BJP’s 370-seat target overly optimistic

Julio Ribeiro

I am convinced that Narendra Modi is going to be the Prime Minister for another five-year term. What I seriously doubt is whether his prediction that the BJP will win 370 seats (and the NDA will get 400) in the Lok Sabha elections will come true.

It is incumbent on the party firmly backed by the majority community to suppress its tendency of misusing its powers to humble the Opposition.

In Maharashtra, which sends 48 MPs to the Lower House, it seems that the Congress, the Sharad Pawar-led NCP and the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena faction will each win a few seats in their respective spheres of influence. The BJP has made major inroads into rural constituencies. Along with its new-found friends, the Shinde faction of the Sena and the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, it will win a few more than the Opposition, but certainly not the figure it quotes.

The Hindi-speaking belt is firmly on its side, but here, too, the going is not going to be so smooth that it can afford to let its guard down. The farmers’ renewed agitation is confined mainly to Punjab, a state where the BJP has little influence. Jat farmers of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have been weaned away by the bestowal of the Bharat Ratna on the tallest Jat leader, former PM Chaudhary Charan Singh. The award ahead of the Lok Sabha elections was one very clever move.

What was far from clever, though, was the attempt to tamper with the result of the Chandigarh mayoral poll. It resulted in prosecution being ordered against the presiding officer by the Supreme Court, whose judgments in the electoral bond case and the Chandigarh episode have alerted the party in power to refrain from venturing into such escapades.

The fate of the presiding officer should serve as a warning to officials wanting to prove their loyalty to the powers that be. The apex court’s decision on the electoral bond scheme has cast a shadow over the willingness of corporates to blindly help the party in power. They should revert to the system followed by the Tata Group and the Aditya Birla Group to donate to all political parties by crossed cheques, properly accounted for. That system was working seamlessly till the electoral bonds were invented.

It is natural for the party in power, particularly one riding a wave as the BJP is at present, to get the bulk of the donations made by corporates. But it is not normal for a ruling party to ensure through government agencies controlled by it to choke the funding of Opposition parties. The ‘freezing’ of bank accounts of the Congress by the income tax (I-T) authorities in the run-up to the General Election was a very ham-handed and mean method of ruffling feathers and it was not appreciated by even BJP supporters. Mercifully, the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal intervened and restored sanity.

Modi was on a roll after he took over the role of the high priest and inaugurated the Ram Janmabhoomi Temple in Ayodhya. Even normally tepid followers of religion, in this case of the religion of India’s majority Hindus, were positively affected by the pomp and splendour associated with the January 22 function. Modi’s popularity went up by a few notches.

This glorious moment was repeated a few days later when he persuaded Qatar to free eight former Navy personnel, who had initially been sentenced to death (later commuted to imprisonment) for suspected spying. Our Prime Minister succeeded in his mission, thus displaying the strength of the country’s soft power in the Muslim world of West Asia.

Unfortunately, the comparatively petty-minded acts of trying to change the mandate in the Chandigarh mayoral poll and the I-T Department’s action against the Congress have neutralised the gains that Modi had generated.

It is incumbent on the party, now firmly backed by the majority community in its stronghold of Hindi-speaking states, to suppress its tendency of misusing its powers to humble the Opposition. Educated voters have realised that their favoured party is needlessly needling its political opponents and making obvious attempts to lure Opposition bigwigs with threats of investigations by Central agencies like the ED, the CBI and the income tax authorities. Once they cross over, their sins are forgiven. Some of them are even made ministers or Rajya Sabha MPs!

One cannot be sure if the use of such tactics will be halted once electioneering begins in earnest. The Congress and its allies in the INDIA bloc have woken up to the realisation of the likely fate of their leaders if the BJP gets the 370 seats that Modi has quoted. In Delhi, Haryana and Gujarat, AAP and the Congress have reached an understanding. Though late in the day, it may help them salvage a few seats.

The south, which includes Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka, is not going to go the BJP way. In Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the BJP is likely to draw a blank. Karnataka will contribute the biggest number to the BJP’s kitty, but even that will not make a difference.

In the east, West Bengal is still Mamata Banerjee territory. It has 42 seats to offer. The BJP has made sizeable gains in Bengal, but not enough to dislodge Mamata.

In the North-East, the regional players go along with the ruling party for their own survival. But after the Sangh Parivar’s activities in Manipur, the Baptist Christians of Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya and the hill districts of Manipur have been having second thoughts on this score. Only Odisha and Tripura can be counted upon to partner the BJP. In any case, the number of Lok Sabha seats in the North-East is extremely small.

The north, except Punjab and Himachal, is solidly with the BJP. But with the INDIA bloc coming to its senses, it is possible that the BJP will not reach the figure of even 303, its tally in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The figure of 370, quoted by Modi, is far too optimistic.

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