although Modi as Chief Minister of Gujarat was in the forefront of demanding a re-arrangement of Centre-State relations through cooperative federalism, his Government has been less than forthcoming on bringing States on board to create what he once described as ‘Team India’. The intent could be there but the spirit has not been seen. This is something he should have done, leading from the front, instead of leaving it to Niti Aayog.
It is in this context that a related point merits mention. The amazing enthusiasm with which Modi has been visiting foreign countries, and the extraordinary energy with which he campaigned for his party in Bihar, are nowhere to be seen in his domestic travels as Prime Minister. It was Candidate Modi who won hearts and minds in cities and villages from Kashmir to Kanyakumari by reaching out to the masses, talking to them, communicating with them. Prime Minister Modi now seeks to replace that live connection with his canned Mann ki Baat radio broadcasts.
The Congress, the ecosystem it has fostered for decades, and Sonia Gandhi’s new found friends in the Opposition have sensed, even spotted, a breach in the towering Modi Wall that was impenetrable this time last year. In a country where minorityism has been staple politics and secularism perverted to mean appeasement when faced with minority victimhood, capitulation when confronted with minority veto, and subversion of the Constitution to accommodate minority demands that militate against the declared ideals of our Republic, Modi had ushered a new narrative of ‘India First’ that was about growth, prosperity and development. ‘Sab ka Saath, Sab ka Vikas’ was the slogan that propelled BJP to power.
Unfortunately, that narrative was derailed by distractions like ‘Ghar Wapsi’, ban on sale of meat, bovine slaughter, and unthinking appointments to high profile institutions like the Censor Board and the Film and Television Institute of India. Modi’s earnest appeal for a moratorium on all contentious issues, which he made in his first Independence Day address to the nation, went unheeded by his own Ministers, MPs and Sangh Parivar hotheads.
Motormouths who have an incurable urge to speak every time they spot a TV camera made it worse. Incidents like the mob lynching of a Muslim in Dadri that could have been dealt with smartly, were dealt with in the most disastrous manner. In retrospect, Modi could have, or, some would argue, should have, spoken loudly, clearly, sternly, instead of letting minions run amok and nobodies occupy centrestage. True, the media played foul, but did Modi expect media to be fairIJ
So we had manufactured protest over bogus ‘church attacks’ before the Delhi Assembly election. And we had manufactured dissent over ‘intolerance’ before the Bihar Assembly election. Something else will come up next. It is likely to be food prices. As rural destitution on account of two successive droughts gathers speed, hunger is bound to be an emotive topic. You can’t tell the masses who voted for you that that they can eat FDI if they cannot afford dal and rice. Just as you can’t showcase the honesty of your Government and tell voters to live with the dishonesty of local officials. Or tell the daily wage earner that there is now greater ease of doing business for MNCs.
Crest and trough make a wave; it rises and it falls, and rises again. The Congress is busily trying to create a barrier reef by stitching together an anti-Modi coalition and stop the Modi Wave from rising again. It is for Modi and the BJP to act before it is too late.
(The author is a current affairs journalist based in NCR)