Indian politics heads towards normalcy

If Narendra Modi’s strongman image is dialling down, it will benefit the BJP, as the party has been de-institutionalised under his leadership. It can eventually hope for an organisational revival.

The 2024 general elections will be remembered for returning Indian politics to normal.

As he prepares to lead a coalition government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will now be forced to listen to both the Parliamentary Opposition for whom he has shown nothing but disdain, and regional parties whom he had specially targeted. He will also have to curb the hardliner Hindutva agenda that he had vigorously pushed in the last decade.

The Opposition I.N.D.I.A. bloc has shown great sagacity in not attempting to form a rag-tag government by wooing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Even if it had cobbled the numbers, the government would have been a medley of parties pulling and pushing in different directions.

Like the Janata Party government formed after Emergency in 1977, it may have been short-lived because of the ambitions of a few maverick politicians in its ranks who have a reputation for jumping ship to avail of a better opportunity. That would have paved the way for the revival of the BJP in a big way.

It is also just as well that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has not advised Modi to step down after failing to get a majority on his own. It could have sprung a surprise by suggesting an alternative prime ministerial candidate — say, someone like the much more amiable Shivraj Singh Chouhan, a three-time chief minister, an experienced administrator who won his Lok Sabha seat by a margin of over 800,000 votes. Perhaps it was the apprehension of critical voices within the BJP that made Modi get himself elected leader of the NDA even before the BJP’s parliamentary party elected him as its leader, as protocol dictates.

However, Modi’s political dilemma is unenviable.

If he continues with the highly centralised style of decision-making he has evolved and that is inseparable from his larger-than-life persona, he will end up creating resentment among his alliance partners. On the other hand, a more benign image, will not find favour with his core Hindu majoritarian support base. His bhakts (fans or worshippers) feed off his strongman, 56-inch-chest brand — a brand already eroded by the shortfall of votes in this election. Without the committed supporters, Modi is an ordinary Joe.

Whatever his choices then, Modi is set on a declining path — leading towards the sunset of a charmed political career. This might be beneficial for the BJP, as the party has been completely de-institutionalised under his leadership. It can eventually hope for an organisational revival.

The results have also been a shot in the arm for the Congress. It may not have done as well as expected by some of its enthusiastic leaders, but the results show that people-oriented politics is the path for it to pursue. The importance of two-way communication with the masses — listening to their woes and responding by formulating policies and programmes based on what people want — is the essence of democracy. This was the lesson that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi brought home from his two major walkathons across India — which was exactly the opposite of Modi’s one-sided ‘Mann ki baat’.

The election results have also sent two other signals.

Faith in the use of electronic voting machines (EVMs) has finally been restored. No one has raised questions about the EVMs being manipulated, the go-to excuse for defeated political parties. The conspiracy theory that the ruling BJP had the means to manipulate the software of the EVMs to ensure that most of the votes cast went in favour of their candidates, was widely believed. In the absence of any publicly available evidence, this concern has now been set to rest.

There were also concerns that even if the EVMs could not be manipulated, there was always a possibility of their being replaced. In one such alleged incident, opposition party workers prevented a truck filled with EVMs in Uttar Pradesh’s Jaunpur from reaching the strong room where the EVMs had been stored after polling was over. It turned out they were spare EVMs being transported — or so the district administration claimed. If there were any such intentions the increased vigilance of the political parties — such as by tallying the numbers of EVMs which were used in polling with those from which votes were counted, prevented such rigging.

Finally, these elections have also demonstrated the utter irrelevance of political consultants in winning elections. Thanks to Prashant Kishore and his unsubstantiated tall claims, the oracle-like image of political consultants has crashed to the ground. Some of them, who conduct exit polls claiming that their statistical samples are a near-accurate reflection of the peoples’ mood, were irreparably damaged by the mismatch with final poll results. One of them even broke down crying on live television. The Congress party has alleged that he had not made public the fact that he was also a political consultant to two powerful BJP ministers in the outgoing government.

Now political parties will think twice before leaving their election planning to political consultants, and their opinion poll-based strategies. They are more likely to rely on ground reports from party functionaries, as they did in the past. That is how political parties ought to function.

Meanwhile, a return to coalition politics will ensure that the nation’s regional, cultural, and religious diversity will be better protected from the narrow and relentlessly homogenising agenda of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP.

(Bharat Bhushan is a Delhi-based journalist.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.