“No real buzz for BJP in western UP” is Indian Express’s headline (Apr 15) for Neerja Chowdhury’s column written after the seasoned journalist talked with voters in an area where Modi has been viewed as being more than dominant.
In Maharashtra, Navneet Rana, the BJP’s candidate in the Amravati constituency, admits in a widely circulated video, “There is no Modi wave.”
“Modi’s… charisma is beginning to wane, making way for other long-suppressed issues,” writes Yogendra Yadav, the respected public figure, after he had spoken to “about 400 ordinary voters on the streets, in their homes, and in the bazaars of western UP, southern Punjab, northern Haryana, and eastern Rajasthan”.
According to fresh surveys, at the top of India’s “long-suppressed issues” are unemployment and inflation, both of which have stayed at troubling levels. In any reasonably fair democracy, such election-eve assessments would give opposition parties enormous confidence, but in India’s case great caution is warranted. Many remember that in more than one earlier election, dramatic last-minute events influenced voting in Modi’s (and the BJP’s) favour.
Over the decades, India’s elections have been managed by an independent constitutional body called the Central Election Commission. Until an amendment that was pushed through by the Modi government in December of last year, CEC members were appointed by a committee of three: the prime minister, the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, and India’s chief justice. The amendment removed the chief justice from this committee and replaced him with a minister nominated by the prime minister!
The CEC has considerable powers. It can swiftly transfer officials in charge of elections, publicly censure political figures, facilitate or impede rallies, permit or disallow political advertising, and do more. It is fair to say that the current CEC does not attract a wide spectrum of trust.
Modi’s advantages are well known. His messages are fervently relayed by most of India’s newspapers and TV channels. Everywhere in India, giant Modi posters approach the voter from all directions. In money-power, the BJP is ahead of the competition by laps. Two opposition chief ministers, Delhi’s Arvind Kejriwal and Jharkhand’s Hemant Soren, have recently been put behind bars on allegations of corruption. Only the future will witness any trials or proofs.
Other opposition leaders have been silenced as well. At election-eve, the Enforcement Directorate levied corruption charges against multiple opposition candidates. If they switch to the ruling party, charges are dropped, and the BJP’s “washing machine” is praised.
If, despite these massive advantages, a large Modi wave is not visible, what might be the reasons? Writing in the courageous online portal The Wire, the Delhi-based poet and retired professor of English literature, Badri Raina, says that “the inescapable conclusion” is that the anonymous Electoral Bonds launched by Modi in 2017 and declared unconstitutional by India’s Supreme Court on February 15 this year have “undermined” the BJP.
https://thewire.in/politics/election-2024-is-for-the-opposition-to-win
Although India’s top court has scrapped this Electoral Bonds scheme, Modi continues to defend it, even claiming bizarrely that the scheme has enabled the Indian people to know who finances their elections! In fact, as the Supreme Court pointed out, the Electoral Bonds scheme prevented India’s people from knowing who was financing politicians. Their secrecy was the electoral bonds’ worst feature, the Supreme Court said.
The government, however, could always find out from the State Bank of India, which it owns, the names of all who had purchased from that bank the scheme’s zero-interest, tax-free bonds and given them to the political party of their choice, which then exchanged the bonds for cash. Access to their names gave the government immense power over all bond-buyers, even as bond-donors purchased influence over political parties.
In Raina’s view, “the trenchant exposures” following the Supreme Court’s demand for information about the buyers of electoral bonds have had a “further consequence”. Devout Hindus are now less impressed by “the claims of piety sought to be associated with the new Ram temple” which Modi had inaugurated in January this year with unprecedented pomp and ceremony.
Though not mentioned by Raina, a factor in shaping India’s mood has been the fearless, relentless, tireless infusion of facts by YouTubers like Ravish Kumar and Dhruv Rathee.
Much can and will happen between now and June 4, when votes will be counted. I still think it highly unlikely that Modi will allow himself to be defeated. But the gloom seems to be not as thick as it was a week ago.