Election time is here

S Nihal Singh

TWO developments are likely to influence the future political landscape of the country. PM Modi has sounded the bugle for the Gujarat election and the 2019 general election. Second, the charges made by an Internet news site about the sudden wealth amassed by the commercial enterprises of Jay Shah, son of the powerful BJP president, since the party came to power at the Centre have added to the ruling party’s woes.

Mr Modi mixed nostalgia with promoting development schemes while visiting his hometown. The signal that it is election campaigning time again was clear. He can no longer talk about development without Congress-bashing. There is never a whisper of the great dams and public institutions built by Nehru in the first decades of Independence.

Mr Shah’s son’s case is unique. The BJP president had to abandon his much-advertised padyatra to oppose the ruling Marxist regime in Kerala to rush post-haste to Delhi to consider the consequences of the revelations in the charges made by the news website. And the BJP decided to field a Cabinet minister — no less — to controvert the allegations with the injured party resolving to go to court to demand considerable compensation, with the Assistant Solicitor-General lined up to plead the case of a private citizen.

The timing of the controversy is particularly painful for the BJP because it has been Mr Modi’s boast that unlike previous Congress-led administrations, there has not been a whisper of wrongdoing in the three years the BJP has been in power at the Centre. And there are reports of a minister of the BJP-led Maharashtra Government enriching himself by abusing his position.

More than the political arguments, Mr Shah’s son’s case will be decided by legal procedures, but the picture of the purity of the BJP administration has lost some of its lustre. Although Mr Modi is master of aphorisms, it was Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi who beat the PM at his game by using the slogan of ‘Beti bachao, beti padhao’ by twisting it to ‘beta bachao’. 

Indeed, Mr Gandhi seems to be learning the game of political repartee. He also aimed his barbs at the traditional mindset of the RSS leadership by pointing out the absence of women from the obligatory morning drill of the organisation. Information Minister Smriti Irani protested at the prospect of seeing Indian women in shorts.

There was a curious mismatch in Mr Gandhi making his remarks in the context of Gujarat going to the polls soon and Mr Shah’s decision to hold a rally in Mr Gandhi’s constituency in Amethi after cutting short his Kerala visit, with the parliamentary election still some time away. The object of the latter exercise seems to have been influenced by Mr Gandhi’s likely elevation to his party’s presidency soon.

Mr Modi is planning to go to Gujarat again before polling day in line with his practice of campaigning for Assembly elections, breaking with Congress leaders’ practice of campaigning only for national elections. The PM believes that he is the best campaigner for his party and trusts no one to do the job as well. Present indications suggest that the BJP will return to power in the state with a reduced majority, given the Patidars’ agitation, with the Congress improving upon its performance.

The BJP’s advantage is that the Opposition remains divided. The Samajwadi Party has announced that it will contest elections with the Congress in Uttar Pradesh, but the Sharad breakaway faction of Mr Nitish Kumar’s JD (U) has yet to take shape. While the Tamil Nadu drama is still being enacted, all indications suggest that the AIADMK is eager to support the NDA for the loaves and fishes of office.

Taking aim at the Marxists in Kerala is a longer term objective. In Odisha, the BJP feels it is fast catching up with the Patnaik dynasty while in West Bengal, Mr Amit Shah’s effort is to paint Trinamool Congress’s Mamata Banerjee as an appeaser of Muslims to polarise Hindu votes.

These trends come in the wake of an increasing push to have combined elections to Parliament and state Assemblies. The Election Commission has declared that it is doable from the technical point of view by the end of 2018, but in political terms it would be a question of reconciling the demands of individual states with a fiat of when the next election would be held, depriving them of political flexibility. Obviously, such a major change would require a constitutional amendment.

Some political circles believe that Mr Modi’s tendency to centralise power is leading him to his real objective of scrapping the parliamentary system for a presidential dispensation. But neither of these changes are likely to occur soon. The immediate aim of the BJP is to corner as many states as it can and form alliances with states such as Tamil Nadu, more specific in their identity and less sympathetic to the BJP’s shibboleths of promoting Hindi and downgrading the sanctity of Tamil.

Mr Modi seems to be a man in a hurry, yet the ethos of a nation cannot be changed radically in a matter of years. Imbibing ideas of a Hindu rashtra from a young age takes time. While the youth of the country might not be fully aware of the role of the Independence generation and their sacrifices in gaining freedom in which the RSS had only a subversive role to play, 70 years are only recent history and cannot be brushed away under the carpet.

In practical terms, the question of changing India boils down to a simple equation. Despite slogans, how much store Mr Modi sets by placing the country’s interests above those of the party? A tussle between the PM and the RSS leadership is inevitable in the timing, if not the substance, of the changes that are to be undertaken.

How this works out will determine India’s future.