Just a few minutes ago I’ve gone through a news posted by India Today that Sakshi Maharaj who is a BJP MLA from Unnao constituency in U.P. and very well known for his controversial speeches and statements has said, “There’d be no elections in 2024 after this Modi tsunami.” India Today reported this as a unique prediction made by him, before you make any judgment let me quote here the exact statement made by him, “Modi naam ki tsunami hai. Desh mai jagriti aayi hai. Mujhe lagta hai ki iss chunav ke baad 2024 mein chunaav nahi hoga, kewal yahi chunaav hai “
Yes, you read that right – apparently there will be no general elections after 2024, these will be the last, says an MLA from the ruling party! If you closely follow the claims made by political analysts you must have read somewhere that ‘this is not merely a prediction rather it’s a strong claim made by some of them repeatedly’. One can also see Maharaj’s words as a blatant claim rather than just a political prediction!
Ruling party member’s claim does not seem like an empty threat in the backdrop of dwindling autonomy of independent institutions the CBI, RBI and Supreme Court of India. These institutions are the underlying foundation of a democracy. If you follow news on a regular basis you must have heard or read about the friction between the Modi led Government and the respective heads of these institutions. It all started with Judges Mutiny in New Delhi and ended up in agitation marked by CM Mamta Banerjee in Kolkata in favour of Rajeev Kumar, Police Commissioner of West Bengal. Attacks on these autonomous institutions is observed as an attack on democracy all across the globe.
Another narrative BJP is trying to construct and widely spread is that there is no alternative to Modi, if not Modi then who? This narrative is a major tactic used to appoint or designate someone into power for an unspecific period of time. This has evidently worked in China and Turkey, where Xi Jinping and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan are designated ruling leaders now – by making amendments in their constitution and abolishing the term limit. This is the only obstacle between the ambitions of Modi and reality on the ground, the Constitution of India is not that flexible that it will allow to eradicate the process of electoral voting system. But again, before the proposal, who knew that even 10% reservation would be allowed to upper caste – as it was against the nature of reservation and the ruling of constitution of India about reservation. But it happened and it was termed as a ‘historic move’, so why can’t there be another historic move? We should all think about it.