Covid-19, BJP's Bengal failure renew Opposition's hopes

When Narendra Modi became the prime minister in 2014, international news magazine ‘Time’ had done a cover story titled ‘Modi means business’. Now, seven years later, the foreign media is virtually saying in one voice that Modi means mess, unadulterated mess.

The havoc caused by the pandemic has made all the difference coupled with the defeat of the BJP in Bengal despite a high-pitched poll campaign in which the party spent all its might. The do or die battle against Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has badly boomeranged as also the Modi dispensation’s failure to first identify and then stem the second wave of Covid pandemic.

And the mess has become a chink in the PM’s armour as it has provided the much-needed opening for his opponents, badly battered since May 2014, amid the war cry of an ‘opposition mukt bharat’. Though Modi and his Man Friday, Home Minister Amit Shah, often spoke of “Congress mukt Bharat”, what they intended and what was perceived in the political class was virtually a one-party rule with others playing a second fiddle or worse.

Modi’s handling of the deadly second wave of the pandemic coupled with the disastrous Bengal campaign has set off a gradual political realignment much to his shock and surprise. The questions being raised first by Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren and now by triumphant Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee on the way the PM deals with the CMs is bound to unnerve the ruling party at the Centre.

How would realignment take shape? Who would lead the charge against Modi? These are pertinent questions. But now only one thing is clear. These are early days but are pregnant with meaning. The more the Sambit Patras and the Amit Malviyas of BJP speak, the more perceived is nervousness in Modi-Shah.

Opposition leaders like Sonia Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Vadra, Akhilesh Yadav, Tejaswi Yadav, Pinarayi Vijayan, M K Stalin, Sitaram Yechury etc are confident that the sun has started setting on the Modi empire. They know that patience is another name of politics and nothing should be done in a hurry.

Interestingly, the Bengal campaign has skyrocketed the BJP’s stock from just three seats to 77 in a House of 294. But it has come at a tremendous cost to the BJP. It has exposed the intentions of Modi-Shah. Now all regional parties feel that the duo is a threat to them. In May 2004, the most threatened was Congress as it was in political wilderness at the Centre for eight years. This led to the emergence of the UPA. In May 2021, everyone who is non-BJP is threatened one way or another.

The likes of Naveen Patnaik (Odisha chief minister) might have earlier evolved the policy of equidistance from the BJP and the Congress to suit them in their fiefdoms. Patnaik, K Chandrasekhar Rao (Telangana) or YS Jaganmohan Reddy (Andhra Pradesh) know in the heart of their hearts that the BJP under Modi-Shah can no longer be trusted.

Mamata has become their undeclared leader. Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has always seen Mamata in awe. NCP chief Sharad Pawar was once her leader. Along with Mamata, the leader to be watched is Sonia Gandhi who knows her limitations and she had made them her strength way back in 2003-04.

United action

It is still too early to say as to how and when the non-BJP parties would spring into a united action that would decide the future battles of the ballot including the one in Uttar Pradesh scheduled in nine months from now. The response to the second wave by the ruling dispensation could by no stretch of imagination be seen as from one having a “56-inch-chest”. So the political fallout is bound to be unpalatable.

UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, dubbed as the most `damdaar’ (strong) among the BJP’s Chief Ministerial lot, is a beleaguered man unable to understand, like Modi-Shah, how to douse the pandemic blaze. There is deadwood in the non-BJP space too. Mayawati, who once boasted of being a bigger leader than Sonia, has virtually become a spent force by her own actions and words.

That the BJP is bankrupt of ideas is clear from the way the government is pursuing the controversial Central Vista project on a war footing despite strong opposition to it. Besides, actions of the ruling dispensation at the Centre and the BJP in Bengal despite Mamata giving them more than a bloody nose is another point. The controversial Governor there has proved time and again that he is just acting like an agent of the Centre. This is not to condone the acts of political violence in the wake of the Trinamool win. It would not be a surprise that after Bengal, the Centre and the BJP would train their guns on Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi chief minister.

What is being forgotten by the BJP, which used to proclaim from the housetops that it is the largest political organisation in the world, is that it has suddenly become isolated in the country’s polity. A suggestion from a party leader to turn the BJP’s posh national headquarters into a Covid hospital to provide succour to thousands of affected in the national capital unwittingly provides a glimpse in the party’s sombre mood. There is much disquiet in the ruling party but also a latent realisation that Modi-Shah are like the jailer in ‘Sholey’ whose motto was “Hum nahi sudhrenge’.

(The writers are senior journalists based in New Delhi)