First let us put down the facts. One, spread across two phases, voters in 191 Lok Sabha constituencies have voted, in numbers significantly lower than the electoral turnout in 2019.
Two, so far at least, the elections do not appear to be propelled by an overarching nationwide issue or a national narrative like in 2014 and 2019.
In the coalition era, it used to be often said that the Indian Lok Sabha polls were an ‘aggregation’ of 543 elections. With issues and identities now more localised at constituency levels than previously in the Modi era, the going suddenly appears more uncertain for him than at the beginning of the campaign.
The next phase of voting is on May 7 and the ten-day-plus gap between the phases provides opportunity to take stock of the progress in the greatest global festival of democracy.
In the watershed polls in 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party became the first party after a gap of 30 years to secure an absolute majority. That election was driven by then prime minister-aspirant Narendra Modi’s call for badlav (change) and promises of achhe din (good days) and vikas (development) in the backdrop of a plethora of corruption charges against the United Progressive Alliance government headed by Dr Manmohan Singh.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
In the 2019 elections which handed the BJP an astonishing number of 303 seats, the narrative was altered mid-course by the twin incidents of the Pulwama terror strike and the retaliatory strike by Indian forces at facilities in Balakot, deep inside Pakistani territory.
It fanned the sentiment of hyper-nationalism, and issues which had been previously irking voters were submerged. In a situation when the electorate in several parts of India was inclined to look at positives, the government’s welfare programmes, many of which were recast old schemes, appeared as gifts of a benevolent ruler.
On both occasions, the nationwide sentiment – mainly in northern, central and western India and in pockets in southern and eastern India – was clearly palpable. This time, if any similar ‘wave’ election is already present or in making, it is not yet discernible.
In the absence of the Election Commission of India providing final figures and sticking to only provisional data of voter turnout for the two phases, deductions have to be based on the surfeit of figures doing the rounds.
But variations in data sets apart, all of them establish that the turnout is significantly lower than in 2019.
It is a truism to say that in countries like India, where voting is not compulsory, voter turnout is the most important indicator for health of democracy. Indians prided themselves in recent decades for rising turnout figures. Does its fall point to anything ominous insofar as the democracy’s health is concerned?
In the backdrop of lower turnouts so far this time, and if the trend is maintained over the remaining 350 seats, it would be a pointer to either stagnation, or a decline in interest in elections.
Reduced commitment of people to elections cannot be good news for Modi, because even in his most authoritarian avatar, he would not like to lose the tag of democratically ‘elected’ leader.
It is one thing for a leader like Modi to dismiss the opposition questioning fairness and impartiality of the poll body, but another matter for the voters so cock a snook at the electoral process, not in one gigantic step by boycotting it, but by making a beginning with a ginger step.
Without further research and study, it is premature to say that this weakening of interest in the election has a co-relation with backsliding of democracy in India since 2014.
There, however, is no escaping the fact that the waning of electoral turnout is preceded by a decade, especially in the post-2019 period, of solidification of the Modi cult.
Clearly, voter apathy or cynicism could be one of the reasons behind reduced turnout. It could also be due to the sense of voters that the results are a foregone conclusion and that one vote, this way or that way, would not make a difference.
Developments like in Surat and now Indore only deepen the sense of unavoidability of another term for Modi.
But there is the elephant in the BJP, and/or Sangh parivar, room that Modi Ki Guarantee has made the entire electoral process vyakti (individual)-centric and leaves little space for the sangathan (organisation), which in its credo, is more important than any single leader.
For decades, the BJP prided itself as a party with a ‘difference’ and being collegial in structure. Mentions of the prevalence of the Modi cult, even within the party, are commonplace now.
But, in a recent article in The Wire, Harish Khare has sounded a warning that this cult which has become “narrower and restricted, survives but the charisma (of Modi) has become ‘routinised’.”
Consequently, it is pertinent to ask if this ‘routinisation’ of the Modi charisma is one of the factors behind the reduced turnout. That the slightly disinterested bhakt, who would otherwise never vote for the Opposition, does not feel the need to line up at the polling booth, because ‘victory is assured’. And, in any case, hasn’t Modi taken the ‘guarantee’ for it?
Modi and his aides clearly appear distraught at success being taken for ‘granted’ and one can pick up conversations within the parivar on what remedies can be found to improve turnout.
In 2014 and 2019, the presence of first-time voters in the Modi bandwagon was overwhelming. Ten years later, those who were eight or nine then, are now qualified to vote. But are they as excited as the previous generation was?
Children coming of age are often propelled by desire to try out the ‘new’. To balance this, however, electoral choices of the young are often influenced by their elders, many of them Modi bhakts in today’s India.
The added worry for Modi should be that first-time voters in this election are the ones who survived the Covid pandemic with maximum disruption in their education.
In their perception, what extent of handholding did the government do in the first crisis they faced? To a considerable extent, school authorities will be seen as the ‘authority’, and on this score, school-leaving children may not have uniformly pleasant memories.
In this muddle, there is another question that needs deliberation – do first-time voters in this election have the same clarity as this lot had in 2014 and 2019 because of the absence of the overarching narrative?
Post-poll empirical data will certainly demonstrate if this section of voters were one of the primary ‘causes’ for the reduced turnout. Till that time, only questions will remain.
It is said that Modi has drawn innumerable theatrical lessons by watching (and maybe more) Amitabh Bachchan and several other noted actors. He, however, did not pick up lessons in re-inventing oneself, as the Big B, for one, did to enlist a new generation of viewers to relate to him after a poor run from the late 1980s.
It is often said that falling in love with others is normal, but no one, especially public figures, should fall in love with their own image and laugh at their own jokes.
By surrounding himself with no one but cronies, did Modi miss a trick? The verdict on June 4 will provide the answer but if the turnout further dips, worries will only mount.
Reduced turnout, near absence of the famed cadre of the Sangh parivar, lacklustre campaign of Modi, and the need to resort to his second nature – divisive and communally polarising spiel – all suggest the Modi script of 2024 has gone awry and over the next five phases, one can expect him to make an all-out effort to put it back on track.
One person, however, had the freedom to act after having picked up the signs emanating from the disjointed campaign: Elon Musk.
In possibly the clearest indication that Modi’s return to office is not yet a certainty, the Tesla chief decided that it would not be very prudent, keeping long-term interests in India in mind, to meet Modi now and be fussed around like the prime minister has done with other international dignitaries, and get used as an electoral prop by Modi.
Musk may still pay a visit given the fluidity of the electoral situation but that decision would not alter the one made at this juncture.
Likewise, this is a reading at this moment, when Modi is trudging on the lowest bends of the roller-coaster course that Indian polls are.
Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay is an author and journalist based in Delhi-NCR. His latest book is The Demolition, The Verdict and The Temple: The Definitive Book on the Ram Mandir Project, and he’s also the author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times. His X handle is @NilanjanUdwin.
