Deja vu all over again?

Maybe not -- behind the scenes, there is much churn

This is the entrance to the half-constructed, hastily inaugurated Ram Temple in Ayodhya — after one single spell of pre-monsoon showers

PRIME Minister Narendra Modi got to make two speeches in the first session of the 18th Lok Sabha — the first in his own voice, the second ventriloquized through President Draupadi Murmu, who addressed a joint sitting of the two Houses on the 4th day of the session.

The President, inter alia, made the startling claim that for the third time in succession “a stable government with a full majority” has been formed — a claim even Modi, no slouch at spinning tall tales, couldn’t bring himself to make, so it got written into the speech the President had to read out.

The most interesting aspect of the first four days of the opening session was the constant harping on the Emergency. (This is not to say the Emergency wasn’t a blot on our democracy, but merely to point to the timing. If you are marking the 50th anniversary of the 25 June 1975 declaration in 2024, what are you going to mark on 25 June 2025?)

Re-elected Speaker Om Birla kicked things off by going against the norms and unilaterally moving a resolution condemning the Emergency (Note: Speakers don’t move resolutions). The BJP “demonstrated” against the Emergency outside Parliament. And President Murmu in her speech mouthed a condemnation of the imposition of the Emergency back in the day.

For why? Because the masterminds in the party hierarchy figured that they needed to counter the power political imagery of the entire Opposition carrying copies of the Constitution to Parliament, and holding it up at every opportunity — including when Modi was taking his oath.

As counters go, though, this one was pretty weak. And as always, it was left to cartoonists to underline the idiocy. Like, so:

What became clear during the early days of the first session is that Modi and his managers are hellbent on proving that he has not been weakened by the recent electoral reverses. Hence the re-election of Om Birla; hence, also, the new Cabinet which is pretty much of a muchness with the old one (though if Modi had his way, Nitin Gadkari would have been dumped; that the latter not only made it back to the Cabinet but even retained his portfolio owes entirely to the RSS top brass putting its collective foot down and insisting that Gadkari be retained.)

The thing, though, is that Modi has been weakened and everyone on both sides of the aisle knows it, none better than the combined Opposition. Speaker after speaker from the Opposition benches made it a point to remind Om Birla of his sins of omission and commission from the last term — some with humour (like Akhilesh Yadav), some with gravitas (like newly-installed Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi), some with a thin layer of sugar coating (as for instance Supriya Sule) and several others with unminced words and combative tone.

To top it off, Opposition leaders led by Rahul Gandhi then met Birla in his chambers and, while Congress leader KC Venugopal put a “just routine” face on it, word from behind the scenes is that the leaders told Birla, in no uncertain terms, that his hectoring ways (as evidenced for example when he took objection to Shashi Tharoor ending his oath-taking with “Jai Samvidhan”) wouldn’t be tolerated this time round.

What emerges from the opening exchanges is this: In his third go-round, Modi does not have the benefit of the honeymoon period he enjoyed in his previous two terms. Through his first term and for most of his second, questioning Modi was deemed anti-national; right from the onset of this third term, the Opposition with its new-found heft has turned questioning into a Constitutional duty.

During the elections, the BJP/NDA was forced on the defensive; now, the newly installed government is facing a similar plight. The country is riddled with faultlines, and the Opposition is hell bent on raising every single one of them, both inside Parliament and outside (as witness the continuing protests against the NEET fiasco, led this time by the Congress).

Backstage, the attempt is to shore up the BJP’s numbers through the now institutionalised methods of coercion and bribery. The party brass has been reaching out to elected MPs of all Opposition stripes (with a particular emphasis on Maharashtra), looking to get them to switch loyalties — but unlike in the past, these attempts have thus far met with rebuffs.

Interestingly, this time the overtures are flowing in reverse. In Maharashtra, in Bihar, and even in Uttar Pradesh, word is that MPs and assorted leaders are reaching out to the Opposition with offers to switch. In Maharashtra, Uddhav Thackeray is — for now — hell bent on not taking back leaders from the Eknath Shinde faction into his fold, and his stance is based on realpolitik. Thackeray spent the election campaign calling out the “traitors” and accusing them of betraying the legacy of Balasaheb; any ghar wapasi at this point will not go down well with the Sena rank and file, who so recently fought off the combined might of the BJP/Ajit Pawar/Eknath Shinde alliance.

All of which brings up the BJP’s biggest problem: the overnight demonetisation of the hitherto “infallible” consiglieri, Amit Shah.

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IN the wake of the election results, the BJP brass has been holding a series of review meetings aimed at understanding the causes for what, internally, the party sees as a debacle.

