So the BJP and Modi were indeed afraid of India Shining redux and determined to not let history repeat itself. In the normal course, this election would have resulted in a defeat of the BJP and regime change. But the shenanigans the government unleashed ensured the BJP can still come back to power. As Phase 2 came to a close, this column argued the Congress manifesto had seized the initiative at a time of farmer distress and soaring youth unemployment.
The shrill communal campaign, the blatant stigmatizing of Muslims and open hostility to them, the sequestration of opposition leaders, and the sheer use of government power against opposition parties were the BJP’s defense mechanisms against an India Shining redux. In the end they helped the BJP stand a fighting chance of forming a government and running it for the next five years.
Individually these shenanigans are not new to Indian politics. The Congress is a veteran and a pioneer in many of these. But the BJP can be said to have brought it all together, all the lessons learned, and made them best practices. And each of these shenanigans contributed, bit by bit in helping to manufacture this majority. The lowest points of the shenanigans were the Surat and Indore walkovers. Pure sleaze they were. The Congress defiance by orchestrating the largest ever NOTA votes in Indore may have scored a few moral brownie points. But the seat belongs to the BJP, nevertheless.
The most egregious case would be that of Shiv Sena led by Eknath Shinde. One can, in the BJP’s defense, say that Shinde’s Sena is the true Shiv Sena, ideologically. But the allocation of the bow and arrow symbol and the quick recognition it got as the Shiv Sena was highly dubious. Today, Shinde’s Sena can be a crucial contributor to NDA numbers.
The shrill communal campaign, the blatant stigmatizing of Muslims and open hostility to them, the sequestration of opposition leaders, and the sheer use of government power against opposition parties were the BJP’s defense mechanisms against an India Shining redux
Mamata Banerjee was hit by raids just like so many other politicians the BJP wanted to take down. Mamata is no shrinking violet in dirty politics. Her being one of the prime beneficiaries of Lottery King Martin’s laundering of slush funds through electoral bonds was no surprise. Yet, she was clearly targeted by central agencies. The BJP saw a fighting chance in West Bengal and she was in the way.
For all the hoopla, raids, media campaigns, and Annamalai buildup, the NDA may just about equal or surpass the 19% voteshare it logged in Tamil Nadu when it went alone in 2014. That was ten years ago and few knew BJP in Tamil Nadu. Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa were alive. The AIADMK was a thriving entity and reaching the apogee in terms of command of votes. The situation has reversed, but only for the kazhagams. The DMK has occupied that pole position and the AIADMK has taken the place of the DMK of 2014. The Modi-Shah shenanigans didn’t work in Tamil Nadu.
If the BJP had played fair and square, would it have come even this far? This writer feels it wouldn’t have.
Within the BJP, there has been a feeling of missed chance as far as 2004 is concerned. Vajpayee just didn’t play the game well enough for the sake of the larger goal of the Hindu nation. He was a goof-up holding onto essentially non-BJP values.
Also Read: One nation, one election: A ploy by Modi to come back to power in the centre
Vajpayee’s Hindutva was about tradition, Sanskrit, Hindi, Vedas and the great glory of ancient Hindu civilization on which Muslim rule was a sad blot but he wasn’t going to reverse all that. Vajpayee may have benefited from the criminal act of bringing down the Babri Masjid but even on this crucial issue he sought to create a distance. The CBI filed its chargesheet in the Bofors case in 1999 during the NDA rule but that was it. He let the Gandhis be. He let many others be. There was a brazen attack on Outlook magazine for its pro-Congress stance and its rather personal attacks on him and his team but those were the exceptions, not the norm. His was a coalition government after all and Vajpayee was schooled in old style Delhi politics where confrontation was for public consumption.
Vajpayee may have benefited from the criminal act of bringing down the Babri Masjid but even on this crucial issue he sought to create a distance
Vajpayee had that streak of righteousness that he may have attributed to his traditional Hindu values, perhaps even brahminical codes of ascetic detachment. Modi has no such qualms. His politics is strictly transactional. His call to transcendent values are vague and irrelevant to his politics.
His treatment of media has a business logic that has convinced many of his followers, for instance. His take is: “Why should I engage with the media and boost its ratings and readership, and therefore its business when they are going to be adversarial and not benefit me?
If you don’t support me, I will unleash the agencies on you. I take no prisoners. And I have no qualms, no need to even appear as not bigoted. Being reasonable, large hearted and so on are foreign to me. I am Narendra Modi, not Atal Behari Vajpayee. I do what I do. I win elections. I shall start my third term proudly, rightfully.”
