Modi wants the BJP to gets an additional 10% of the vote share from what it won in 2019.
Plans are afoot to get new faces to replace MPs with poor chances of winning.
Sources say more than 100 MPs are like to be axed, notes Modi biographer Ramesh Menon.
Around 1.6 billion Indians will witness, in a few months, one of the most tumultuous and consequential elections in the last seven-and-a-half decades. In many ways, it will decide the future of India and its democracy.
The road to Parliament in 2024 is paved with different challenges for voters who have to decide this time the kind of India they want to live in.
There are issues for the voter to worry about:
- Increasing communal tensions dividing an otherwise peaceful society.
- Rising prices of essential commodities.
- Parliament becomes redundant as the opposition is not allowed to make its point or debate on issues.
- Laws that seriously affect privacy and freedom are being passed without serious debate.
- Rising unemployment.
- Census delayed indefinitely.
- Deteriorating relations with China after it has taken over huge tracts of Indian territory.
- Seemingly united Opposition, but cracks are conspicuous.
- Opposition not thinking of crying issues and has just one goal: Power.
- Issues like the Manipur ethnic riots that were not contained can have enormous collateral damage and spread to other north eastern states.
- Thousands of youngsters winging their way to foreign lands, finding jobs, and giving up Indian passports, wanting an equal playing field and a better quality of life.
- Use of government agencies like Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax and others to target the opposition damaging their reputation as independent bodies.
- Governors paralysing governance in non-BJP ruled states.
- Interference in various institutions that deal with education, governance, sports, elections and so on to control them.
- Use of religious institutions and faiths to rake up emotions and consequent support to political parties.
The opposition conglomerate called INDIA, or the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance came together hoping to take on the mighty BJP. But differences are too stark to be ignored.
Leaders of different parties have prime ministerial dreams.
Almost all the parties are pulling in different directions as far as seat sharing is considered.
INDIA has a lot to deal with as they desperately try to bury their different ideologies and personalities and come together as one group.
It is an anachronism.
But, the Opposition sees it as the only way to stop the BJP juggernaut.
Will the electorate see INDIA's 81-year-old Mallikarjun Kharge as an alternative to Modi?
His name was propped up by leaders like Mamata Banerjee and Uddhav Thackeray as a possible prime ministerial candidate, hoping that the lower castes would back the alliance as backward classes form the largest electoral group in India.
Let us not forget that Modi has been wooing the backward classes and the tribals with a clear plan in mind to get them to desert the opposition camp.
We saw how this worked successfully in the last assembly election results in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
Currently, there are no indications that the INDIA coalition is united, has one vision, will not fight over seats, will unanimously decide on one leader to be showcased as prime minister, and give the country a new political culture of governance, honesty and accountability.
Also, it is doubtful if they would place the country above narrow party or personal interests.
The voter if flummoxed with conflicting signals from the INDIA dispensation as it has not been able to sensibly work on seat-sharing or even a common programme that is better than 'Modi's Guarantee' and a slew of welfare programmes that he has unleashed.
Numerous leaders in the Opposition are weary of being out of power for a decade. They are losing patience and are jumping onto the BJP bandwagon or on to others who have better electoral chances. Ideology does not matter to them.
In 2019, the BJP and allies won 353 of 543 Lok Sabha seats.
Encouraged by the recent victory in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi has asked the BJP to increase its vote share to 50 per cent.
One way is to bring in freebies or schemes couched in the welfarism idiom.
Almost 2.5 trillion rupees have been transferred by the central government in cash to more than 700 million Indians who saw it enter their bank accounts.
Apart from this, there were other benefits worth over 1.4 trillion rupees. This 'welfarism' is creating another loyal constituency that is likely to back the BJP.
Modi also announced that the scheme to provide free food grains to 800 million Indians started during the pandemic would be continued for another five years.
All these add votes for the BJP, as we saw in the recent assembly elections.
Be ready to witness competitive welfarism as it is the new idiom that political parties across the spectrum are toying with to woo the reluctant voter. The opposition is also offering freebies, schemes and lolly.
The BJP right is in a dominant position as it has swept elections in north Indian states with more MPs than the less populated south.
Will the BJP be able to improve its last election record of 353 seats?
Unlikely.
