Opinion by Editorial
In Parliament, PM Modi underscored political battlelines that will span a year in which there will be a lull in electoral hostilities
His speeches underscored the battlelines that will span a year in which there will, otherwise, be a prolonged lull in hostilities — between the election in Delhi now and in Bihar at year-end.
Feb 7, 2025 07:00 IST First published on: Feb 7, 2025 at 06:59 IST
Over six months into his third term, in the immediate aftermath of a Union budget that is seen to be focused on easing the strain on the taxpaying middle classes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Parliament framed two broad themes. In his reply to the motion of thanks on the President’s address — in Lok Sabha Tuesday and in Rajya Sabha Thursday — PM Modi sought to connect the dots from today’s poor to tomorrow’s middle class, via the “neo middle class” — and said that they energise the India growth story. He described the many ways in which his government has empowered the poor — 25 crore, he said, have been lifted out of poverty in his tenure — and spoke of how SCs, STs and the “vanchit samudaya” or deprived sections were being given a leg-up to become stakeholders in “Viksit Bharat” through targeted programmes and schemes. In other words, politically decoded, his message was — don’t look at the tax break as a shift from the government’s pro-poor focus, but as an extension of it.
The second political message that could be read in his lines, and between them, was that the BJP still sees Congress as the main political opponent to be vanquished, and defines itself in opposition to. This is worth noting because, on the ground, the strongest challenge to the Modi-BJP’s dominance comes from regional parties, a different one in every state — not Congress. Despite the upward blip on the Lok Sabha scoreboard in June 2024, Congress has been unable to reverse the impression of an unchecked dwindling. That impression is also being increasingly weaponised against it by its INDIA allies, who are, one after the other, questioning its claim within the Opposition to primacy. PM Modi sketched several before-and-after scenarios — in each, Congress was the discredited ancien regime. While in the Lok Sabha speech he targeted the AAP too, without taking its name, in the Rajya Sabha speech, made a day after the voting in Delhi, he painted his own party and government as the anti-Congress. The Congress looks at “Family First”, he said, while it is “Nation First” for the BJP. Congress world view is pessimistic — “doosre ki lakeer ko chhota karna (an attempt to self-aggrandise in zero sum games) — while the BJP believes in “sabka saath sabka vikas (progress of all)”. Congress is divisive on caste, promotes “jaativaad ka zahar” (the poison of casteism), its rhetoric masks its disrespect to Ambedkar, it is the party that presided over licence raj and clamped down on freedoms by imposing Emergency, while the BJP gave constitutional status to the OBC Commission, unshackled the economy and takes forward the constitutional spirit, and so on.
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In recent times, Congress has sought to mount the “social justice” plank by making the demand for a caste census central to its manifesto. By pointedly referring to “three MPs in one family”, and with his rhetorical question on whether this would be possible if the family were SC or ST, PM Modi was attempting to undercut that Congress claim and strategy. His speeches underscored the battlelines that will span a year in which there will, otherwise, be a prolonged lull in hostilities — between the election in Delhi now and in Bihar at year-end.
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