Verdict 2024 is for not just a Government but also an Opposition

Not just his party, Narendra Modi, who is set to return as prime minister, the first after Jawaharlal Nehru to get a third term, will need to take a message, or two, on board too. While large numbers of the people of India continue to repose faith in his leadership — the BJP’s successes, depleted and circumscribed as they are, come at the end of a highly personalised campaign that centred on “Modi’s guarantees” — this verdict situates him firmly on the ground. It places him squarely amid the push and pull of factions, faultlines and cleavages, thrusts upon him the responsibility of negotiation with allies and navigation of a crowded terrain. The onus of listening and humility is on him.

Modi’s newly re-defined role will need him not to continue deriding his political opponents with impunity, or be seen to target them single-mindedly. It will need him to see the perils of not just overweening ambition — the anxieties stoked by the “400-paar” slogan in vulnerable sections may have contributed to the BJP’s striking downsizing — but also the dangers of ratcheting up religious polarisation in a diverse country. His charged rhetoric about “mangalsutra” and “mujra” that sought to play upon Hindu insecurities, and his painting of a scare scenario in which reservation, property and rights will be taken from the majority and handed to the Muslim minority, didn’t work for him. It may even have contributed to paring down his mandate — the BJP’s seat tally has fallen by over 60.

This is a good day for the Opposition, for the INDIA alliance, and especially for Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. The Opposition faced an uphill task, and a playing field visibly tilted against it. Two non-BJP chief ministers, Arvind Kejriwal and Hemant Soren, were arrested on election-eve, and the bank accounts of Congress frozen. Shiv Sena and NCP had been split and splintered in Maharashtra, and Central agencies, ED-CBI-I-T had selectively targeted Opposition politicians. In several states, the routine criss-cross of leaders and workers from one party to another on poll-eve that belies the polarisation at the higher echelons had taken the shape of a pattern — the BJP’s ranks were swelling because of those migrating to it from other parties. It was against such odds that the INDIA alliance, made of parties with different and even conflicting agendas and interests, put up a spirited fight against a mighty BJP.

No one bore the weight of the battle more singularly, and more resiliently, than Rahul Gandhi. This verdict also brings vindication for him, personally and politically. Having been painted as a dilettante, a non-serious politician and a dynast by the BJP’s machine, disqualified as an MP for a speech, he sought to break out of it in the run-up to this election with his two Bharat Jodo yatras, south to north, east to west.

The message for him in this verdict is that hard work pays, and that a politician who reaches out to the people will be rewarded, no matter what the obstacles stacked against him. Rahul and his party must now use their much improved numbers to make their voice heard and keep the government on its toes in Parliament and other spaces. A celebration is well-deserved, but there is little time for triumphalism.

There is work to be done to live up to the message in the mandate for all the constituents of INDIA, but especially for Congress and Rahul Gandhi. They have just been given a signal that while the people have not turned to them, they are giving them a hearing. Because this time the people of India have voted in not just a Government, but also an Opposition.