Modi’s election campaign may have already peaked

This time around, though, Modi’s bid for a third five-year term might have peaked a bit too soon, with the January 22 consecration of a Hindu temple, built at the site where a medieval Muslim mosque was razed by extremist mobs in 1992.

By Andy Mukherjee

Prime Minister Narendra Modi likes to win his elections well before the actual vote. Ten years ago, when he was an opposition politician, just securing his party’s backing for the top job was enough — swirling anti-government sentiment did the rest. In 2019, after a sudden escalation in military tensions with Pakistan, he cruised to victory amid a last-minute surge of chest-thumping nationalism.

This time around, though, Modi’s bid for a third five-year term might have peaked a bit too soon, with the Jan. 22 consecration of a Hindu temple, built at the site where a medieval Muslim mosque was razed by extremist mobs in 1992.

That glitzy ceremony, attended by billionaire tycoons, such as Reliance Industries Ltd.’s Chairman Mukesh Ambani and Bharti Airtel Ltd.'s founder Sunil Mittal, boosted his appeal among the Hindus of northern India. More importantly, it also left a gap on the election calendar. Every day from now until May, Modi has to protect his popularity — and his government’s track record — not just from attacks by opposition politicians, jobless youths and disgruntled farmers, but also from a late (and faint) spark of independence within the judiciary.

Assuming the schedule is the same as in 2019, voting will start in phases around mid-April and go on for about 40 days. A lot can come unstuck over this period, both for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, and the 30-party alliance that has coalesced around the single-point agenda of unseating Modi. But three important events since the temple inauguration show that the risks are rising disproportionately for Modi. The autocratic leader will likely still be India’s next prime minister, but his party’s goal of winning 370 parliamentary seats out of 543 is looking like a tall order. Even maintaining the 2019 tally of 303 may not be all that easy.

So what are the events tilting the scales? The first was a small mayoral election in Chandigarh, a city in the north. The returning officer blatantly tampered with the votes — in full view of CCTV cameras — to declare the BJP candidate as the winner. “This is nothing but murder of democracy,” said Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, as the Supreme Court invoked special constitutional powers to judge the contest in the opposition’s favor and ordered the government to prosecute the officer.

The indictment has sent a chilling message to the district magistrates who will serve as returning officers in the upcoming polls. If they’re convicted of electoral fraud and go to jail, they’ll be suspended and may lose their jobs. As a result, expect the voting process to run more fairly. The administrative advantage the BJP draws from being in power in many northern states — and Gujarat and Maharashtra in the west — may be constrained this time around.

The second important judicial entanglement is the Supreme Court’s recent decision to invalidate electoral bonds. The bearer instruments, introduced in 2018, were a channel for anonymously routing corporate money to political parties. Banning them this late in the game won’t make a dent in the BJP’s financial advantage in the world’s most expensive elections. It has already received 60% of the $2 billion in bonds that companies have bought, and gets to keep the money that’s already in the bank.

However, the court also ordered the State Bank of India to furnish a list of everyone it has sold the bonds to by March 6. The election commission was instructed to make the information public. Just before the deadline, the State Bank asked the court for more time — until June 30. By then, the elections would be over. Naturally, opposition parties and right-to-information activists were suspicious that the list of donors is being suppressed because it would show quid pro quo, or intimidation of private businesses.

To Modi’s discomfiture, the judges rejected the SBI’s plea, and forced it to furnish the data to the poll watchdog by Tuesday. The election commission must publish the information by Friday. Disclosure so close to voting could damage the BJP’s prospects. The ruling party says it respects the court’s verdict and noted it was only trying to bring transparency to political funding with the bonds.

The third setback to Modi came last weekend when an election commissioner abruptly resigned, barely days before the expected release of the polling schedule. With another having retired, the three-person watchdog needs new members. The government, already at loggerheads with the judiciary over how to fill the vacancies, has passed a law giving the political executive control over the selection process. Although it seems unlikely, expect more chaos if judges strike down the law or suspend its application.

The opposition parties, meanwhile, are in an unstable network. The Congress Party’s Rahul Gandhi is the de facto leader. Although he favors expanding the welfare state, the coalition lacks a clear agenda in the unlikely event that it wins. Governance has always been an afterthought in Indian politics. Power is more important, and it might be that the unwieldy alliance isn’t hoping to capture it. Not this time. The goal is to rein in Modi and his Home Minister Amit Shah, and put a stop to the targeted hounding of anti-BJP politicians by federal investigation agencies. That way, they keep their flock together, out of jail and away from the BJP’s overtures.

But preparing for a fight in 2029 against someone other than Modi — he will be 79 by then — is also a risky strategy. That election may be for a revamped, expanded parliament with diminished representation for the southern states, where the BJP is weak. By then, India’s religious minorities, left-wing politicians and liberals may have lost the fight to keep the republic secular. The structure of the economy would also have changed with investment-led growth and spending by a narrow elite extending their dominance over mass employment and consumption.

Just as Modi’s campaign appears to have used up its fuel too early, 2029 may be too late for the resistance against Modi to peak.