The exit polls announced late last evening after the end of the seventh and last phase of polling of India’s 18th general elections have left the supporters of the right-wing jubilant (the BJP-led NDA is projected to win 360-plus seats), the borderline neutral variety bewildered, and the Opposition stunned. For the latter, it was like the anaesthetic spray given by a determined dentist before a tooth extraction. The palliative is just a temporary respite; June 4, 2024, could be a hard punch on the jaw, demanding wholesale mouth surgery. Or maybe not.
After all, an exit poll can also be just another statistical misadventure given its rather questionable track record, no matter how assiduously marketed by hyper-cacophonous TV channels. But is India seriously contemplating Modi 3.0, the popular acronym capturing the rise, rise and rise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, or can we still potentially see an extraordinary capitulation of the BJP, reducing it to below the halfway mark of 272, as has been frequently emphasised by some psephologists? We will know on Tuesday.
Why BJP still has reason to worry
What we do know, however, is that the BJP/NDA has reasons to be petrified (particularly after the buoyant prognostications of their assumed hat-trick) of June 4. The reasons are staggering. To begin with, a 10-year natural fatigue factor, leading to at least a marginal anti-incumbency. According to the exit polls, remarkably enough, that seems to be totally absent.
But there is a laundry list of undeniable red flags that would normally devastate any ruling government: Some of them being persistent unemployment (India has the youngest population in the world); high food inflation (affecting practically everyone barring the 0.1 per cent of the super-rich club); remorseless destruction of independent institutions (this has earned BJP the ignominious sobriquet of “washing machine”) which has crippled the ordinary man’s faith in government institutions; brazen corruption and crony capitalism as evidenced by the sleazy electoral bonds scam; rural distress manifesting in farmer protests, and probably the most dangerously polarising social environment that I have ever seen, with Modi himself being the most belligerent progenitor of hate speeches.
Although by a curious coincidence, the government celebrated an 8.2 per cent GDP growth rate for 2023-24 on the eve of the exit polls, India’s average GDP growth since 2019 is a miserly 4.2 per cent. The arrest of Arvind Kejriwal was expected to trigger a nationwide introspection on repressive authoritarianism. In a normal universe, the BJP would have been sweating buckets, but Modi announced a meditation retreat, haughtily claiming that he would occupy 7, Lok Kalyan Road for another five years. If the exit polls, however, hold (several cynics dismiss it as a fixed match with fascinating conspiracy theories ranging from stock-market manipulation to being a precursor of electoral rigging), what would that tell us?
The big question for INDIA
For the INDIA group, the seminal conundrum will be: Can we win any election if we can’t win 2024 (in my personal estimation, if we were to reverse political roles, the BJP would bring Congress down to its knees)? Based on mere cursory academic research, this is still their election to lose. Their principal bogeyman, Modi, honestly speaking, sounded like a broken record, thoroughly uninspiring and often shockingly outrageous.
By contrast, Rahul Gandhi looked a reinvented political impresario, and once their teething troubles were sorted, INDIA contested well, focusing on caste discrimination, social welfare, democratic backsliding, income inequality, etc.
The Opposition’s errors
I thought that the Congress’s digital marketing campaign was an award-winning endeavour. The brevity of this column notwithstanding, I will enumerate what could have been tactical errors or strategic miscalculations by the opposition.
Why was there such reluctance and flip-flops on making Nitish Kumar a “convenor” of the INDIA alliance? It was just an innocuous designation which would have satisfied the wily veteran that he was getting the respect he deserved. After all, wasn’t Nitish the one who pioneered the Opposition-unity conversations in Patna? The Opposition’s credibility was grievously damaged when the much-ridiculed Bihar CM was compelled to do another of his famous U-turns. INDIA lost precious time in rebuilding a positive narrative thereafter.
When, for whatever reasons, Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal threw the curveball that Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge should be the PM face of the INDIA alliance, the Congress should have promptly and wholeheartedly supported that suggestion. It would have instantly sorted the leadership issue that continued to plague the Opposition sporadically. Modi would have struggled to attack the Congress octogenarian, who has an enviable political journey in his bio.
Three crucial months were completely lost between September and December 2023 because the INDIA group, in an act of shining laziness or inexplicable short-sightedness, refused to meet even once. During that time, a common minimum programme, seat-sharing, leadership responsibilities, campaign strategy, etc. could have been finalised. Time is money, and they had neither.
The Congress was routed badly twice in 1984 and 2014 on corruption charges that were either never proven or were rejected by the courts (Bofors and 2G). But in what seemed like a clear misjudgment, the sordid electoral bonds scam, which was not notional but real, and involved criminality, extortion and threats by state investigative agencies, crony capitalism and corruption, was overlooked. The Congress and INDIA got jittery and felt shoehorned maybe because they too were smaller beneficiaries of the EBs. Their inability to articulate a communication strategy, which could have pilloried BJP to the tallest post, let the latter get away scot-free. Again. It was an opportunity lost.
But are we jumping the gun here? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I am convinced, though, that June 4 still has a mysterious twist to it. Are we headed for a thrilling Tuesday or a mundane announcement of ceremonial formalities? Who knows? Fasten your seat belts, and close the exit gates (pun intended).
The writer is a former spokesperson of the Congress party
