Tag: Third Term For Modi

Going Will Be Tough for Modi 3.0

‘The Going Will Be Tough & Challenging for Modi 3.0’

By LokMarg

Yash Goyal, a third-year student of law at National Law School of India University, Bengaluru, says he is worried about shrinking job opportunities in the country. His views:

I have fairly low expectations from Modi 3.0 as I believe that it will largely be business-as-usual for the Government. Based on the speeches I have heard and their manifesto, I feel that the Government will largely stick to its previous policies, which I disagree with.

As someone who will be joining the workforce in the coming few years, I am particularly concerned about employment aspects and the economic downturn in recent years. Despite studying at a premier law school that prides itself on, among other things, a stellar employment record, I see my seniors struggling to find jobs, with the unanimous response from employers being – the market is bad. My friends from other sectors have received similar responses generally. There is large-scale anxiety among young persons, especially those who do not have the resources to study abroad, regarding the economy.

This is not limited only to employment, as the wealth gap is slowly worsening as well. While the country reels from a heatwave, the ultra-rich are having pre-wedding celebrations in Italy. There is significant work that needs to be done to ensure that constructive employment is available to people in the rural areas and to the urban poor but the current government seems to not assign much priority to the same. I doubt that much can change without a major shift from its existing policies, but I still hope that some serious work is undertaken on that front.

Furthermore, as a young person who has their political opinions, I fear the shrinking space for dissent in this country. Ever since 2014, political minorities have been on the receiving end of violence, hatred and threats from the majority. This is especially evident in university spaces and the media. Furthermore, the rising hate against queer persons, is concerning.

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The instances of violence and open hostility in everything ranging from housing to employment to general social media discourse creates an environment of hostility for anyone who disagrees with the Government or its homogenising identity of Hindutva. I see no reason or signs that the present Government will deviate from this agenda considering the vast support the Hindu right-wing enjoys throughout the country.

However, I also feel that there is hope in Modi 3.0, except not from the Government itself. Given the split mandate which gave a significant boost to the Opposition and third parties at the cost of the BJP, I expect a return to form for the Parliament and its institutions. Over the past ten years, the Parliament had seen high productivity at the cost of low deliberations. Owing to the BJP numbers, the Lok Sabha had been reduced to a rubber stamp while the Opposition had failed to show its presence. Now, with a stronger presence in the Parliament, I hope that the Opposition is able to force debates on issues of importance and use Parliamentary safeguards to ensure that the Government is not able to get away with whatever it wants to push. With the proposed introductions of a Population Control Bill and a nation-wide Uniform Civil Code, the role of the Opposition becomes all the more important and I hope that they do a strong job in ensuring that Indian democracy remains representative and deliberative.

As told to Deepa Gupta

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Why Modi 3.0 Won’t Implode

Why Modi 3.0 Won’t Implode, But I.N.D.I.A. Might

By Sanjoy Narayan

It’s been nearly a fortnight since India’s election results came out but the feeling of happiness still remains in the air. That feeling, akin to euphoria, surprisingly is not as pronounced among the supporters of those who won in the elections as it is among those who actually lost. 

Narendra Modi created history by becoming the Prime Minister again for the third successive term, a feat that we are repeatedly reminded matches India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s three consecutive terms till he died in 1964. Yet on June 4 when the results came out, the Opposition seemed more upbeat than the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which, with 293 of the 543 Lok sabha seats, got to form the government. Modi and his party had proclaimed during campaigning that the BJP would win 370 seats and the alliance would cross 400. As it happened, the BJP got only 240 and its alliance brought in another 53. The Opposition and its supporters celebrated a moral victory, pointing out that voters had lost faith in Modi and his party. 

Those celebrations and the euphoria may be misplaced. Yes, the Indian National Development Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), a motley electoral front comprising more than 30 mostly regional parties and led by the Congress, won 232 seats; and yes, the BJP did not manage a majority on its own as it had in 2014 (when it won 282) and 2019 (303), but the fact is that in 2024, the BJP and its allies have a more than comfortable majority of 293 seats. 

