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Modi's Grip on Power Slips with Resounding Personal Defeat

The people of India have rejected Narendra Modi's majoritarian Hindu politics. Even if Modi's coalition returns him to power, his message has to change.

By Bharat Bhushan, 360info
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Modi's personal defeat

Modis grip on power slips with resounding personal defeat | Outgoing Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not come close to reaching the 400+ seats he boasted about in the election campaign. | Photo courtesy: Prime Minister's Office, Wikimedia Commons | Credits Government Open Data License - India (GODL)

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Modi's Grip on Power Slips with Resounding Personal Defeat

Despite his reluctance to concede defeat, the results of the Indian general elections are a major setback for outgoing Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His party, the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), has failed to secure a majority on its own.

The BJP has heavily lost ground in its traditional stronghold states of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Maharashtra, with a combined swing of 57 seats against it across the four regions.

Electoral loss in these battleground states, along with the massive resilience of regional parties such as the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu, have delivered a resounding disappointment to the BJP.

The BJP's campaign was centred around Modi — every government welfare measure was packaged as “Modi’s guarantees” and the Prime Minister put himself at the front of everything the BJP did, even at the cost of eclipsing other party candidates.

It didn't work.

Neither did Modi’s toxic campaign against Muslims, dubbing them “infiltrators” and “those who produce more children”, nor did his labelling of opposition parties as Muslim “appeasers” turn the tide towards him.

Modi's propagation of Hindu majoritarianism seems to have failed to invigorate even Hindu voters.

The construction of a controversial temple devoted to Lord Ram in the city of Ayodhya was meant to be the crowning glory of Modi’s myriad achievements. The temple, opened in January, had been built on the disputed site of a mediaeval mosque, which was destroyed by Hindu zealots in December 1992.

Ayodhya sits in the BJP heartland state Uttar Pradesh, which was the bulwark of Modi’s victory in 2014 and 2019. So too do two other controversial religious sites — at Varanasi and Mathura — that Modi’s party wants to reclaim.

But the BJP has been dealt a resounding blow by the electorate, losing nearly half the seats it had won in 2019. Modi’s boasts that his party and allies would cross the 400-mark in parliament proved unexpectedly counter-productive.

It takes 407 votes (two-thirds of the House total of 543) to make constitutional amendments or even write a new constitution. Modi's proclamations about reaching such a total raised fears among disadvantaged groups in India, such as the Dalits and tribal communities, that Modi was planning to subvert affirmative action for them, which is protected by the Indian Constitution.

India’s Muslims also felt threatened that the secular framework of the Constitution would be subverted with such a massive majority. All these groups voted for the Opposition, which promised to protect the Constitution.

Although Modi has won for the third time from his constituency of Varanasi, the BJP seems 32 seats short of the majority mark of 272 needed in a 543-member parliament.

Despite this shortfall, Modi hopes to be sworn in for a third term on the back of his pre-election coalition of more than a dozen parties, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), having won an absolute majority. If things go according to plan, Modi may well be sworn in as Prime Minister on June 9.

However, before that happens, he will have to be elected leader of the BJP parliamentary party. This puts his fate in the hands of his coalition partners in the NDA, who must also find his candidature for the top job acceptable.

Modi’s stranglehold over his party would suggest that be a shoo-in. But right now, the party needs a leader who can forge a consensus with its allies. Many believe that Modi’s persona is unaccommodating and his relationship with allies is thorny. In the situation where the BJP has to work closer with its allies, it may agree upon a more amiable leader. The party could be persuaded to do so by the Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu majoritarian and militaristic self-styled organisation of volunteers, considered the ideological parent of the BJP. If Modi is elected leader of the NDA, he will head both the largest single party in Parliament and also the largest pre-election alliance. He is likely to be then invited by India's president, Draupadi Murmu, a former BJP leader herself, to form the next government.

However, none of this will solve Modi’s problems with his allies in the NDA, mostly from regional parties. Given his track record with former alliance partners, Modi will have to allay their fears about their legislators being broken away. They will have to be wooed into partnership with attractive offers of power-sharing.

The weight of alliance partners in any potential government to

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