Who says there is no alternative to BJP and Modi?

Not only the apologists of the BJP but even several otherwise objective analysts
sometimes end up declaring that ‘There Is No Alternative’ (TINA) to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Even one of his bitterest critics till recently, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar recently asked aloud if the country has anyone like Modi.

One is entitled to one’s opinion and is free to express it. But in a democracy the concept of TINA is not just vastly exaggerated or overrated but it is also flawed. Indeed, there is space for TINA factor to succeed only when a democratically elected leader, Hitler for example, turns a dictator and bans all elections and
opposition parties. Otherwise, if democratic elections do take place, there is always a possibility of an alternative emerging. It is another matter that many of us do not see it or pretend not to see it.

There are umpteen examples of alternative personalities or outfits emerging
from nowhere and winning the election. The latest example is of Arvind
Kejriwal, whom many, even Delhi based journalists, were not aware of before 2010. In fact, Kiran Bedi, who was BJP’s choice for the post of CM in the 2015 election, was a much better known face. Then came the Anna Hazare movement to be followed by the formation of Aam Aadmi Party and subsequent defeat of the veteran leader and on paper far more politically strong Sheila Dikshit.

When Indira Gandhi announced the general election on January 19, 1977 at the
height of Emergency, she never dreamt of losing it as there was no alternative around. The opposition leaders were in jail and the opposition was in tatters. But by March 21, in just about two months, she had lost to a ragtag coalition of different parties, which merged into the Janata Party. They elected the same old guard, Morarji Desai, as the Prime Minister. It is another thing that a couple of years later they started quarrelling and betrayed the mandate given to them by the voters.

When Congress won 400-odd seats in the 1984 election, there was no alternative to Rajiv Gandhi. He reigned supreme for more than three years as even the most organised opposition party, the BJP, was totally marginalised as it could win only two seats. Even its most popular face, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had lost from his own seat. But then Rajiv’s own defence minister V P Singh resigned. He made the Bofors ‘kickback’ a big issue and within months everything changed. On December 1, 1989 he became the PM of the country, which nobody would have imagined even at the beginning of that year.
On May 13, 2004, similarly, something very strange happened. In one of the biggest upsets of its kind in many decades the Congress party led by Sonia
Gandhi came to power defeating a very well ensconced NDA government
led by the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The victory came even when all the regional satraps were with the NDA or were opposed to her. Even Mamata Banerjee and Naveen Patnaik were part of NDA and Sharad Pawar led NCP was speaking the language of the BJP, at least on the foreign origin of the new Congress president. For days, the BJP remained in a state of shock as all its propaganda of Shining India and Good Governance came a cropper.

When Manmohan Singh became PM on May 22, 2004, again no political pundit had ever predicted that this would happen. The prominent regional satrap who
helped the UPA come to power was Lalu Prasad and to some extent Mulayam Singh Yadav. The UPA returned to power with an even bigger majority in 2009 with Rahul Gandhi, whom the BJP never misses to ridicule, playing a key role, especially in Uttar Pradesh.

The problem with opinion-makers is that they start talking of alternative when the election is still far away and battle lines are still not drawn. All talk of TINA arise when the polity is listless or scared and helps only the ruling party, the BJP at this point, and the status quo.

Yet another example of TINA falling flat on its face came from France earlier this year. There was political uncertainty till a few months before the election. It was even feared that ultra-nationalist and ultra-Right Marine Le Pen may do a lot better and sneak into a coalition. But from nowhere emerged Emmanuel Macron, who till not long back, was a minister in Francois Hollande-led Socialist government. His newly floated party, En Marche, virtually decimated the two established mainstream parties to win an unexpected and unforeseen victory.

Alternatives often emerge months before polling. Sometimes, sensing the mood of the people leaders from within the ruling party desert and challenge their own leader. To say therefore that there is no alternative to the BJP and Narendra Modi in 2019, and to say it so early, smacks of both ignorance and mischief.