Modi@2: BJP Will Continue to Target Cong for Polls in 2017-18

With polls due in eight states, the BJP will likely stick to its Congress-mukt Bharat strategy, writes Arati R Jerath

(As the NDA government completes two years in power, The Quint brings for its readers ‘Modi@2’, a special series evaluating the performance of the current regime.)

As Narendra Modi enters his third year as prime minister, the BJP can boast of starting delivery on at least one of his election promises: a Congress-mukt Bharat. After the last round of assembly elections, the Grand Old Party’s national footprint has shrunk to its smallest ever. In 2014, before the BJP began its bull run, the Congress had governments in 11 states. It is now down to 7; all of them, except Karnataka, are small and politically inconsequential.

On the other hand, Amit Shah’s vow when he became BJP president shortly after the 2014 Lok Sabha polls has turned out to be a jumla. He had boasted then that the BJP would paint the country, “from Kashmir to Kanyakumari’’, in hues of saffron. Reality checks didn’t take that long.

Humiliating defeats at the hands of two regional satraps in 2015 -- AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi and Nitish Kumar in Bihar -- and the resounding victories of two more chieftains this year, Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal and Jayalalithaa in Tamil Nadu, have punctured the Shah balloon. A Congress-mukt Bharat is not necessarily a saffronised Bharat, as the BJP is realising much to its despair.

The Bulwark of Regional Parties

The ups and downs of the past two years have given the Modi-Shah duo much food for thought about the course of their politics and the direction for the BJP in the run-up to the 2019 general election. If Modi’s first year in office saw them flying high on triumphalism, his second year brought them down to earth with a bump.

A hard look at the state elections that followed the heady Lok Sabha victory revealed that the so-called tectonic shift that was supposed to have happened with the formation of the first single-party majority government in three decades was just a mirage.

Regional parties are still flourishing and have proved capable of holding their own against the Modi juggernaut. Although development is increasingly defining the political discourse, identity politics remains the underpinning of every election. The only visible change is that the Congress is no longer the main pole of Indian politics. In fact, it is dying a slow death.

Those who know Modi say he is nothing if not pragmatic. Having experimented and failed with muscular, personality-driven politics to colour India saffron, he seems to have fallen back on a tried and tested formula: anti-Congressism. It was always the BJP’s USP and in 2014 it gave wind to Modi’s campaign. The Bihar defeat was a body blow but by shifting the focus back to the Congress, the BJP has managed to regain lost momentum with a stunning victory in Assam and a breakthrough in Kerala. Needless to say, both came at the cost of the Congress.

Targeting Congress

The shift happened suddenly and dramatically. At the beginning of the winter session of Parliament last year, Modi was trying to woo Sonia Gandhi over tea to pass the long-pending GST bill. By the end of the session, the BJP had toppled the Congress government in Arunachal Pradesh and was gearing up to impose President’s Rule as a first step to installing another government supported by its own MLAs. And it has not stopped firing at the Congress since.

It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what prompted Modi to change tack. But after a successful coup in Arunachal, the attack on the Congress has been relentless. Perhaps the most important signal of the BJP’s intent to go after the Congress, particularly the Gandhi family, was the nomination of die-hard Sonia-baiter Subramanian Swamy to the Rajya Sabha.

Swamy has made no effort to hide that his main agenda is to take down the Gandhis and he began his innings in Parliament with a bang by raking up the forgotten AgustaWestland helicopter scandal.

There is a section in the BJP that is uncomfortable with this strategy of using the Congress for daily target practice. They have not forgotten how the Janata Party helped bring Indira Gandhi back to power after her resounding post-Emergency defeat by hounding her and sending her to jail.

Modi is shrewd enough to realise that he is walking a fine line. But he is unlikely to hold back. The Congress is easy meat and as of today, seems to have no coherent strategy to return the fire from the BJP.

The BJP’s Political Agenda

• An anti-Congress electoral agenda has helped the BJP, as seen its victory in Assam and inroads made in Kerala.
  
• Regional parties such as those in Bihar and West Bengal have managed to consolidate their respective vote shares.
  
• Therefore, the BJP is now determined to adhere to its Congress-mukt Bharat agenda.
  
• Change in political strategy evident with BJP nominating Sonia Gandhi baiter Subramanian Swamy to Rajya Sabha.
  
• Taking Congress head-on makes sense with elections due in eight states between 2017 and 2018.
  

Realising the Congress-Mukt Dream

Also, the Congress is the BJP’s main opponent in many states that go to polls in 2017 and 2018. These include Goa, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. The crucial election in UP will pit the BJP against two powerful regional players in Mayawati and Mulayam Singh so that belongs in a different box. The Modi-Shah team has yet to come up with a winning strategy against state satraps.

With Congress versus BJP battles coming up in so many states, Modi’s anti-Congress politics is bound to sharpen in the coming months. Stories are already swirling about more revelations of skeletons from the UPA’s cupboard. Investigations are on against several senior Congress leaders and their family members. And the political attack on Rahul Gandhi continues with rebel Congress leaders being encouraged to diss him at every opportunity.

Unless the Congress wins at least one election by defeating the BJP, Modi’s Congress-mukt Bharat promise looks like becoming a reality, even if achche din are yet to come.

(The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist)

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