7 key mistakes Modi has made for which BJP won't get the 282 seats it did in 2014 History has an uncomfortable habit of repeating itself.

POLITICS | 5-minute read | 23-03-2018

The BJP’s by-poll debacle in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar has thrown up three pieces of conventional wisdom. One, the Modi wave is over. Two, the BJP will get no more than 180 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Three, the combined Opposition will sink their ideological differences and come to power.

It’s impossible to predict an election result a year in advance. What’s certain though is the BJP will not win the 282 seats it did in 2014. Lightning doesn’t strike twice. The 2014 Lok Sabha poll brought two powerful forces together: a strong anti-Congress wave and an equally strong pro-Modi wave. They combined to form a tsunami that led to the BJP sweeping Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Delhi.

Electoral tsunami

Such electoral tsunamis are rare. Even the sympathy wave caused by Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in May 1991 didn’t help the Congress win a majority in the Lok Sabha. Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao led a minority government for five years before India got its first khichdi United Front government in 1996 with HD Deve Gowda as Prime Minister, supported by the Congress from outside.

Will history repeat itself in 2019? If it does, look at the cast of characters who will be part of a new United Front melting pot: Mayawati, Akhilesh Yadav, Tejashwi Yadav, MK Stalin, Sharad Pawar, Assaduddin Owaisi, Omar Abdullah and Sitaram Yechury. The chef who will supervise the making of this khichdi government is, of course, Rahul Gandhi.

As he turns 49 next June, has Rahul’s time finally come? How will the Congress control the clashing egos of the more than dozen leaders of the new-look United Front? To complicate the broth, TMC’s Mamata Banerjee and TRS’ KCR are plotting to set up a non-BJP, non-Congress Third Front (TF).

In a best-case scenario, the Congress can hope to gain significant Lok Sabha seats from only seven states: Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab, Karnataka and Kerala. It is locked in binary contests with the BJP in four of these states, with the Left in one (Kerala) and in multipolar contests in two (Punjab and Haryana). Doubling its 2014 tally to around 90 seats would be an optimistic outcome.

When it supported Deve Gowda’s UF government from outside in 1996, the Congress had 140 Lok Sabha seats. The various parties that made up the UF had 192 seats and the BJP 161 seats. In 2019, the combined Opposition (United Front plus Third Front) will likely account for 120-140 seats with the TMC, TRS, DMK, SP and BSP providing the bulk.

The small parties in the mix like the NCP, NC, AIMIM and the Left will top up the numbers. Lalu Prasad’s RJD in Bihar, despite its win in Araria and Jehanabad (but loss in Bhabua) in recent by-polls, is unlikely to get into double digits in the 2019 Lok Sabha election given Lalu’s conviction in yet another fraud case. The sympathy factor can wear thin.

Hung Parliament

With 120-140 seats in the UF-TF combine and 90 seats for the Congress, totalling 210-230 seats for the mahagathbandhan, the 2019 Lok Sabha election will obviously produce a hung Parliament. This accepts the prevalent hypothesis that the BJP wins 180-200 seats. With few reliable allies, the BJP-led NDA will thus be unable to cross 240 seats. Unattached parties like the BJD, AIADMK, TDP and independents will make up the rest and be the kingmakers. This, therefore, is what the 17th Lok Sabha in 2019 could look like: NDA 240 seats; Congress-led mahagathbandhan (UF+TF) 220 seats; others 85 seats.

Seven errors

Modi has made seven key errors that have brought the BJP to this pass. First, alienating NDA allies. Second, misallocating portfolios in the Union Cabinet. (Arun Jaitley would have been a better external affairs minister and Sushma Swaraj a better home minister. Ministers like Mahesh Sharma, Harsh Vardhan, Radha Mohan Singh and Uma Bharti have not distinguished themselves). Three, remaining silent on issues ranging from cow vigilantism to divisive remarks by party MPs.

Four, not holding daily media briefings by the PMO or MEA as every major country does — and as India did when Syed Akbaruddin was MEA spokesperson. Five, not submitting himself to regular press conferences with robust question-and-answer sessions.

Six, allowing the bureaucracy to slow down corruption cases against UPA-era offenders. Seven, following an inconsistent policy on Pakistan. The significant achievements of the Modi government — and there are many — have been submerged by these self-inflicted wounds.

Will the Rahul Gandhi-led Congress with, say, 90 seats be willing to support a new UF+TF government from outside? Will it seek the prime ministership for Rahul by dint of having the largest number of MPs in the mahagathbandhan? How will the ambitious leaders of the Opposition khichdi take to such an arrangement?

Rahul’s own reluctance to lead such a coalition could stem from the recognition that with 210-230 seats the mahagathbandhan will not be able to claim a working majority in the Lok Sabha without support from unattached parties like the BJD, TDP, AIADMK and independents.

With around 240 seats, the shrunken NDA will wait to pounce if a coalition government of over 20 parties collapses under the weight of its own ideological contradictions as it did in 1998. Six years of NDA government followed. History has an uncomfortable habit of repeating itself.

(Courtesy of Mail Today)

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