Mobilenews24x7 Bureau
Can Modi’s Chandryana-3 or Solar Mission match India Gandhi’s 1971 valor and Garibi Hatao slogans help to create a contest between 2023 and 1971.
With which the iron lady pulverized her opposition comprised of a conglomerate of five strong national outfits of that time.
Interestingly, some of these leaders had been active in national politics, and also in the Congress party, for much longer than Indira Gandhi. Yet the Indira aura prevailed to dub her a ‘Durga’ in the words of none other than late Vajpayee.
And a background: when the Congress party had suffered a vertical split just two years earlier in 1969 ─ between Congress (O) and Congress (I), ‘O’ standing for original and ‘I’ standing for Indira which meant, she was not the sole leader of the Congress; many party stalwarts had come together to challenge her bid for power.
But all went in vain as all of them together were no match to Indira Gandhi. She led her faction of the Congress to a massive victory with 352 out of 518 seats.
And the opposition alliance reduced to the ignominy of just 53 seats.
It is worthy of a mention that, this time the name INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) that sounds attractive and nationalistic in essence. And the speeches of the leaders of all its constituent parties, it was clear that their principal agenda was to defeat Modi in the next parliamentary elections.
Political analysts ponder is the nation going to see Modi borrow a line from Indira Gandhi’s electoral lexicon and counter the current Grand Alliance with his own variant of the slogan ─ “They say Modi Hatao, and I say …… Hatao”?
Also unlikely is, Modi achieving the scale of Indira Gandhi’s success in 1971. Even if compared with CH-3 and the solar which hardly can compensate the blighting pain of buying livelihood, jobs, health services gets harder and harder.
Sun or moon but a man on the ground aspires to hold a slogan of Hume jene do and curb inflation with a strong handle.
On the political and human interest front Manipur tragedies have been given a second fiddle or even no emphasis at all except few cursory mentions with every possible ordinary ease.———
Remember, in his Independence Day speech this year, Modi identified ‘Bhrashtachar’, ‘Parivarvaad’, and ‘Tushtikaran’ as the three malaises our country must get rid of.
Imitation has no intelligence
The problem with any of these variations of Indira Gandhi’s slogan is that ‘Bhrashtachar Hatao’, ‘Parivar-vaad Hatao’, and ‘Tushtikaran Hatao’ in 2024 will not have the same emotive power to influence the voters that Indira Gandhi’s ‘Garibi Hatao’ had in 1971.
On top of all, Indira had caught the imagination of the people by nationalising banks in 1969. She had promised to abolish privy purses to the rulers of erstwhile princely states. Later in 1971, she would lead the nation in the war against Pakistan, which led to the latter’s partition and liberation of Bangladesh.
Modi’s popularity today as a ‘strong leader’, a lot of it due to media management, pales before that of Indira Gandhi fifty years ago.
After being in office for ten years, and now seeking a third term, Modi cannot sway the voters by his promise of eradicating corruption. All parties compromise on the issue of corruption are well known to the people.
Of course he has a point when he says that our country’s politics should be free from family-controlled parties. But Modi is not going to get yet another mandate on the basis of this promise because our voters still don’t see it as such a big issue.
No doubt the promise of putting an end to a ‘ minority’ appeasement politics’ is resonant, but it resonates only with the BJP’s committed voters. The over 60 percent of the voters who did not vote for the BJP in 2014 and 2019 are not going to vote for it in 2024 because of this promise.
Therefore, Modi’s pitch to the voters will have to rest on the successes of his two-term government, and a promise to enlarge and further consolidate them.
India’s global profile has gone up considerably, and this too will act as a big plus to the Modi government. In addition, as far as the BJP’s core Hindutva vote base goes, it will continue to be swayed by his politics of communal polarisation.
INDIA Alliance’s Impressive so far:
And the BJP itself is showing signs of jitteriness for it too knows that there are two gaping holes in its government’s economic performance ─ failure to control prices and failure to generate adequate jobs for the bulging youth population.
