Narendra Modi knows well why the RSS has backed him and dropped Lk Advani. N.V. Subramanian | RSS has more or less publicly pressured Lal Krishna Advani to concede to Narendra Modi’s elevation in the hierarchy of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The writing on the wall is apparent to both men although Modi will have smartly learnt his lessons whilst Advani will not. It is over for Advani. His yeoman contribution to the rise of BJP was recognized in the manner his party’s senior leaders rallied to assuage his hurt. But he has played his last card and can do nothing more to stymie Modi’s rise. Advani’s only utility lay insofar as keeping the Janata Dal United of Nitish Kumar within the National Democratic Alliance fold. With or without Advani, Nitish Kumar will leave the NDA. It will be political suicide but he cannot be dissuaded from that course. As the days go by, Advani will become increasingly irrelevant to the politics of the BJP. Previously and in other places, this has happened to the best of politicians. Time and tide wait for no man. But Advani’s virtual exit also holds lessons for Narendra Modi which the Gujarat chief minister is not apt to forget. He can become prime minister only if he brings the BJP to power on its own. This writer is convinced that Modi will achieve this turnaround for the party. Modi knows that he cannot really count on the NDA to bring the alliance to government much less make him PM. Modi is only too aware of this and so are his backers and almost certainly the RSS. The RSS will promptly turn its back on Modi if he fails in 2014. That is the grim takeaway from the Advani episode. So Modi will go for the maximum campaign which is a Gujarat poll strategy magnified nationally. And he will win. Narendra Modi is India’s sole political mass leader today. Even without the Nehru-Gandhi surname, he evokes instant recognition across the country. Go to the South and he is a big name and appreciated, so in the East and North, and naturally in the West. This sort of national adulation has not happened with any other political leader in the last twenty years. Why Modi has risen and no one else has been partly answered by this writer. Demonization has made him a national figure. The Congress leadership is so terrified of Modi that it has ended up pitting the Central Bureau of Investigation against the Intelligence Bureau in the Ishrat Jehan case. Apart from damaging the IB and destroying the CBI’s residual credibility, the Manmohan Singh government will not achieve much. Modi will emerge with his reputation intact. This pattern has been so firmly established apropos the witch-hunt of Modi that it is dully predictable. And the more Modi is opposed, the greater his rise. But Modi brings several positive factors to his election campaign too. He is not compromised in the fight against the Congress leadership. In the past nine years in the Centre, the Congress leadership has had it easy. Advani was considerably responsible for this trying to make up with the Nehru-Gandhis. Modi faces no such inhibition. He will put to flight the Congress where it is in direct competition with the BJP or in a lower position as in Uttar Pradesh. Modi will employ most energy in reclaiming Uttar Pradesh and will succeed handsomely. There is a pro-Modi undercurrent in the state which will turn into a wave once the Gujarat chief minister becomes fully engaged in the poll battle. Mulayam Singh and Mayawati will be routed and the Congress will disappear from Uttar Pradesh. Except perhaps Mamata Bannerjee’s West Bengal (with which Modi has old Dakshineshwar connections) and Jayalalithaa Jayaram’s Tamil Nadu (they are good friends), Modi’s electoral onslaught will be fiercely unleashed everywhere else. Nitish Kumar would be doing Modi a favour by breaking the alliance with the BJP. Without Nitish Kumar in the NDA, the Modi wave will be uncontainable in Bihar. Karnataka will return to the BJP. The Akalis and the BJP will once again deliver Punjab. And if the Shiv Sena does not fall in line, the much-reviled Thackeray cousin will benefit from the Modi juggernaut. In none of this will Modi leave anything to chance. He will micromanage every aspect of the election. Contrary to perception, he will play as a team, but the final word will be his. He will not needlessly bother natural winners like Shivraj Singh Chouhan or Raman Singh and will side with Vasundhara Raje Scindia but the overall supervision will be his. Partly his own personality and for the rest the backing of the RSS will get him full control and he will put it to optimum use. But let no one mistake Narendra Modi’s single-minded aim for the BJP to form its own government. Such allies as the Akali Dal will be honoured but he will not be a prime minister like Manmohan Singh to give in to one or another alliance partner perpetually. Getting the BJP to power may seem a tall order but Modi has shown more than once the ability to do the unthinkable. It is his capacity to beat the odds again and again that has led the RSS to repose full faith in him. Modi is entirely alive to the risks and more than aware of the enemy plots within and outside the BJP. The 2014 election will be the most transformative India has seen in a long while.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Jun 2013 00:38:34 +0000
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