ENARADA, New Delhi
By Ajay N Jha
What happened on the evening of 13th September at 11 Ashoka Road may have a far reaching impact both on the Sangh and the BJP’s future. It could either make Modi a National hero in 2014 or just be an end to his political career. In the same way, it would make RSS more powerful than ever or it would just engineer some kind of open revolt in case the BJP does not come back to power.
In steamrolling his opposition and going ahead unilaterally telling key allies Shiv Sena and the Akali Dal that Modi is the BJP’s PM candidate, party president Rajnath Singh has not only marginalized Advani, but has also possibly set the stage for the end of the patriarch’s career.
Advani continues to believe that Modi’s coronation at this stage will be detrimental to the BJP’s interests in the coming Assembly elections where a substantive section of Muslims might otherwise be inclined to vote for Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Madhya Pradesh, Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan and Raman Singh in Chhatisgarh.
Also, he feels that projecting Modi now would help the Congress turn the elections into some kind of a referendum on the 2002 riots when in fact it would be much more beneficial for the BJP to turn the 2014 elections into a vote on corruption and misrule during 10 years of the UPA.
It’s a battle of wits, which weighed heavily against Advani because Modi had the advantage of an overwhelming support of the BJP workers, leaders and most important of all, of the physical and psychological might of the RSS, which has lately been micromanaging the internal affairs of the BJP.
The other concern in Advani’s mind has been the expansion of the NDA, building the NDA-Plus and reaching out to the minorities. While this is not among the reasons he is asking for a deferral of Modi’s coronation, this is one of the issues dominating many BJP leaders’ minds though they dare not talk about it.
Most in the BJP are talking of complete wave for Modi, something like the one that existed for Indira Gandhi. The wave would sweep the 2014 polls, they predict. And if the numbers do not exactly come the way the BJP want, it may be difficult to change its prime ministerial contender then. Advani may stand isolated and marginalised in the party in days to come but Modi and BJP will have to work really very hard to prove him wrong.
While many political pundits are still saying that the Advani faction within the BJP would itself be good enough to pull Modi down at the hustings, the taming of Sushma Swaraj, MM Joshi and Anant Kumar is a clear indication that most of the BJP leaders would not like to risk the wrath of Sangh and Modi machine for their own survival within the party and they could cave in at the end of the day.
There would be more surges in the popularity of Modi not only in social media but in print and electronic media as well and that would attract the younger voters in metropolitan cities in large numbers.
Modi team has already crafted out a detailed programme for his Tour in Southern States where the BJP wants to re-establish its credentials all over again. It is paying special attention to Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka where it hopes to get a big number of seats. Efforts are already on the way to bring B.S. yeddyurappa back into BJP and that would make a substantial difference in Karnataka in 2014 LS polls.
Modi already enjoys a good political rapport with J Jayalalitha and he would bank on her support from her in case of need. BJP is expecting better number of seats from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattishgarh than what it got in 2009.
Modi team’s main focus is going to be Bihar and Uttar Pradesh which account for 120 seats and the BJP strategists have already started working on getting at least 45 seats from UP and 20 seats from Bihar. Muzaffarnagar communal riots have already consolidated even those sections which were not voting for BJP earlier.
Insiders from BJP war Room also indicate that they would be looking to at least 4 seats each from Delhi and Uttarakhand. A separate team of professionals is working on how to engage and solicit the support of a large chunk of floating voters in every metropolis.
A Three- tier team has already started working in BJP camp on the selection of candidates, logistics and the campaign path. The Congress party seems to be lagging behind my miles in that. It has not yet completed its party re-organization process in Uttar Pradesh till now.
A big chunk of those Corporates which were sitting on the fence, have already started lending their support to team Modi through fresh batches of advertising and ‘paid news campaigns”. Many B grade TV news Channels have already been approached by the State BJP in their respective States.
The BJP media campaign is going to be dirtier, more lethal and hard hitting and the Congress party would find it quite difficult to defend itself on the continuing price rise, hike in the price of cooking gas, diesel and Petrol and many scams. Moreover, Corruption would come back to haunt as a big election issue this time and Modi is likely to make that his main poll campaign plank.
The Congress Party still seems to be in a state of stupor and it has not been able take a fresh look at the changing political paradigm at national level and re-calibrate and re-think about its overall poll strategy. It is still grappling with the imponderables and factional fights in many States have been far from resolved.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi has conducted many exercises but they seem to be more of academic kind than otherwise and little urgency is shown towards tiding up so many loose ends.
The same is the case with its media management apparatus. These factors are going to play key role in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls and Modi and his team seems to be far ahead of Congress at the moment.
(Posted on September 14, 2013 @ 4.00pm)
(Ajay N Jha is a veteran journalist from both Print and Electronic media. He is the President and CEO of WICS Global Communications. His email id is Ajay N Jha <ajayjha30@gmail.com> )
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