The fact also is that the Congress, which leads the INDIA front and whose leader Rahul Gandhi was perceived as Modi’s challenger in the recent elections, managed a tally of only 99 seats in the polls. It is a big improvement over 2019 when it won a paltry 52 seats and 2014 (44) but 99 is still a small fraction of 543–and certainly not a big reason to celebrate.

Much of the hope, optimism, and euphoria that has spread among Opposition parties and their supporters is because Modi 3.0, as the Prime Minister’s third term has been labeled, is one where the BJP’s allies play a key role in providing the NDA with a majority. Modi’s political detractors point out that some of his key allies, such as Nitish Kumar, who heads Bihar’s Janata Dal (United), N. Chandrababu Naidu, who heads Andhra Pradesh’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP), and Chirag Paswan, who heads Bihar’s Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), without whose wins in the elections the NDA wouldn’t have had a majority, can be a check on Modi’s government and his style of governance.

Some in the Opposition probably also hope that players such as the JD(U)’s Kumar and the TDP’s Naidu, who have had a chequered past in coalitions, could even pull the plug on Modi and lead to a collapse of the NDA’s numbers in Lok Sabha, causing the government to fall. After all, Kumar has changed his political allegiances several times and, confoundingly, it was he who convened the Opposition’s INDIA alliance last year before ditching it to join the NDA. 

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So, will Kumar and/or Naidu pull the plug on the NDA? Many believe both the leaders and their parties could have fundamental differences with the BJP on issues such as the latter’s Hindu nationalist stance, and could, therefore, oppose any Modi 3.0 actions, which could, for instance, be perceived to be anti-Muslim or affect affirmative action for certain underprivileged castes. 

Will they really? Probably not. Both Naidu, 74, and Kumar, 73, are in the twilight of their political careers. Like Modi, they share a common hope: of building a legacy. The difference is that while Modi is building a national legacy, Naidu and Kumar are focused on their respective states. At this stage in their careers, the national stage doesn’t beckon anymore.

Instead, both the regional leaders want special category status for their states. A special category would mean that the states get proportionally more central funds for projects as well as other development incentives. Whether they will get that or not remains to be seen but it would not be a surprise if Modi offers them sops so that they remain NDA loyalists and not come in the way of his governance.

Many had thought that in a more precarious coalition government, Modi would have to offer some key ministerial berths to BJP’s allies but that has not happened. The key ministries in his Cabinet are still with heavyweights from his party. So ministries such as home, finance, defence, foreign affairs, and so on have been largely allotted to his trusted party colleagues who ran them in the previous terms.

What the Opposition Must Do

The election results have been analysed to death by now. The thing to remember is that even though the INDIA alliance did well, the major victories for it (and, therefore, the setbacks for the NDA) came because of the performance of the regional parties and not because of how the Congress fared. In Uttar Pradesh, for example, where the BJP suffered a defeat that directly affected its total tally, the Congress had an alliance with the Samajwadi Party but it was the latter that won the most seats by strategically widening it traditional base of Muslims and Yadavs to garner the support of voters from other castes. In Maharashtra, another state where the BJP fared badly, it was the factionalised regional parties and their internecine rivalries that caused the setbacks. In West Bengal, it was to the regional Trinamool Congress that the BJP lost and not to the Congress.

The Congress-led INDIA’s strategy in the elections was mostly reactive. The INDIA parties, including the Congress, did have manifestos, but does anyone recall what they promised? What did they say about ensuring jobs, checking inflation, or tackling inequality? Much of the Opposition’s campaign rhetoric focused either on local issues–not surprising, given that most of the constituents of INDIA were regional–or targeted against Modi and what he was saying during his campaigning. 

The BJP’s public campaign, which was single-handedly led by Modi, was focused on his promises about making India the third largest economy in the world; about making India a developed country by 2047; and of playing an even more important role in the emerging global order. Plus, because of his incumbency, Modi could list all of his government’s achievements: infrastructure, social welfare, digitalisation, and so on. Issues such as youth unemployment, inflation, and growing inequality were skirted and even though he gave scores of interviews to the media, “friendly” interviewers glossed over them. 

