It’s not the end of the road for the BJP but Modi must introspect why so many allies are upset
There tends to be a problem in India, a problem of constantly being in election mode. The past few months have seen by-elections to Parliament and a host of State elections in the North-East. Differing results have made a rollercoaster ride of emotions in political parties, and hours of shouting and banalities on ‘news’ television channels. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah has created a formidable electoral machine, one that is extremely good in capturing States and won a stunning majority in the lok Sabha election of 2014. However, as good as the BJP’s offense is, they have a very weak defence. The BJP just about held on to Goa and Gujarat when the two States went to the polls and it lost all five seats in the lok Sabha that went to polls in the past few months, a fact that has meant that they have a majority only by a thread in the lok Sabha. But in between, the BJP won victories or cobbled together alliances in three more north-eastern States. So, it isn’t all doom and gloom in the party’s new headquarters on Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Marg.
But the string of by-election losses and local political reasons in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, along with a renewed bounce in the Opposition, which have banded together to attack Modi and the BJP, has led to a no-confidence motion against the Modi Government. There is almost no chance of the motion passing, but it will unite the Opposition which seems to have a smelt blood after the BJP’s spectacular fall from grace in Gorakhpur. However, the reaction of some allies of the BJP in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is noteworthy. Fearful of his future, N Chandrababu Naidu-led Telugu Desam Party (TDP) quit the NDA, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) has supported the no-confidence motion to score brownie points in an increasingly fragmented Tamil Nadu. And, however well the alliance between the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party played out recently, it remains to be seen if the alliance can hold in the long run.
But the BJP’s problems are not about 2019 just yet. While the party has a good chance in Karnataka, as things stand today, it is likely to lose power in Rajasthan and things will not be easy in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh too. As noted above, the BJP organisation under Amit Shah can attack but it finds defending itself difficult. And the Government will have to go on the defensive going forward because things are not looking up at all. That said, the BJP and Prime Minister Modi still have supporters. The challenge, however, is to bring them out to the polls. Many in the middle-classes are tired of the constant electioneering in the country along with the volume in the television news media. That along with the fact that in order to build new constituencies of voters, as well as the cultural supremacists within the BJP, who misread the 2014 mandate, coupled with the lack of job and salary growth, the urban voter is growing disillusioned with the BJP and Modi. This needs to be fixed in the next 12 months if Narendra Modi hopes to come back to power in 2019 with a majority mandate.