Striking Similarities: 1984 vs 2024 Lok Sabha polls
The Lok Sabha polls slated to be held in April-May 2024 remind political observers of striking similarities with the one held 40 years ago. A close look at the parliamentary polls held in December 1984 soon after the assassination of PM Indira Gandhi on October 31 at her 1 Safdarjung Road residence, will reveal some of these similarities. Her son Rajiv Gandhi became the PM and went on to win 404 of the 514 Lok Sabha seats. The Lok Sabha polls were not held in Punjab and Assam due to insurgency. Incidentally, the 1984 elections were the last in the country which gave a single party 404 seats. Even a bare majority of seats could not be achieved by any political party for the next 30 years. The BJP ended up winning merely two seats in 1984 and that too in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. The regional party, TDP of NT Ramarao emerged as the leading Opposition party with 23 seats. The same BJP won 282 in 2014 and crossed the 300 seats mark in 2019.
Rajiv Gandhi may have won 404 Lok Sabha seats in 1984 polls but those were largely on the back of a massive sympathy wave that erupted in the wake of Indira Gandhi's assassination. Rajiv Gandhi was an untried and untested, young, suave and handsome leader and generated a new hope with the masses. He gelled with the people but failed to repeat his feat in 1989. The Opposition parties of different shades joined hands and could never come back to power. The Congress regained power later but never won a majority.
PM Narendra Modi is hoping to achieve the 400 seats feat 40 years later in 2024 and not riding on any sympathy wave. He has been able to generate confidence among the countrymen that he is a “Pradhan Sewak” (Chief servant) and will deliver whatever he says and doesn't hesitate in using any weapon in his armory to achieve his objective. When it comes to delivery, he rides on the list of 80 crore beneficiaries of his several welfare schemes. Modi's immense communication skills and establishing rapport with the people should be a cse study in itself. Rajiv Gandhi was a visionary too and set up seven technology missions to make India economically independent. He brought computers but failed in political management and paid the price.
Tit for Tat by the BJP now
The similarities between 1984 and 2024 does not end here. If Rajiv Gandhi's war team targeted almost all prominent leaders of the Opposition parties to ensure their defeat in the Lok Sabha polls in 1984, the Modi dispensation is no different. The Congress succeeded in achieving its goal when several tall Opposition leaders like Atal Behari Vajpayee, Chandra Shekhar, S N Mishra, Raj Narain and others were defeated. Rajiv Gandhi put up several film stars and young faces like Amitabh Bachchan, Madhavrao Scindia to name a few, against tall Opposition leaders to ensure their defeat. But the BJP is no different as every Lok Sabha seat is being scrutinized through a microscope to achieve the objective. The Opposition parties are taking adequate precautions to save their skin. Sonia Gandhi opted for a Rajya Sabha seat in 2024 and avoided a contest in Rae Bareli after Rahul Gandhi's humiliating defeat in Amethi in 2019. It is still not clear whether Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will try her luck in Rae Bareli or Amethi or leave the high command in a dilemma as to whom it should put up from these two constituencies. Similarly, Shatrughan Sinha's Asansol seat in West Bengal is also on the target. Modi had specially flown to Mumbai to attend his son’s wedding. Yet he opted to quit the BJP to join the Congress and later moved towards the TMC.
Modi is also targeting all dynasties in states and screening closely leaders in his own party who think that getting a ticket is their birthright. Amethi and Dumka were on his radar in 2019 when Rahul Gandhi and Shibu Soren were defeated. This time, it will be Rae Bareli, Chhindwara, Baramati and Bengaluru Rural where DK Suresh, brother of DK Shiv Kumar, is a sitting MP.
Singhvi eyeing RS seat from Jharkhand, Kerala
After the shocking defeat of Abhishek Manu Singhvi for the Rajya Sabha seat in Himachal Pradesh, the Congress high command is contemplating to find another state for him. The immediate seat available is Jharkhand where Rajya Sabha polls will be held for two seats on May 4. The BJP and JMM-Congress combine will get one seat each. But given the political uncertainty in the state where the ruling JMM has become vulnerable after Hemant Soren went to jail, no one is sure what will happen. Secondly, the JMM is unwilling to spare a Rajya Sabha seat for the Congress due to its own political compulsions. Another proposal on the plate is that Singhvi be fielded from Kerala where the Congress will get one Rajya Sabha seat out of three. The state is less vulnerable compared to Himachal Pradesh or even Jharkhand.
