Lok Sabha Elections 2019: What’s In Store For The Ruling Party?

It is worth mentioning about Pradeep K Chhibber and Rahul Verma who are political scientists from the University of California and have recently written a new book on Ideology and Identity. This book poses a valid argument and contention that Indian political discourse is no longer led by Western-oriented elite, and the citizens have chosen to predominantly elect people who are quite closer to their roots and who hail from small towns, and strongly rooted, colloquial, conservative and conventional with vernacular values. These people are either from the BJP or other regional parties. This implies a shift of power that somehow has kept Congress away.

The party has also decided a massive outpouring and intention to build a Hindu temple at Ayodhya, a site which was controversial and where a mosque was razed to the ground by angry mobs in 1992. Critics say that the BJP’s overbearing majoritarian politics has spread hate and violence and seriously split by disputes. Some of India’s important institutions have been surfaced by controversies and giving ample reasons to the many to believe that their independence has been compromised and eroded.

PM Modi And His Alternative Narrative Of Hope

For Opposition leaders, Modi is the issue. On different days, they take turns to abuse Modi. You will hear nothing from them about their vision for India, but taking Mr. Modi’s grandiose promises – especially to create more jobs and increase agriculture incomes of farmers.

The people of India are seeing how leaders who want to loot are closing ranks and forming alliances. 2019 is going to be about the people of India versus an Opposition alliance. Lack of jobs and deteriorating farm revenues and income will be the deciding issues this year.

Millions of toilets were constructed, bank accounts were opened, direct money transfer facilities to stop rampant corruption, gas connections reached the remote villages, insurance to the poor, provision of health care to the poor, record food grain production, income tax limit has been increased to 5 lakh. Be it Swach Toilets, where 96.5% of rural toilets are being used; be it rural households supply of free gas connections, NAMO is successful to reach almost 82% of rural households; be it roads construction, today being constructed at 26kms per day, which is a big success.

Now farmers being given direct money transfer, which they have not seen for the past several years. So the big question is, have the voters benefitted under the rule of Modi? Did the schemes improve their life chances? One of the first programme launched by him was the Clean India Campaign in October 2014. This programme passed on the onus of public hygiene and cleanliness from the state to the citizen. It was aimed at inculcating a sense of responsibility and civic duty.

In March 2015, he launched another programme, to motivate households that can let go of cooking gas subsidy and buy it at market price. Within a year, 8.22 million people (claims the government) joined this campaign popularly labeled as the ‘Give it Up’ campaign of the Modi government. People’s willingness to sacrifice certain personal benefits for the betterment of the larger public interest was unequivocally demonstrated during the course of these two policies. Moreover, it can be clearly seen that the sense of a larger good is overriding the concern of better life chances among the voters. ‘By making the voters participate actively and individually in his vision of ‘New India’, Modi has successfully incorporated the voters and citizens in taking collective responsibility for the general welfare of the country.

Also, India’s election watchdog, social media companies and a parliamentary committee have tried to rein in unlawful political advertising, fight fake news and track campaign expenditure on social media.

Apps And Social Media

In recent times there is a lot of eagerness as to why Rahul Gandhi is beating the drums about the Narendra Modi app? Because he knows that the app – with over 10 million users already – will be the crucial decider of a BJP victory or failure in the general elections.

And all the more Prime Minister Narendra Modi is known for his extensive use of social media. With 46.3 million followers on Twitter, Modi has more followers than any world leader except President Donald Trump.

As a result,  there have been situations wherein elections have often reported unexpected results that have mismatched predictions of political stalwarts, political pundits and gurus by projections of pre-poll surveys. It has been observed that the actual voting trends underwent a massive change and are at socially deterministic levels. Some of India’s important institutions like the FIA, CBI and the Central bank have been questioned and are full of controversies, prompting many to believe that their independence has been eroded, and India’s general election due by May, the stakes are high. These include two crore jobs for youths, right prices for farmers’ produce, deposit in everyone’s bank accounts, farmers’ insurance and the promise of eradicating black money after demonetization The party has been severely criticized on issues like employment generation, demonetization, freedom of the press, etc.

The Narendra Modi app’s mission is two-fold — mobilize and integrate some 100 million BJP members and use the app to deliver targeted messaging to voters. Party president Amit Shah has a target that each district should have 100,000 downloads.

