Modi vs alliances

Modi vs alliances

With the Modi mystique dominating BJP, opposition bets on local alliances blurring old party divides.

In framing the contest in 2019 as one between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a dysfunctional opposition alliance, BJP has set the stage for a presidential-style campaign. It has homed in on its strength: Modi’s popularity versus a fractured opposition with no clear leader. The resolution adopted at its national executive reveals the outlines of a strong, if dour, political narrative to approach the electorate. The “Ajeya Bharat, Atal BJP” slogan encapsulates it neatly: a country on the move with BJP as its anchor. It lacks, however, the ringing optimism and confident outreach of the ‘achhe din’ days, having instead something of a circling-the-wagons quality.

After winning 2014 on the “vikas” platform, BJP has strengthened its grip over India’s federal structure through successive electoral victories. BJP president Amit Shah’s confidence in his party’s ability to stay in power for 50 years – evoking Congress dominance between 1947 and 1989 – stems from NDA’s majority in Parliament and 20 state assemblies. Through incessant messaging, repackaging and streamlining, Modi has also appropriated UPA-era welfare schemes, leaving Congress casting about for an agenda. Even demonetisation is pitched boldly as a “creative destruction” of the crumbling, corrupt economy that BJP inherited, leaving sceptics to carp that the accent has been more on the destruction part of it.

But BJP will have a tougher time explaining fuel prices, agrarian distress and slow movement on reforms. A bit more creativity would have seen BJP appropriate ongoing protests against oil on the boil – as exemplified by yesterday’s Bharat Bandh – to bring fuel prices under GST. That would have been brilliant, a rare move that is both populist and good for the economy at the same time. But policy timidity has been as much a hallmark of the current NDA government as its aggressive politics.

If Modi is more popular than his party, it also means a constituency for anti-BJPism has emerged, but one which demands that individual opposition parties bury their divisions. Given conflicting national ambitions, stitching state-level alliances like the brewing SP-BSP tie-up in Uttar Pradesh can give BJP a tough fight. Casting the fight as a “Modi versus The Rest” binary may be a compelling proposition from BJP’s point of view. But it may not sufficiently capture the complexity of 2019 amid a debate over jobs, farmer distress, Dalit assertion, Muslim marginalisation and Congress diminution.