It’s no more Modi Sarkar

The description of The Washington Post that there was “tepid support for his Hindu nationalist party, piercing the air of invincibility around the most dominant Indian politician in decades” is quoted by many, including Indian media, and is quite relevant.

The bursting of crackers by winning candidates and parties is the most common feature soon after the trend becomes clear or the declaration of the result. On June 4 that common feature was absent. Although the I.N.D.I.A bloc performed well, it did not achieve the goal — to overthrow the BJP-led NDA government. On the other hand, the ruling party, which had vowed to win over 400 seats in the Lok Sabha, could not even garner the requisite majority (272 seats). Therefore, the post-poll environment was gloomy on both sides. The description of The Washington Post that there was “tepid support for his Hindu nationalist party, piercing the air of invincibility around the most dominant Indian politician in decades” is quoted by many, including Indian media, and is quite relevant.

Bipolar Direction Notwithstanding our country being a multi-party democracy, politics in here is heading in a bipolar direction. Coalition politics is back with the BJP falling short of majority in the recently held Lok Sabha elections. Our country has experienced many new developments during the ten-year rule of the government at the Centre led by Narendra Modi — jailing Chief Ministers and other opposition ministers, getting the bank accounts of the Congress frozen by the income-tax authorities; Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who was perceived as a threat to Modi, was thrown out of Parliament and barred from contesting elections by a Gujarat court until the Supreme Court suspended his conviction, attack on Muslims and other minorities directly by the Prime Minister and his ministerial colleagues, putting independent journalists behind bars for their dissenting opinion, passing laws discriminating a particular religion like the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, new avatar of the Indian Penal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure by limiting many fundamental rights, amending labour laws by passing labour code Bills to further tighten the grip of the corporates and other big industries on the rights and amenities of the workers, etc. Some of the leaders and members of Parliament of the ruling party openly said they would change the Constitution if they came to power. Indeed, they have come to power but not on their own. With a strong opposition now, it would be difficult to do such an exercise as the government at the Centre will be forced to change its course.

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Seat-sharing Mess The I.N.D.I.A bloc could have gained more if some of the constituents had not shown arrogance at the time of seat-sharing. In many seats, the constituent parties fought among themselves and paved the way for the rival BJP and other opponent parties. In West Bengal, the Congress and the CPI(M)-led Left came to an electoral understanding and fought against West Bengal’s ruling TMC and the BJP. The TMC singularly restricted the BJP to 12 seats despite the Congress-Left combination taking away a sizable number of votes. Unlike Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, the anti-incumbency factor did not work in West Bengal. The Congress- Left duo could not gauge the ground reality and was swayed by the narrative spread by election pundits. Coalition politics is a combined political effort to stop the juggernaut of the powerful political force. Therefore, its success depends on core understanding, sacrifice and, above all, the wisdom to weigh one’s own strength. For example, in the Barpeta constituency of Assam, the Congress and the CPI(M) put up their own candidates against Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), a regional ally of the BJP, after a failed negotiation on seat-sharing. The AGP candidate won the seat getting 8,60,113 votes, defeating the Congress candidate by a margin of 2,22,351 votes, while the CPI(M) candidate got only 96,138 votes or 5.7% of the total votes. The combined number of votes of the Congress and the CPI(M) still was short of the winning number. Voters change their minds by weighing the prospects of candidates. When they saw that the two candidates of the I.N.D.I.A bloc were fighting each other, they might have changed their minds. In the Kashmir Valley, the National Conference (NC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) failed to come to an electoral understanding and fought each other. The outcome was that both former Chief Ministers of Jammu & Kashmir lost. Omar Abdullah of the NC lost to an independent candidate while Mehbooba Mufti lost to NC candidate Mian Altaf Ahmed. Both lost by a margin of over 2 lakh votes. In the Thrissur constituency of Kerala, Suresh Gopi won by getting only 37.8% of the vote share, while the CPI(M) candidate VS Sunil Kumar got 31% and the Congress candidate got 30.1%. The combined share of the total votes of the Congress and the CPI(M) was 61.1 %. In Kerala, the Congress and the CPI(M) are traditionally rival parties and any national coalition arithmetic cannot stop them from fighting each other. Annie Raja of the CPI contested against Rahul Gandhi in the Wayanad constituency. Veteran CPI leader D Raja, husband of Annie Raja, questioned why Rahul Gandhi should contest from Kerala against I.N.D.I.A bloc’s partner Left parties when his main fight was against the BJP and the RSS. D Raja’s point holds some reasons, but he cannot deny that the people of Kerala overwhelmingly voted for the Congress to win 14 seats and the Left only one. Former Chief Minister and Union minister Sarbananda Sonowal won from the Dibrugarh constituency of Assam by defeating his nearest rival Lurinjyoti Gogoi of Asom Jatiya Party, an ally of the I.N.D.I.A block, by a margin of over 2.5 lakh votes. The Aam Aadmi Party also pitted a candidate in the constituency and managed to get 1.8 lakh votes which would have gone to Lurinjyoti Gogoi if AAP had not contested. Sonowal would have faced a stiff contest from Gogoi. There are more such examples. One may hope that the Congress-led opposition will learn from these mistakes.

Reigning In No one knows how long JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar and TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu will continue their loyalty to the NDA as the history of these two regional leaders points to uncertainty. Even if they remain loyal to the BJP-led NDA government, the silver lining is that Narendra Modi’s onehanded role will be diminished. Policymaking by the government will be based on wide consensus. The office of the Enforcement Directorate, the I-T, the CBI or any other public institution will not be abused by the wish of a single leader. We may hope nobody will call the present government ‘Modi Sarkar’ as this government is unlikely to be singlehandedly run by the Prime Minister as in the past. One can call it at best the NDA or the BJP sarkar.

By – Geetartha Pathak

(The author is a senior journalist from Assam)