High Stakes Involved In His Administration

In an unexpected move on November 8, 2016,  undoubtedly the high stakes-policy of withdrawing the currency notes of high denomination and value from public circulation was announced by Modi. Prolonged cash shortages, non-availability of currency notes for timely exchange were the order of the day and became major problems caused by demonetization. The debate on its success and failure is still not settled as the economic repercussions of the policy are still unabated.

The ‘surgical strike’ of September 2016 on terror launch pads in Pakistan had preceded the economic shock of demonetization. In February 2019, another surgical strike was supposedly carried out by India which according to the government was a major breakthrough and victory for the country. It is Pakistan which will now have to decide whether it has the appetite or resources to stand up to the escalation that future terrorist attacks on India can cause.

The military action catapulted Modi to the image of a strong leader who is not afraid of the possible international backlash while defending India. Whichever turn the current situation takes, one fact on which there is little ambiguity is that India has definitively changed the rules of the game as far as its response to Pakistan-backed terrorism is concerned.

It can be seen that, for his voters, Modi is still a strong leader and as one, he has been able to divide the burden of progress between himself and the citizens, so much so that he calls himself as the Pradhan Sevak (primary worker) of the country. Somewhere, deep down in this country, the voter roots for the underdog. The incumbent BJP stills look like the main contender but its image – and that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi – is somewhat weakened.

Political commentators agree that the party will get fewer votes this time. This election is so much about coalition politics, it’s going to be so much about alliances. But the question of whether it will receive enough to secure the majority again seems uncertain to many, although the chances of a rival coalition winning the polls seem to be even smaller. Nationally, given the heterogeneity and the differences of states, it’s difficult to be an overpowering strongman figure because the roots are so regional in this country. Delivering on development alone is not enough to win elections in India, where caste and community loyalties are strong. So far the citizens have cooperated with him. He has also made the voters re-imagine their futures.

The Smart Cities Mission launched in 2015 along with NITI Aayog are all part of the larger development focus that he stands for. This undoubtedly is what the economically right voters want and this is what they did not get under the previous regimes. The rationalization of the economy through Modi’s 2017 economic policy of the Goods and Services Tax regime can be perceived as a continuation of a limited state and ordered markets. By providing rural toilets and cooking gas for rural women, he has effectively addressed the needs and aspirations of the non-urban population.

Change Matters

While this is still happening Gandhi said the dream of building a new India will only be possible by eliminating poverty. This can happen only when a huge amount towards an annual expenditure of Rs 3,60,00,00,00,00,000 (Rs three lakh and sixty thousand crores per year) is met.

Emotions point toward a deeper reality. They are often the flashing lights that say something is not right here. The country is in a serious Agrarian crisis, the poor are becoming poorer and the state of our employment, education and public services are going downwards. The main issue in this election will be about jobs, employment, farmers’ distress and the state of the poor in this country. If not paid attention, we will face a huge crisis in the next decade and the recent assembly elections have shown that these are the issues that are on the mind of the voters.

Meeting the requirements of Rs three lakh and sixty thousand crores per year is definitely going to be a challenge which implies that it is more than the combined expenditure of some of the key ministries be it,  education, electricity, health, rural development, railways, power, telecom, including new and renewable energy, food and public distribution. These are important ministries that enable work for public welfare and developmental outreach concerning every citizen. Lack of jobs and dwindling agricultural incomes will be the deciding issues within the next two months.

It indeed is a mighty task for Rahul Gandhi ahead.  He knows pretty well that to fulfill his promise to the test, he will need to become prime minister by defeating Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha election and remind us of the great accomplishments that are to be revealed.

He termed this big announcement as the final “assault on poverty”. Rahul Gandhi addressed the media in Delhi after the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meet and announced, “20 percent of the poorest families will be given income support of Rs 72,000 every year. All modalities have been worked out and this is possible within our budget. We have studied the fiscal implications of the scheme”. Congress’s manifesto committee headed by former minister P Chidambaram has been working on finalizing the party’s manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections for the past several months.

The Congress chief also said that the amount will be directly transferred to the bank accounts of the poor. “Five crore families and 25 crore members of these families will directly benefit from the scheme.  He termed this big announcement as the final “assault on poverty.  “We will end poverty in this country,” said Gandhi. Interesting times ahead. To be honest, it will be an excellent endeavor if it comes through.