The more things change, the more they look the same ::: 2014-2024 .... A Decade of tectonic shifts .... Indian politics and BJP campaign revolved around Moditva

 The high-pitch poll campaign was centred around PM Modi. The Opposition failed to mount a challenge.

In all three elections, it was PM Modi-driven campaign that resonated with the public.

In terms of BJP’s relations with religious groups, the Christians and the Muslims have always held the saffron party in suspicion.

Many would not even hesitate to join the campaign that India's ‘secular character’ is at stake under the BJP-led dispensation.

Even as Muslims are 'presumed' to have voted in favour of BJP nominees in 2014 Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh and also during the state assembly elections in 2017 and Christians inched closer to the saffron party in north east, there were doubts nevertheless that if ‘communal forces’ are not halted, the largest democracy in the world could fall prey to ‘destruction’ of old social structures.

In all these Narendra Modi was at the centre of events, news and controversies !! 

Amid the Congress' battle-cry to oust Modi government from power and latter's resolve to return for third record time, what has caught the attention of political pundits and analysts is the poll plank of parties, particularly the BJP in three elections -- 2014, 2019 and 2024.

In all these elections, BJP's election machinery overwhelmed the Congress campaign, and PM Modi's appeal and charisma served as the key pivot -- says an IANS article.

At the center of BJP stands irreplaceable Narendra Modi. A man who made a synthesis of Hindu ideology and development. With Modi and BJP now securely affirming their place, Indian political history is sure to shed its status quo.

Modi being sworn in on May 30, 2019 by Prez Govind 

A leader India was waiting for. A leader – whom millions see as a ‘messiah’ – who can perhaps solve all their problems.

A leader – who cannot be wrong even for taking away their legitimate currency notes; and a leader who will unleash the true economic potential of the world’s largest democracy.

Many unhesitatingly laud his image of a mystic Indian – a yogic in meditation but yet someone who connects so well via video conferences and Twitter.  

He is also a leader who says that the country of about  22 per cent poor people can embrace an imaginative world of ‘Digital India’.

India's 2019 general elections could have redirected the country's politics from the trajectory it had been hurtling on for the past five years since 2014. 

There had been some wishful thinking that if the electorate replaced the ruling pro-Hindu party, the country's strength — its plurality — would have been protected. But the election's outcome was different. 

In a historic mandate, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was given a second term to run the world's largest democracy. Modi is the first prime minister since 1971 to return to power with an absolute majority. 

He is the third one to do so after the country's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi.

This year if Modi wins, he will be first PM after Nehru to be elected for a third stint consecutively. 

In 2014, 'Abki baar Modi Sarkar' proved too strong a slogan for Congress as the BJP acquired an absolute majority on its own while the Congress got reduced to double digits.

In 2019, Congress looked better placed, and its poll slogans also saw resonance among the public, but PM Modi turned the tables at one stroke.

His slogan of 'Main bhi Chowkidaar' stole the Congress thunder and resulted in the biggest ever victory for the BJP, with the latter winning 303 seats on its own.

In 2024, a rejuvenated Congress under the INDIA bloc is again seeking to upset the BJP's applecart, but poll experts don't see it coming to fruition.

'Abki baar 400 paar', coined by the Prime Minister, once again has struck the right chord with the public, while Congress' tall promises of 'paanch nyays and twenty-five guarantees' failing to strike the popular public perception, as the optics suggest.

Overall, the bluster of Congress and its allies have largely failed to yield magic in all three elections, and it is PM Modi's defining agenda which has reigned supreme over every poll pitch.

Blogger !!

Development, mayhem & Hindutva – Making of Brand Moditva

The journey from being ‘Modi’ to the ‘Moditva phenomenon’ has been of a loner, and that of a man who vanquished adversaries at virtually every stage.

Till February 27, 2002, Narendra Modi was another BJP leader and at best a Chief Minister. But once the Sabarmati Express train was torched killing Ram Bhakts and that resulted in carnage between Hindus and Muslims in his home state – Narendra Damodardas Modi has not looked back.

He turned disadvantage into advantage.  Besides dealing with detractors in Congress who wanted to nail him in 2002 riots, Modi also overcame hurdles posed by party colleagues like Sanjay Joshi as well.

At one point even his trusted lieutenant Smriti Irani had questioned his role during the carnage of 2002.

In 2013, his declaration of being made BJP’s ‘prime ministerial candidate’ was opposed by none other than his mentor L K Advani.

In 2002, during the peak of mayhem, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee  asked him in public to discharge ‘Raj Dharma’. "With what face I will go abroad," Vajpayee had said at a Muslim relief camp.

Dealing with all that requires more than the assertiveness, and Modi has shown the single mindedness. 

And the right synthesis of Hindutva inclined nationalism punctuated with development and him (Modi) being seen as an architect of change transformed him into a big national leader.

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