Such meetings, focussed on Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Haryana (others are in progress, though delayed by the Parliament sessions) all came to the same conclusions: (1) An over-reliance on Modi; (2) The lack of strong local leadership; and (3) Too much of negativity and hindutva and not enough of issues that matter to the various voting blocks.

None of this is startlingly original. As far back as June 2023, in the wake of the defeat in the Karnataka Assembly elections, RSS mouthpiece Organiser had, in a signed editorial, warned of these exact issues:

Without strong leadership and effective delivery at the regional level, Prime Minister Modi’s charisma and Hindutva as an ideological glue would not be sufficient.

Unfortunately for the BJP, the problems that have been repeatedly identified are the exact same ones it is powerless to address. The Modi/Shah duo has over the past ten years systematically decimated strong local leaders in order to concentrate all power in Modi’s hands and to prevent the rise of any pretenders to the throne (think Adityanath) — and you can’t magick local leadership into being just in time for elections. (Conversely, the Congress owes its revival to precisely this: the party shed its centralised mindset and gave local leaders starring roles, and the results are beginning to show).

As for regional issues, almost all of them have their roots in the Central government’s actions and inactions, which makes it impossible to put a benign spin on things come election time.

The hindutva adhesive has done its work, creating a base of committed voters who will opt for the party despite any and all hardships they may be undergoing in their own lives — so hammering away at the same theme merely invokes the law of diminishing marginal returns.

Which leaves “Modi charisma” as the only fallback option — and if the recent elections sent one clear signal, it is that the sheen has worn off (as witness his struggle to hold on to his own constituency).

This brings us back to the key part of the puzzle: Amit Shah.

The one factor that was discussed extensively during the review meetings, but not aired in public, was candidate selection. The entire exercise was run by Shah (who even over-ruled Adityanath’s suggestions and replaced the UP CM’s picks with his own). Even within the BJP, the prevailing belief is that Shah was building a coterie of loyalists who would owe their position as MP to him alone.

The results, most notably the setback in UP, has placed Shah in a precarious position. At RSS urging, he is no longer de facto number two — that position now belongs to Rajnath Singh.

What is more, Shah is on probation. There are three (possibly four if the government decides to hold elections in J&K on schedule) key elections to assemblies in Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Haryana due before year-end.

With the caveat that it is folly to predict electoral outcomes months before they are even announced, as things stand right now the BJP and allies are poised to lose Maharashtra big time. Also Jharkhand, where the Congress and JMM have already agreed to fight in alliance and where, earlier today, incarcerated former CM Hemant Soren has been granted bail, giving the JMM an extra fillip.

Haryana, as of now, is a toss-up. In 2019, the BJP had swept the state, winning all ten seats. In the recent LS polls, the Congress went from zero in 2019 to five wins, all at the expense of the BJP which also ended up with five. It’s also worth pointing out that the Congress has been steadily improving its position in the state. In 2014, the BJP had shot up from four seats to 43 in the 90-member Assembly, which ended its tenure with the BJP on 47. In 2019, the party lost seven seats while the Congress under Bhupinder Singh Hooda gained 16 to end up on 31. (The BJP ended up forming the government thanks to a post-poll alliance with Dushyant Singh Chautala. That marriage of convenience is now over; the BJP is holding on to power by a frayed thread and, as recently as yesterday, Chautala told the Congress to put up a common candidate for the Rajya Sabha and assured his support).

The reasons for Haryana turning against the BJP have been discussed in earlier pieces; none of those reasons have been resolved, nor is there any likelihood that they will be, in the near- to medium-term future.

Modi cannot afford to lose two, or even three, key states this close to the underwhelming performance in the general elections — his already dented facade of invincibility cannot afford another crippling blow.

For the PM, it is an existential problem. The only “Modi ki guarantee” that matters is the belief that he can get you elected, irrespective of the baggage you carry. If that guarantee proves hollow, there is no longer any incentive for allies to stick with him.

This is what puts Shah on notice. Though the BJP has appointed “election managers” for each of these states, it is Shah who has to deliver — a message he has received, loud and clear.

PostScript: For all the talk about the need to soft-pedal hindutva, the Parivar has passed down word to amp up unrest. Quint recently mapped hate crimes that occurred since the election results were published, and it tells a story. The Parivar is making no bones about its involvement — just yesterday, the VHP and the Bajrang Dal took out a procession in support of those arrested in the June 7 lynching of three Muslim men. One of those arrested is a member of the BJP Yuva Morcha.