With just a few months left for the Parliament polls, the political scene is getting surcharged. But for the intervening set of assembly elections, the results of which are keenly awaited, the countdown for the parliament polls would have started by now. The assembly election scene – seen also as a dress-rehearsal for the big battle of 2024 — itself is providing the nation with a season of high suspense. The BJP that had started its rule at the Centre with the slogan of ‘Congress-mukht Bharat’ is nowhere near its goal; rather, the grand old party is seen to be in a revival mode after a key electoral win in Karnataka, that too by upsetting the BJP applecart.
By all hints, Prime Minister Narendra Modi would lead the charge for the 2024 parliament polls from the truncated BJP-NDA side. His leadership of the nation after the next polls could raise tricky questions. Modi had stated in 2014 saying he wanted two terms to make India great. Nothing of the sort has happened. Fact is also that the BJP is not equipped in a manner that would effect a leadership change at this critical hour for the party. Modi worked no wonders. He basks principally in the aura of what his government did in Kashmir, or in “settling” the Ram Janambhoomi dispute between Hindus and Muslims. He failed to positively shake India from its very roots or re-energize it. The nation has, in terms of economic growth, done a job. The economy is erect, faces no serious problems, and the nation claims to be the world’s fifth largest economy. On the debit side, this growth was mostly sectarian. The rich became richer while the 80 per cent of the poor and the middle class remained mostly where they were. Wages/ salaries – a barometer for the well-being of the burgeoning working class — failed to rise substantially. Modi failed to reach the fruits of the economic growth to the underlings. He failed to reform India. He refused to touch on any contentious topics and allowed vested interests to hold sway over the nation in more aggressive ways.
Under Modi’s watch the bureaucracy has become more corrupt; and the corrupt regional satraps gained more clout across states. These leaders will now come round and hurl the biggest challenge to the Prime Minister and the BJP with matching support from the Congress. Put together, they are already a formidable force under the INDIA grouping. Note the fact that the BJP was humbled in 2004 when it bragged that India was “shining” by virtue of the AB Vajpayee-led NDA rule. The Congress-UPA grabbed power and sent the BJP and its allies packing. History could repeat itself. The mood of the nation is downbeat.
