By Rajdeep Sardesai
‘Double engine sarkar’ is a term that has steadily crept into the political discourse in the last eight years ever since Narendra Modi became prime minister. The ‘double engine’ rhetoric is part of the BJP’s armoury in every state election, designed to convince the voter that only when the same party rules at the state and Centre will the benefits of development reach the people. It also mirrors the prime minister’s larger than life persona where Mr Modi remains the BJP’s poll trump card in every election from municipal to national. But here is the intriguing question being posed in poll bound Karnataka : can the prime minister’s undoubted popularity overcome the anti-incumbency being faced by a relatively weak BJP government in Bengaluru ?
So far the ‘double engine’ concept has met with mixed success. In Himachal Pradesh just six months ago, the BJP government was unable to win re-election despite the prime minister’s appeal made with typical political bombast that a vote for the lotus ‘will come directly to Mr Modi’s account as a blessing’. By contrast, in Gujarat where elections were held at around the same time as Himachal, the ‘double engine’ strategy was a resounding success. The BJP’s Gujarat chief minister, Bhupendra Patel is a relative non-entity, a first time MLA who was suddenly pitchforked into the top job a year before the elections. Even in the BJP’s publicity material, he was barely visible. And yet, the BJP scored a stunning record breaking win in Gujarat on the back of the Modi factor. Gujarat is, of course, sui generis: it is the prime minister’s home state but also a BJP dominant party state where the party has been in power for more than 25 years.
Where does Karnataka then fit into this ‘double engine’ propaganda? In the last few years, the BJP government in Bengaluru has been battered by a slew of corruption allegations. The ‘double engine’ tag means that the Centre too can’t entirely escape the corruption taint. The prime minister’s rousing ‘na khaoonga na khane doonga’ zero tolerance for corruption slogan loses its moral sheen when MLAs are caught with cash or when a Karnataka contractor association hurl accusations of a 40 per cent commission being demanded for clearing projects. Even if the charge is unproven, the figure has stuck in the public discourse.
Karnataka chief minister Basavraj Bommai is a soft spoken, genial politician, hardly a mass leader of substance like the man he replaced in 2021, BS Yeddyurappa. BSY, as the former Karnataka chief minister is referred to, is a rarity in the BJP’s existing power structure: a strong regional satrap with a base of his own, especially amongst the influential Lingayat community . The attempt to push him into a semi-retirement ‘marg-darshak mandal’ didn’t quite work, and the party has been belatedly forced to accomodate him as a star campaigner, a tacit acceptance of his stature as the BJP’s tallest Karnataka face by some distance.
Moreover, while the BJP grapples with a leadership deficit at the state level, the Congress in Karnataka is uniquely blessed with a plethora of well entrenched local leaders. The resourceful DK Shivakumar and the crowd puller Siddaramiah may not see eye to eye but are paradoxically the Congress’s Kannadiga ‘double engine’, two leaders with the political nous and grassroot connect that the BJP can’t quite match in Karnataka. Siddaramaiah in particular enjoys huge goodwill for his pro poor welfarist programmes as chief minister: in interior villages, it isn’t unusual to hear voters cutting across Karnataka’s traditional caste fault-lines express a desire for Siddaramiah as chief minister and Modi as prime minister.
Which explains why the BJP has been forced to turn to Prime Minister Modi’s now familiar campaign blitzkrieg as their last throw of the dice. BJP President, JP Nadda has even gone so far as to suggest that ‘the people of Karnataka should vote for the BJP if they wish to continue to enjoy the blessings of Mr Modi’. The BJP President might have got carried away with the Modi ‘Bhakti’ — opponents see the remark as a threat of preferential treatment — but it reveals just why the ‘double engine’ concept is fraught with danger, politically and constitutionally, in a vast and diverse federal polity like India.
The constitution is designed to protect a federal compact by ensuring that the Centre responds to states in a non-discriminatory manner. In Indira Gandhi’s era, that promise was betrayed by a domineering Centre that routinely misused Article 356 to dismiss opposition state governments. In the Modi era, ‘co-operative federalism’ is again in danger: several opposition ruled states fear that the Centre is partisan and vindictive in approach with the chief engine driver misusing central agencies to settle scores or else deny funds.
Politically, this is reviving regional sentiment in states with a history of cultural distinctiveness : we saw it in Bengal when the prime minister’s ‘Didi o Didi’ campaign jibe allowed Mamta Banerjee to successfully invoke a sense of wounded Bengali sub-nationalism. We are now seeing it play out in Karnataka where the Congress has attempted to stir Kannadiga pride on a variety of issues, including by craftily ‘manufacturing’ a local brand Nandini versus Amul proxy milk war.
It is this emotive Karnataka versus Centre narrative that should worry the BJP’s political managers beyond just this election . Karnataka, after all, was seen as the BJP’s gateway to the south as part of the party’s attempted geographical expansion. But if the perception grows that the ‘double engine’ model is actually a remote controlled Delhi-centric governance system, it is bound to embolden more southern state governments and leaders to prey on regional anxieties.
The Modi personality cult which is at the heart of the ‘double engine’ outreach is, in that sense, a double edged sword. While it gives the BJP a distinct edge in a presidential style ‘national’ election, it also exposes the limitations of a political model which is almost obsessively focussed on a single individual. Karnataka could well be a pointer to the future: state elections that are fought with increased vigour on hyper local issues while general elections become a referendum on leadership.
Post-script: Amidst all the debate over a BJP ‘double engine sarkara’ versus a Congress local leadership, there could yet be a twist in the tale. Three of the last four elections in the state have thrown up hung assemblies and twice the Janata Dal (secular) leader HD Kumaraswamy has been chief minister. Sitting in his vast farmhouse on the outskirts of Bengaluru, he chuckles: ‘Yes, I am the joker in the pack but remember you often need the joker to win a card game!’
(The writer is senior journalist and author. mail: [email protected])