Will Modi be BJP’s sole face in State elections?

Displaying his usual arrogance, he is eliminating every State leader from the scene, irrespective of his status and background. We are aware of how he hardheartedly dealt with his rivals as the CM of Gujarat. We should also remember how he sidelined all the senior leaders, including LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi. Some of them were his mentors and played significant roles in shaping his political career

In his recent political manoeuvres, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is positioning himself as the sole face in all State elections. Displaying his usual arrogance, he is eliminating every state leader from the scene, irrespective of his status and background. We are aware of how he hardheartedly dealt with his rivals as the Chief Minister of Gujarat. We should also remember how he sidelined all the senior leaders, including LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi. Some of them were his mentors and played significant roles in shaping his political career. He also carefully neutralised leaders such as Sushma Swaraj and Nitin Gadkari, who were seen as his rivals. Sushama Swaraj is no more, and Gadkari is waiting for retirement. It is said that his cabinet colleagues play no role in decision-making. Most of the time, they, like common men, are unaware of his decisions.

The suspense over the Women’s Reservation Bill is an example. The Prime Minister even denied opposition parties their privilege by refusing to disclose the agenda for the special session of Parliament. The suspense and secrecy are common to his style of governance. How arbitrarily he takes his decisions can be seen in his announcements of the demonetization and the Corona lockdown. He is showing the same aspect of his style of functioning and sidelining all those state leaders who have some support base in the party or among the masses. He is destroying state-level leadership in poll-bound Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh without considering the consequences. Has he lost faith in his party, or is he losing his own confidence?

Analysts are largely partisan in their reading of what the Modi-Shah Duo is doing in states. Their inability has its roots in evaluating the general decline in democracy and the ascent of autocracy in India. They have surrendered to the narrative of the establishment and are parroting the BJP’s argument that the leadership is taking these steps to win the upcoming elections. They are endorsing the leadership’s propaganda that Shivraj’s long rule has created so much anti-incumbency that his continuance will only ensure defeat. If we accept this argument, we expect the leadership to throw in an alternative. Has it been done?

What the leadership has done is field three central ministers and four MPs in the upcoming assembly elections. The list includes one general secretary of the party as well. The move is highly controversial. The general secretary, who has been ordered to contest assembly elections, has publicly expressed his annoyance over the party’s decision. The move has an underlying message that none of the contesting seniors should consider himself the only choice of the party for the post of chief minister. It also clearly indicates that Modi will be the sole face of the party in assembly elections. In no case will he share this pride with any other leader.

However, the argument that Modi’s face will reduce anti-incumbency hardly inspires confidence. On the contrary, it may aggravate the anti-incumbency because Madhya Pradesh has been enjoying a “double engine government”. The ‘double engine government’ could not help the state cure its ills. The state has the worst record on indices of governance and development. The state has beaten every other state in corruption. The infamous scam of VYAPAM (Professional Examination Board) has no parallel in the country. The scam in admissions and recruitment has been going on since the early nineties and could be unearthed only in 2013. Allegedly, politicians, academicians, and government officials at all levels were involved in manipulating exams for admissions in medical, engineering, and other professional courses and exams for recruitment.

The score of the state on the Human Development Index is also very poor. Some tribal communities in the State are facing such miseries, as their condition can only be comparable with that of sub-Saharan countries. These communities are facing extreme conditions of malnutrition and hunger. The forest laws tweaked to benefit business interests have brought misery to the tribal communities. During the last few decades, the state has been emerging as a farming state. However, unfriendly laws of contract farming and a lack of support from the government have made their lives difficult. Farmers have been protesting against it. The Prime Minister’s interest in the state is limited to such events as releasing African cheetahs in Kuno National Park on the occasion of his birthday last year. The serial deaths of cheetahs in Kuno National Park have exposed the corruption in the cheetah project. People are blaming the poor management and corruption in the forest department for it.

In this backdrop, there is hardly any probability of gaining anything by dislodging Shivraj Singh from his position as the top leader. The BJP cannot recover its lost ground this way. Had it not made a hurried comeback in March 2020 by engineering the defection of Jyotiraditya Sindhia, the party would have been in a strong position. The Congress would have been facing anti-incumbency. In fact, Sindhia’s defection also complicated equations within the party. He remained a misfit in the party organization. It is clear that Modi-Shah brought Sindhia into the party without preparing the ground for it.

Unable to balance equations within the party, Modi-Shah is resorting to arm-twisting. This will further accelerate factional feuds in the party. The party has landed in a situation where it is hardly in a position to counter attacks from Congress. Can Prime Minister Modi’s attack on Rahul Gandhi and his family compensate?

The strategy to sideline regional leaders is not limited to Madhya Pradesh alone. The same thing has been done to Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan and Raman Singh in Chhattisgarh. It means Modi will be the face in all elections, from the Assembly to the Lok Sabha.

(The author is a senior journalist. He has experience of working with leading newspapers and electronic media including Deccan Herald, Sunday Guardian, Navbharat Times and Dainik Bhaskar. He writes on politics, society, environment and economy)