By Chris Emmanuel D'Souza

Mangaluru, Dec 14: The results of the three major assembly elections in Rajasthan , Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have boosted the image of Congress party and highlighted the decline of Modi-Shah’s popularity in India’s Hindi Belt. Former Indian Cricketer turned politician Navjoth Singh Sidhu quoted after his party’s win that ‘Narendra Modi’s popularity is a like a ‘Fizz’ in a Soda bottle’. This seems to be a hard reality in 2018 four and half years after a landslide victory for the BJP under Narendra Modi’s aura of splendid public image. In a pleasant note, it has sent some relief to theprime Time TV audience, as the media is in a bit of a silence, as it is recovering after the results. Unlike as in the past, the Prime Minister chose against from blaming Jawaharlal Nehru to BJP’s humiliating defeat 54 years after his demise?

PM Narendra Modi

Some in the BJP camp have brushed these defeats as ‘small frictions’ before the general elections in the summer of 2019. Despite such confidence, it is very clear that Modi-Shah’s popularity has stunted. The promises of the stars and the moon that this duo made in their hyperbolic speeches have gone over people’s heads. The other important aspect for major triumph in politics is momentum, which BJP has lost over the years and the months to scores of scams, fraudulent dealings, and the inability to provide basic economic and social stability in the country.

The BJP and its allies rely decisively on Modi-Shah’s magic wand. The Karnataka and the Gujarat elections which had been on the verge of slipping away from the BJP’s hold, managed toswing back in the last minute. The fate of BJP hangs in the balance of this duopoly of Modi and Shah. The strategy of Modi-Shah duo is purely election-based politics. This has also manipulated the country as only an election-based democracy, once the elections are done and dusted, democracy retreats to darkness.They primarily focused on winning at all cost by hook or crook. They would take any route,buy politicians, industrialists, journalists, poll statisticians and even godmen.When they had enough, they decide to throw them to the fire. They installed controversial and sadistic candidates like Yogi Adityanath and comical candidates like Biplab Deb Kumar, both of whom were not chosen by the people’s mandate. In their desperate desire to win and seek power, the duopoly of Modi-Shah fell short to oversee the routine activities of the administration. The cracks of mistrust and doubt within the party and in the Prime Ministers Office that had opened up in the early 2014 and have now stretched a bit far. The differences in the administration have blown out open in the public, as resignations and terminations are in full swing.

Modi-Shah duo

One of the most repulsive government manufactured scams in the history of Indian independence, The Notebandi (Demonetisation) in November 2016, has played a pivotal role in the drowning of a populist leader like Narendra Modi, a decision that had been taken with utmost secrecy leading to a towering loss to common public and small traders. The subsequent absconding of fraudulent businessmen close to the Prime Minister, The controversial Raphael Deal, Mob lynching incidents, farmer suicides, soaring inflation, unemployment and directionless policies of the Modi government have all jumbled together in its latest trouncing. There is a growing belief with the large number of population, that the government is in total disconnect with the common man. Much like the UPA government in its second phase, the Modi-Shah lead government behaves like aloudspeaker but listens very little. The people who come out and vote waiting in long queues are the poor, downtrodden and significantly the rural belt (which makes up over 70 percent of Indian population). The young urban class knee-jerk trolls in the social media, are only as good as the speed of the internet, they are not going to serve as a vote bank to win major elections. Therefore, the expenditure on social media and the IT cell is a colossal waste.

The defeat to India’s biggest and the richest political party is also a victory to India’s own grand old party, the Congress. This is a puff of oxygen to the Congress, as the party was mocked to be fallen into coma, after losing series of elections over the last four years. The ideology of the party, its leadership and its future were at stake, but with a re-energised Rahul Gandhi and young guns like Sachin Pilot, it has sent warning signs to the ruling party going forward to the general elections. Although not a clear majority, it has been a close win. The vote shares depict the divided picture of states. The congress grass root level structure is unorganised and lacks coordination and is affecting its potential to mobilise voters. The BJP has taken this setback seriously and may bring out several trump cards out of the closet. The cards that most of us could guess, through whispers. Nevertheless, the 2019 general elections would certainly turn out be tense and will also predict the future of the country.

Chris Emmanuel D'Souza

(Views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the article belong solely to the author)