Unemployment and inequality are the two biggest issues that Indians, especially the young, worry about the most. Most of India is young (65% or 910 million are below the age of 35) and youth unemployment is a burning issue, which if not tackled can have serious consequences. So is the issue of growing inequality. A study by the World Inequality Lab in March this year declared that “The Billionaire Raj headed by India’s modern bourgeoisie is now more unequal than the British Raj headed by the colonialist forces.” The study found that during the inter-war colonial period from the 1930s until India’s independence in 1947, the top 1% held around 20 to 21% of the country’s national income. Today, the 1% holds 22.6% of the country’s income.

For the Opposition, restricting the BJP and NDA’s tally in the elections is actually a small beginning of what it could really do: mobilise India’s youth.

INDIA, as mentioned earlier, is an electoral alliance of mainly regional parties. In order to continue to be relevant, these parties should start grassroot movements to organise the youth in each of the regions that they politically dominate. That could, conceivably, become a powerful aggregation of a mass of young Indian voters whose support could be the fundamental base on which INDIA could forge a strategy of being a relevant Opposition in Parliament for now and to fight elections in the future: both at the state level as well as nationally.

Unfortunately, INDIA has shown little signs of such resolve. It is exulting in the wake of its recent electoral gains as if that has been a massive achievement. It has, no doubt, been an achievement: dozens of Opposition parties coming together is a demonstration of how even in a loud, noisy and crowded arena such as India’s, democracy can work. By no means, though, is it a massive achievement. Modi 3.0 will not implode on its own. The BJP’s reduced tally should actually be read by the Opposition as a rallying call to organise itself. Unless it does so, it is INDIA that could face the risk of implosion; not the NDA.

Modi the Biggest Factor in India’s Election Results

Modi Will be the Biggest Factor in India’s Election Results

By Sanjoy Narayan

There are only two elected Indian politicians who are in positions of power today that have never been in the opposition. The first is Narendra Modi, 73, who became India’s Prime Minister in 2014. Before that, for more than 12 years, Modi served as chief minister of Gujarat. In electoral politics, Modi has never been outside of a ruling regime–neither in Gujarat nor at the Centre.

The only other politician to have a similar achievement is Naveen Patnaik, chief minister of Odisha. Patnaik, 77, became chief minister of the state in 2000 and has held that office for nearly a quarter of a century, never ever sitting in the opposition benches.

This year elections are being held for both, the Lok Sabha where the outcome will determine whether Modi will get to serve a third term; and, simultaneously, in the Odisha assembly where the outcome will decide whether Patnaik gets a sixth consecutive term as chief minister.

Now after six phases, the Lok Sabha elections are almost done and dusted–voting in 486 of the 543 seats have been completed, and only 57 seats remain to be voted for on the seventh and final phase on 1 June.

For all practical purposes, the elections are over and India has decided who will form the next government in Delhi. The last phase, whose 57 seats are mainly the remaining ones in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Bengal, and Odisha (where the Lok Sabha polls are synced to the local assembly polls), will only decide the margins by which the winning side will be ahead.

For Modi, a third term looks assured (caveat: you never can be absolutely certain, anything can happen in India’s elections) but by how much will his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies win is the question. They won 353 seats of the 543 in Lok Sabha in 2019. Will they get less or more this time?

Back to that in a moment. What about Patnaik? Odisha’s assembly elections have been synchronized with the Lok Sabha elections in the state and the last phase of the four-phase polling will also be on June 1. While Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has 111 seats in the assembly and the BJP has 22, there has been much hype from leaders of the latter party that they could oust the long-serving veteran and his government. But Patnaik is well-entrenched in the state and even if the BJP manages to gain more Lok Sabha seats there (Odisha has 21 Lok Sabha seats; in 2019, BJD won 12 and the BJP won 8), it is unlikely that it can make a huge improvement in its assembly seats tally. So Patnaik too could likely get another term to run his state.

The BJP’s USP for Voters is Modi

Frenzied speculation is a common accompaniment to Indian elections. And every five years when there are general elections, the general excitement about politics peaks. In the last couple of phases of the ongoing elections, the discourse has also turned unsavoury. Both sides have lobbed attacks on each other but the spotlight has focused sharply on Modi who has been in the centrestage with his relentless campaigning during which he has addressed dozens of rallies; granted interviews to several news channels (Indian has hundreds of those), and been hyperactive on social media.

