BJP win in India’s 2024 general election ‘almost an inevitability’
While regional opposition to the BJP is strong in pockets of south and east India, nationally it is seen as fragmented and weak. The main opposition Indian National Congress party won the state election in Telangana this month but is in power in only three states overall and is perceived as hierarchical and riddled with infighting, says the write up.
Penned by Hannah Ellis-Petersen, the article, however, notes --"The prime minister’s popularity as a political strongman, alongside the BJP’s Hindu nationalist agenda, continues to appeal to the large Hindu majority of the country, particularly in the populous Hindi belt of the north, resulting in the widespread persecution of Muslims.
"At state and national level, the apparatus of the country has been skewed heavily towards the BJP since Modi was elected in 2014.
He has been accused of overseeing an unprecedented consolidation of power, muzzling critical media, eroding the independence of the judiciary and all forms of parliamentary scrutiny and accountability and using government agencies to pursue and jail political opponents".
The BJP has begun a nationwide pre-election push. A roadshow, titled Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra, will see thousands of government officers deployed to towns and villages across the country over the next two months, tasked with speaking about the BJP’s successes over the past nine years – despite criticisms of politicising government bureaucracy and resources for campaigning purposes, says the article.
"The Ministry of Defence is also setting up 822 “selfie points” at war memorials, defence museums, railway stations and tourist attractions where people can take photos of themselves with a Modi cutout.
"The BJP’s recent domination in the states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh appeared to reaffirm the popularity of Modi.
"Though the prime minister has little to do with state elections, which are designed to elect local assembly members, the BJP strategically put Modi front and centre of their campaigns in the place of local leaders, where he appeared at dozens of rallies to directly appeal to voters," the writer notes.
( Hannah Ellis-Petersen is The Guardian's South Asia Correspondent)
"The BJP’s candidates (in recent assembly polls) included four Hindu priests, some with very hardline views, but no Muslims. In the tribal dominated state of Chhattisgarh, the BJP played on fears of forced conversions of tribal people away from Hinduism.
Modi was brought to power in 2014 largely on the back of an anti-incumbency wave while his re-election victory in 2019 was all but secured after India carried out airstrikes on Pakistan, after a terrorist incident a few months before the polls, resulting in a storm of national security sentiment in his favour," says the author.
Elections are due by April-May and the country is already is in virtual poll mode. On Jan 22nd a mega event has been convened at Ayodhya for inauguration of Ram Temple. The construction of the temple was a major election promise of the Lotus party since 1989 and due to this and issues such as abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, the BJP had fallen 'isolated' or compartmentalised as a communal political party more than once.
The first BJP government headed by statesman-variety leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee in May 1996 lasted only 13 days as several parties including the Congress, regional parties like DMK and Samajwadi and communists had ganged up to form a United Front government -- first headed by H D Deve Gowda and then by I K Gujral.
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