Inflation, unemployment, and tension between various communities and castes can cut into their votes. It depends on whether the opposition can create a united front and bring attention to these issues. However, that is also a question mark.
In all likelihood, the BJP will be able to ride back to power as it has the best-oiled election machinery, ground force that pans into every corner of the constituency, huge funds and an aggressively designed campaign to catch the imagination of the voter who has yet to decide.
The BJP will talk about the Women's Reservation Bill that they passed. They will not tell you that it will not come into force for many years now as it all depends on when the delimitation of Lok Sabha seats is done.
It will talk about how India had the presidency of G20 and how Modi helped it get world leaders on one stage. They will not tell you that the presidency is not granted to any country but done by rotation.
It will talk about how it battled for years to build the Ram Mandir and finally, succeeded. It will not tell you its challenge is building a better, inclusive India.
One thing that will resonate in one BJP election meeting after the other will be the Ram Mandir, as it will help polarise votes in its favour. Let us face it; it is a very emotive issue for the Hindus.
Leaving no stone unturned, the party is busy identifying around 5,000 dedicated supporters in every constituency who would be sent to offer puja at Ayodhya's Ram Mandir. They would then return to the constituency and tell others about the history of the temple and the Ram Janmabhoomi movement that was engineered to make it a reality.
Around 25 million voters would be identified from 543 constituencies to be taken for darshan at the temple to underline the religious significance of the inauguration.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath proposes to erect memorials in memory of those karsevaks who were killed during the Ram temple movement.
BJP-run states like Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have a blueprint to facilitate its supporters' visits to the temple.
The Ram Mandir would be the centre point of the campaign as if nothing else matters to the nation today.
The wave of Hindutva politics that has been unleashed with millions celebrating the inauguration of the Ram temple, is something that has completely pulled the carpet from under the Opposition's feet. They just do not know how to react or counter it. Modi did everything to make it look like the biggest event in the last ten years.
The Congress strategically started its battle cry for 2024 from Nagpur, the RSS headquarters. The RSS drives the ideology of the BJP, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Bajrang Dal and other affiliates.
It is also in Nagpur that B R Ambedkar, the chief architect of the Constitution, embraced Buddhism along with lakhs of his followers. For long, the Congress has been harking on the fact that the Constitution is now in danger as the BJP wants to defy it and rewrite it.
The Congress hopes that Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Nyay Yatra, from Manipur in the east to Mumbai in the west, will help the party gain more supporters in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls. He is drawing crowds, but whether it will be translated to votes is the question.
Modi has asked party workers to ensure it gets an additional ten per cent of the vote share it did in 2019.
That may not be easy, but the BJP's Bharat Sankalp Yatra aims to reinforce the various welfare schemes and freebies in the electorate's minds by taking its welfare programmes to the electorate.
It is also getting government officers from various branches to go around and talk about the welfare schemes.
The BJP fielded 21 MPs in the states that recently went to the polls. Twelve of them won. The idea then was to create slots for new faces in the Lok Sabha.
Plans are afoot now to get new faces to replace MPs with poor chances of winning. Sources say there are more than 100 on the list.
Those above 75 are sure to be dropped. They would be told to retire. Or be advisors whose advice will never be solicited. Have you heard of any advice L K Advani or Murli Manohar Joshi offered in the last ten years?
Some Rajya Sabha members with good grassroots contact will likely be asked to contest clearing the way for new leaders to be accommodated in the Rajya Sabha.
The BJP has identified over 150 seats where their chances are weak. There will be a special strategy drawn out to reinforce their campaign. The party is behaving as every seat matters. This kind of rigour and passion is not seen in any other party.
Clearly, the BJP is ready for the election. That the Ppposition is nowhere close to sculpting a strategy to with back. It is this which builds the confidence of Modi and his supporters.
Modi is on an aggressive path, determined to decimate the Opposition. The Opposition was virtually driven out in the last Parliament session, with a record number of MPs suspended. Important bills that have severe implications on people's lives were passed with hardly any debate.
This election will determine the way politics will change India. Voters can decide what kind of country they want to live in or leave behind for their children...
Ramesh Menon, award-winning journalist, educator, documentary film-maker and corporate trainer, is the author of Modi Demystified: The Making Of A Prime Minister.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
