From Jai ho to Jay woe, BJP’s story crumbles

Written into the invisible watermark of the pages of this book is an exploration of the campaign for 2019. It is clear to me that the NDA government has betrayed its mandate of 2014. People are asking questions about both intent and delivery. In my view, demonetisation has been a turning point. Citizens were patient because they believed the Prime Minister and thought he had a plan to unearth black money and seriously tackle corruption. They are feeling let down.

Yet, since demonetisation was such a massive exercise, with such deep and diverse implications, it cannot be dismissed as just another political failure. It has led to many types of stakeholders—from ordinary farmers to fat-cat bankers, from political workers to economic pundits—asking whether the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government is mature and astute enough to think through the longer-term impact of its policy decisions, or whether these are impetuous and spur-of- the-moment gimmicks.

These were doubts that not many were willing to listen to in the winter of 2016. They have a large number of takers today. Now, a backlash is building to the three-and- a-half wasted years. From Jai Ho to Jay Woe, the BJP’s narrative is gradually crumbling. In 2014, taking on a beleaguered and scandal ridden UPA government, it optimised the anti-corruption mood and exploited popular anger. It realised that people were fed up of corruption and continued to milk that sentiment. As such, in the next three years it presented itself, using heavy-duty propaganda tools, as the sole representative of clean politics and governance and painted everybody else as corrupt. Government agencies as well as other agencies were mercilessly and shamelessly used to manufacture cases and level false allegations against political rivals. Some of these allegations appeared before key state elections, where the BJP was facing an uphill battle, and then quietly died down after the voting.

Now, after the BJP president’s ‘son stroke’ and the revelation that Acche Din and windfall gains seem to have come only for one company, the so-called anti-corruption rhetoric is struggling. Nobody buys it anymore. It is being laughed at and mocked. More than voters’ hate, megalomaniacal regimes should fear voters’ jibes. The NDA government has crossed that critical point. It is being laughed out of government.

The false rhetoric built around a ten-letter word— corruption—is increasingly being questioned. It is for the opposition to set the frame right by building an alternative narrative around another ten-letter word: competence. And on this, the BJP can’t win.

I believe the BJP and Narendra Modi can be stopped in 2019. How can this be done? We need to make a realistic assessment of national alternatives to the BJP, as well as regional opportunities and challenges for the BJP, and then strategise.

In the past year, the experiment of aligning with the Congress has not really worked for a big regional party like the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh. In Bihar, Nitish Kumar has joined hands with the BJP. So be it. On the other hand, the crumbling of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and the strengthening of MK Stalin and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu has boosted the opposition. I will stick my neck out and predict a DMK sweep in the next general elections. As for Bengal, it will only be a battle for who will come second or third.

So, what next? In the run-up to 2019, I offer a three-step approach. First, don’t make this a national contest between Narendra Modi and a single alternative candidate. This plays into the BJP’s hands. Rather, make this a national election that is a sum of state elections. Make Modi and the BJP fight 29 different regional elections in the idiom and language and with the issues and themes of the individual states. Don’t let the BJP make it a contest around polarising issues—beef, pseudo-nationalism or some such prime-time, made-for- TV-and- Twitter agenda.

Second, consider where the BJP juggernaut was stopped in 2014—in Bengal by Mamata Banerjee, in Odisha by Naveen Patnaik, in Tamil Nadu by Jayalalithaa. Consider where the Indian National Congress has beaten the BJP in recent times—in Punjab, led by the captain of the state, Amarinder Singh. Consider where the Congress is most confident when it comes to state elections in the near future—in Karnataka, under the skipper Siddaramaiah.

This is how the battle has to be fought in every one of the twenty-nine states in 2019 (or will it be in the winter of 2018!). Wherever the Congress can provide strong and rooted state leaders, willing to work hard, it will lead the battle and be relevant. Otherwise, parties that are strong in individual states will shoulder responsibility. It’s a joint effort.

Third, BJP will try and divert attention with a fake narrative, but the opposition has to be disciplined in keeping the 2019 election to a referendum on the Modi government’s performance—nothing more and nothing less. Let’s talk jobs, demonetisation scam, hasty GST roll-out, farmer suicides, prices, economy. This is a moment to judge the BJP government’s record. Here is how to JUDGE it:

• Jobs—and their absence

• Underperformance —a hallmark of governance since 2014

• Demonetization—one of the biggest policy blunders and swindles in Indian history, on par with Muhammad bin Tughlaq and the Bengal Famine

• GST—the ‘simple’ tax that has made life so complicated and put business and commerce in the sickroom

• Economy—how our children are contemplating a shaky future of low growth, income inequality and economic distress

Make the BJP answer for this. Ask the people to judge it. I am confident that the electoral verdict will follow.

(Edited excerpts taken with permission from Harper Collins)