Thursday, December 27, 2012

When will Modi cross the Delhi Rubicon ?

Is Narendra Modi set to be projected as the BJP’s candidate for Prime Minister in 2014? The media is looking for clues in everything he’s done or uttered since his expected victory last week in the Gujarat assembly elections. The fact that the first address he delivered after the results was in Hindi, not in Gujarati, is being parsed as a prominent straw in the wind, and so is the fact that he has committed to visit Delhi on December 27, a day after his oath-taking in Gandhinagar as Chief Minister, never mind that it is a pre-scheduled meeting of state chief ministers. Commentators have even counted that Modi used the word 'DESH' 24 times in his 45-minute speech, and so, they have speculated, it is South Bloc that must be looming large within his ken. It is being said that his victory speech is full of lines that are pregnant with meaning, such as, mein khel Dilli se jitna chahta tha, aaj wo khel janta ne mujhe jita diya (the game that I wanted to win from Delhi is the one that the people have made me win today). He also sought apologies if he had done anything wrong. But made no reference to any incident or act leaving his supporters to claim that he had done what was required.



However, such strenuous clue-gathering exercise is overshadowed by the elephant in the living room, which is that the BJP has no other leader of Modi’s stature. Of course it was important for him to win the Gujarat poll for the third consecutive term, as failure to do that would have instantly eliminated him from the race. But, now that he has crossed the initial hurdles, there is hardly anything that either the BJP or the “Sangh pariwar” can do to put another man in the final lap of the race. It is double or quits.

The inevitability of Modi’s choice as principal challenger to a Congress-led “UPA 3” lies in his capacity to rise above his party, the BJP. Winning state elections for three consecutive terms is, by itself, not the qualifying achievement to enter the race for leading the nation. It is not impossible that two other BJP chief ministers, Shivraj Singh Chauhan and Raman Singh of Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh respectively, may perform similar hat-tricks in assembly elections in their states next year. Chauhan, like Modi, is development-minded and Raman Singh has performed admirably on issues related to state security, development and food. But both are obedient party workers carrying out commands from Delhi and the RSS, holed in Nagpur. Neither of them attracts a fraction of the love or hatred that Modi does across the nation. 

And that leads to the mystique of leadership. Among Modi’s contemporaries in the party, its twin stalwarts, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, despite their impressive oratorical skills, which were recently on display in the parliamentary debates on FDI in multi-product retail, have not shown the killing stints. Both have national appeal, secular credential, liberal approach. Jaitley has the edge due to his sacrifices during the emergency and has immense rapport with Nagpur. Yet Modi looks unstoppable within the BJP unless L K Advani refuses to vacate the place before 2014. Even Modi himself will not sacrifice CM’s chair before May-June next year- after the Karnataka  Assembly polls as not even Modi’s carpet-bombing cannot make BJP return to power. Secondly, incidents like Delhi’s gang-rape and its bizarre mishandling by the Police, Home Ministry and the UPA government will only strengthen the hands of Modi. 

Till I wrote this piece, Modi has chosen to remain silent on the issue though protests are taking place across the country. But there is no denying the fact that people do like his “autocratic style” of governance in a democratic set up. Amongst the Chief Ministers of 31 states of different parties, he commands better credibility and brags his achievements through hired PR agencies in India and abroad. There are people across the globe who are investing in a company called “Modi Futures Limited.” It’s a different matter that Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan has done chosen to do things rather quietly and known for his honesty and integrity too. Yet if  Modi gets the charge to head the national government, it is expected of him to behave less like a politician who waffles and more like an executive-leader of the Lee Kuan Yew kind.

The Congress too has a galaxy of competent party functionaries. However faltering might be the course of the two successive UPA governments so far, it carries Sonia Gandhi’s unmistakable hallmark—be it in a clear emphasis on entitlement and doling out larges to the poor rather than creating employment. The general evasiveness on policy, probably to suit the conflicting demands of a coalition, is another problem. It is only in the recent months that she seems to have signalled the government to go slow on populism, take measures to cut back on the colossal wastages in welfare programs (the new Direct Cash Transfer policy is a result), and gather more courage to achieve economic targets like fiscal deficit and inflation. Secondly, Sonia has one big advantage over Modi. She enjoys unchallenged authority in her own setup. But Modi’s authority is highly contested. 

The RSS, which is BJP’s ideological master, has mixed feelings about Modi. Mohan Bhagwat, the Sangh supremo (sarsanghchalak), put it succinctly when he said that while an automaker sells thousands of cars, “some are easy to drive and some prove difficult to manage”. The easy-to-drive car is the shorthand for present party president Nitin Gadkari, while Modi is obviously tough to manoeuvre. Party leaders who have invested many decades of their lives in the hope of rising to the top one day have reasons to feel that Modi’s rise will shatter their dreams.

To ride out the opposition within his own party and NDA coalition, Modi has to project himself more in the presidential mode—relying all the more on satellite television and the social networking media. That will polarize the nation even more, evoking loyalties as intense as hostilities. The dividing line will no longer be the traditional secular Vs communal. It will lie between a multi-polar nation and a unified state. Will BJP take the risk? A difficult question.

                                                       (The author is National Editor of Lokmat group)