Even to a casual observer of election campaigning in India, where nearly a billion voters are eligible to vote, it is obvious which leader stands out in the entire spectrum of political parties. It is Modi. There is really none other that can be compared to the salience he commands.

For the BJP, the single most important selling point to voters is Modi, never mind which part of the country it is: whether it is in the states in the north and west where the party is the strangest; whether it is in the south where it is weakest; or whether it is in the east where it wants to turn its foothold into a more comfortable perch. Modi has been the face of the party’s campaigning and there is really no one else whose visibility is comparable.

Modi is a powerful orator; his speeches are persuasive; and he knows the right button to press. He alludes to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi as Shahzada or prince, a reference to the party’s dynastic devolvement of leadership; and he has conjured up images of the opposition parties dancing mujra, a performance by women originating during Mughal rule in India, where the elite class and local rulers frequented venues where courtesans danced.

At other times during his campaigning, he has overturned allegations by his rivals that he intended to amend India’s Constitution by charging them, instead, of trying to bring in religion-based reservations and of appeasement of communal groups. 

In interviews, speeches, and other public interactions, Modi often mentions how he is tirelessly devoted to the progress of India and its citizens and often proudly cites his indefatigable spirit. Recently he said that he owed his urja or energy to divine reasons and not because of biological inheritance of those attributes.

Some of these have stoked controversy and ridicule, especially in social media chatter. That probably doesn’t matter. Users of X or similar platforms are not the audience that Modi wants to target. A reference to divine intervention or to someone who is ostensibly doing the task that a supreme being wants him to do are things that can have an effect on his real target audience that is quite different from the ridicule that his “liberal” detractors react with. In fact, the derision that he or others in the BJP target at the so-called “liberal” elite is lapped up by the audience he really targets–the audience whose votes really matter to him.

Can the M-factor Trump the Negatives?

It’s fairly well articulated by legions of analysts, psephologists, and political trend watchers that this time the BJP and its allies face the risk of slipping even in some of the states that are considered their bastion. In Maharashtra, where NDA won 41 of 48 seats in 2019, things are up in the air after two regional parties split down their middle and the dynamics of electoral alliance became complex. In Uttar Pradesh, where it had 62 of the 80 seats, rival Samajwadi Party, which has an edge this time, can eat into its tally. In Karnataka, where it has 25 out of 28 seats, many expect it to lose because the incumbent Congress state government could sway voters’ decisions. Likewise, in states such as West Bengal, the BJP’s tally could come down from 18 seats that it won in 2019 of the state’s total of 42.

Number crunching can show that if the BJP loses in these states, it could be difficult for it to offset those losses with gains from other states where it is not strong, for example in the south.

Hence, most political journalists and analysts say when the results come out on June 4, the BJP and its allies could get a majority (that is, 272 seats or more) but not as many as the 353 that they had won in 2019.

Yet there could be another thing that could matter: the M-factor. Many believe Modi’s popularity has dipped. Some of those who think so look at social media numbers such as how many people watch YouTube videos of his rallies (the numbers are lower than what they were five years ago).

Those are the wrong numbers to look at. The BJP’s electoral fight is asymmetrical to its rivals. Modi fights the elections as if they were presidential elections. When he campaigns he doesn’t campaign for his party’s candidate in a constituency. His message to voters is clear: By voting for the BJP candidate in your constituency you are voting for me; and if you believe in me, vote for the BJP. 

With no comparable personality or prime ministerial candidate, the BJP’s rivals are unable to match Modi’s format of campaigning. The INDI alliance of multiple opposition parties has the Congress’ Mallikarjun Kharge as its leader but does he have any brand recall among voters that is even comparable to Modi? Rahul Gandhi is seen as the face of Congress and the opposition’s campaign. A comparison of his popularity with Modi’s would be superfluous.

The question, therefore, is that when the results are out on 4 June, will Modi’s magic cast its spell on the numbers that the BJP and its allies finally get? We’ll know soon.

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