Home Editorials Victorious Again

Victorious Again

1298
0
SHARE

In the end, after all the fire and fury, it proved to be anticlimactic. There was nothing like the contest that was being projected by those challenging Prime Minister Modi. The public mood was strong and the exit polls captured it quite effectively. The brattish approach of the Congress, the disinformation campaign on social media, the character assassination over foreign news outlets, conspiracy theories about the EVM, etc., did not pay off.
Congress President Rahul Gandhi completely misread the psychology of the common folk, unable to get out of the ‘mai-baap’ dynastic mindset. He promised doles, while Modi offered a stake in India’s future, which included the difficulties and effort that it involved. This reveals how much the Indian public has matured. Another myth that has been exploded is that of the grip caste-based parties have on their voters – even the SP-BSP-RLD alliance could not achieve the transferability of votes that was planned. Voters now exercise their franchise of their own volition. A voter may give BSP the first priority, but the second preference may well be the BJP. It should come as no surprise, also, if many Muslims, particularly women, have voted for Modi.
The verdict for the 17 Lok Sabha is in favour, overall, of the general direction given to the country by the Modi Government over the past five years, be it on the economic, social or strategic level. The opposition did not give much importance to the social campaigns of the Prime Minister, such as toilets in every home, electricity connections, zero-deposit bank accounts, housing, the Ayushman scheme, Swachh Bharat, et al, but all of these impacted the ordinary folk. The better off were happy with the focus on infrastructure development and economic reforms. This set-off what is being described as the silent ‘Tsunamo’.
Credit also goes to the strategic planning and implementation by BJP President Amit Shah, who took the party into non-traditional areas, thereby compensating for the natural losses in areas, such as UP, where the maximum could not be achieved a second time. He was helped by the pseudo-secularism and reverse ‘soft-Hindutva’ of the opposition. The Congress could not distinguish between the radicalism of the extreme left, anti-Indian forces and the genuine liberals, so it was lumped with them.
While Modi will undoubtedly be back on the job almost immediately, it is important that all the other leaders of his party also understand the fundamentals of his philosophy and get down to implementing it. It will be noted that it is the state level leaders such as Captain Amarinder Singh in Punjab, or those in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, who could withstand the Modi wave. It is the BJP governments in the states who will shape the narrative of 2024!