Addressing his political party faithful in February this year, Narendra Modi set a target of 370 Lok Sabha seats for the Bharatiya Janata Party. Opinion polls of varying degrees of reliability and transparency have given the BJP anywhere between 330 and 390 seats. One of them has even predicted a final tally of 411! That Modi would want such an impressive victory for his third term is entirely understandable. His personal standing apart, a massive victory with a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha and an equally commanding one in the Rajya Sabha, will allow the BJP to undertake fundamental changes to the Constitution.
Prime Minister Modi has himself claimed that such a convincing majority will enable his government to undertake important economic reforms that will speed up India’s growth and make it a developed economy by 2047. This “majority for reform” argument can be easily dismissed. Prime Ministers P V Narasimha Rao and Atal Bihari Vajpayee did not enjoy such parliamentary support and yet pushed through significant economic reforms and moved the economy forward. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh staked the future of his government to secure important strategic gains for the country. Modi failed to reform farm sector laws despite the clear majority he enjoyed in Lok Sabha. Reform requires wise leadership, not just numbers.
There is, however, a very different political reason why not many, including within his own party, would want Modi to secure such an impressive majority. After having found themselves politically shrunk, demeaned and marginalised during Modi’s second term, which important BJP leader, with an independent political base, would want 370 for Modi? Surely not the Rajnath Singhs and Nitin Gadkaris, nor perhaps even an Amit Shah. No BJP leader would have forgotten the treatment meted out to Sushma Swaraj, Prakash Javadekar, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Suresh Prabhu and so on, all colleagues of Vajpayee who were eased out, one by one, by Modi. That fate could befall many who are still in office today.
It is the iron law of politics that politicians want their leaders to depend on them rather than the other way round. No Congress leader liked the phase between 1972 and 1977 when every national and provincial leader was reduced to a bystander by the towering and domineering leadership of Indira Gandhi. Provincial Congress politicians saw their standing fall and support base dwindle when Rajiv Gandhi secured over 400 seats in Parliament. Rajiv Gandhi and the acolytes in his darbar may have been able to lord over it with those 400-plus MPs, but the party suffered an ignominious defeat because, at the constituency level, ordinary voters saw their leaders become pleaders.
No senior member of the BJP wants that future for his party. After a decade of Modi, many young leaders are asking themselves how they can secure their future after Modi. The Rajnaths and the Shahs may retire, but what about the younger lot. If the Indira-Rajiv currency got demonetised so quickly, how much time before the Modi coin gets demonetised? By weakening party institutions and hierarchies and centralising power, Modi is doing to the BJP what Indira and Rajiv did to the Congress.
What of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh? The organisation enthusiastically canvassed for Modi and he has implemented many policies of the RSS. However, the power equation between the RSS and Modi has tilted in the latter’s favour after the 2019 elections. Would RSS leaders not want to restore their own standing and ensure that a BJP government needs them more than they need it?
Then there are BJP’s allies and potential allies — from Chandrababu Naidu to Naveen Patnaik. Which chief minister would want to deal with a PM who has such an overwhelming majority in Parliament that makes him treat them the way a Rajiv treated Anjaiah in Hyderabad? None. Every CM, both non-BJP and BJP, would prefer a PM responsive to their needs. A PM with 270 seats in the Lok Sabha would be more respectful of them and more willing to listen to them than a PM who has no use for them.
In short, no politician with any individual support base, be it a leader from within the BJP or one from without, would want to empower the PM so much that he becomes even more authoritarian and domineering. Politics is, after all, about power.
No business person too would want a PM so powerful that he can continue to hound them through instruments available to a government. It is by now well known that the thousands of crores garnered by the BJP through electoral bonds and other means were extracted through subtle and explicit coercion. Make no mistake. Most business families, all from upper castes across the country, are fully committed to the BJP’s Hindutva agenda. Every business leader I have spoken to wants the BJP in office, but not an all-powerful and authoritarian PM.
Faced with arbitrary governance, many business persons have derisked from home by investing in economies that are more welcoming of them. There has been a slow but distinct exit of business persons from India to destinations overseas. Many have acquired NRI status. Consider the fact that while private corporate investment in India continues to stagnate, the annual average outward foreign direct investment from India to destinations around the world has increased from around $200 million per year in 2000-2005, to around $2.0 billion in 2010-15, and to a whopping $13.75 billion in 2023-24.
Like the leaders of regional parties and like many provincial leaders within the BJP, many pro-BJP business leaders would also prefer a PM in office with numbers closer to 270 than 370.
Finally, it is useful to recall that compared to an annual average growth rate of less than 4 per cent in the period when “powerful” PMs were in office, the era of “weak” PMs — from 1991 to 2014 — saw the economy record close to 6.5 per cent annual average growth rate. Each of those PMs — Rao, Vajpayee and Singh — took decisive policy steps with the world recognising for the first time that India was now a “Rising Power”.
The writer was member, National Security Advisory Board (1999-2001) and Advisor to the Prime Minister of India
