Narendra Modi has been the chief campaigner for the BJP throughout the past ten years. This has been part of the BJP’s all-cult buildup. Special care is taken to choose the venues of the rallies and bring crowds
During his 75-day campaign for the last Lok Sabha elections, he held 200 rallies and roadshows and gave over 80 media interviews. The Modi-Shah duo addressed 108 rallies and roadshows in 26 days during the last Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. The BJP had solely relied on his muscular image and perceived magic to win votes.
This seems to be changing. Look at Haryana where the BJP has won the election. After the results came out, an elated Modi said the lotus has once again bloomed in Haryana. But it is the Haryana BJP leaders who achieved this feat after a Modi-mukt campaign. This time, Modi addressed just four full rallies as against 10 in the parliamentary election in 2024.
There were no road shows on which his admirers showered flowers. And the same was true of Amit Shah. He and Modi had earlier practically written off Haryana due to several adverse factors. Apparently, they did not want to repeat the kind of discomfiture suffered in Karnataka where the BJP lost in spite of an intensive campaign by the two.
Therefore, in Haryana, instead of Modi’s machismo and the benefits of his welfare programmes, the state leaders quietly worked on local issues and caste factors. The chief minister chose to rely on local machinery rather than big leader rallies. They carefully steered clear of the two pet schemes of Modi: Agniveer and corporatisation of farming since there had been prolonged anti-Modi agitations in the state over both.
Instead, the local leaders highlighted the marginalised section’s grievances over Jat domination. With this, the BJP’s Haryana leaders taught an important lesson: the party can win elections without the strong leader halo.
“This reflects a strategic shift in BJP’s internal dynamics…. The party seems to be relying more on established local machinery than Modi campaigning in person,” Jyoti Mishra, a researcher at the Centre for Study of Developing Societies said.
For over a decade, have BJP leaders functioned in a highly centralised system. It is the party high command that decides who should be the chief minister and the MLAs then ‘elect’ them. There was no question of an individual staking claims for the post. This is because under Modi, votes are sought and got in his name. Party and local leaders are treated as his instrument.
This time, at least two leaders openly staked claim for the chief ministership: veteran leader Anil Vij and Rao Inderjit Singh. The latter claims credit for the BJP’s success in the Ahirwal region of Haryana. Under Modi, staking such claims is unknown. Because the tussle is so intense, the centre’s strong man Amit Shah himself set out to Haryana as observer in order to suppress the rebellion. This is the time Amit Shah saw fit to be personally present at a meeting to elect the chief minister.
Last year, we found similar localisation of state politics during the Karnataka elections. Ignoring the hints, Modi tried to dominate the campaign by holding 19 rallies and nine road shows while Shah held 16 and 15. Despite this, the party lost badly.
Now it is the turn of Maharashtra, where the assembly elections are scheduled on November 20. With 48 Lok Sabha seats, Maharashtra has an altogether different political arithmetic. The BJP had managed to engineer defections in two prominent state-based parties and formed Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi. With at least five political parties jostling for domination, Modi has no role to play in the Maharashtra election campaign.
Once an awesome vote catcher, Modi, at the most, can play a bit role in the state. His rants at election rallies will simply drown in the messy politics of Maharashtra.
This year’s Lok Sabha election itself provides the best evidence for Modi’s vanishing mojo. During the campaign, he had gone on claiming his coalition will get ‘400-par’seats but the BJP ended up losing the majority it had. It is only thanks to three regional parties — TDP, JD(U) and the Paswan party— that the NDA is able to maintain a majority.
Even those days when Modi’s words were orders, his strike rate has not been very encouraging. For, during the 2018 assembly elections, he addressed rallies in 80 constituencies but the BJP could win only 23 seats. It lost in 57 Seats. Modi campaigned at 30 places covering 206 constituencies. Of these, the BJP won 60 and lost 146 constituencies.
For the past few years, Brand Modi has been losing its magic. A stage has come when the BJP cannot any more depend on his rallies for victory. His attacks on the opposition have been losing their once famous sting. Stale topics like dynasty, Rahul bashing and allegations like opposition has ‘negative’ policies and they are ‘helping’ Pakistan have become tedious.
From the beginning, the BJP’s entire election strategy has been assiduously built on Modi’s image and his 150 odd welfare programmes. Since 2014, every election in India, including state assemblies, has been fought on Modi’s persona. His team chose the candidates and funded and organised the campaigns.
Huge crowds thronged his rallies with great enthusiasm. The youth and aspiring middle classes dreamed of industrial complexes coming up in every tehsil thus opening enormous job opportunities. Now, all the old unkept promises are coming back to haunt the leader.
Hence his rallies are fast losing their sheen. A sort of overexposure fatigue syndrome is evident. For ten years, one encountered the familiar face everywhere, always — in print, on TV, digital media, on billboards, walls, every Jan Aushadhi shop and even on rice bags. After all, familiarity breeds contempt.
There is another reason for the decline of Modi magic: adverse judicial pronouncements. Unlike during his early years, the Supreme Court of late has been acting to correct several distortions and miscarriages of justice. It struck down many executive excesses.
The apex court has also watered down provisions that enable the ED and CBI to keep political rivals indefinitely in jail. It restored the rule that bail, not jail, is the preferred practice. The ED and CBI were widely misused by the Modi regime to intimidate the opposition leaders and thus get them to defect to the ruling party.
Another judicial verdict that halted executive excesses relates to the controversial electoral bonds scheme. Its opaqueness was taken advantage of by the government to grab the bulk of corporate donations to political parties. It unabashedly coerced large corporate firms to donate to the BJP on a quid pro quo basis.. The Supreme Court also forced a reluctant State Bank of India to reveal the hidden numbers on bonds and publish the entire list of beneficiaries.
Unfortunately for Modi, a Balakot-type bravado or boasts about a 56” chest cannot any more sweep an entire country. People want their immediate problems and livelihood needs addressed rather than keep dreaming of a Viksit Bharat by 2047. People live for the present and they realise what Modi is offering does not add up to much.
P. Raman is a veteran journalist.
This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
