https://thewire.in/politics/is-the-modi-again-in-2024-script-going-awry i
In the watershed polls in 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party became the first party after a gap of 30 years to secure an absolute majority. That election was driven by then prime minister-aspirant Narendra Modi’s call for badlav (change) and promises of achhe din (good days) and vikas (development) in the backdrop of a plethora of corruption charges against the United Progressive Alliance government headed by Dr Manmohan Singh.
In the 2019 elections which handed the BJP an astonishing number of 303 seats, the narrative was altered mid-course by the twin incidents of the Pulwama terror strike and the retaliatory strike by Indian forces at facilities in Balakot, deep inside Pakistani territory.
It fanned the sentiment of hyper-nationalism, and issues which had been previously irking voters were submerged.
In the absence of the Election Commission of India providing final figures and sticking to only provisional data of voter turnout for the two phases, deductions have to be based on the surfeit of figures doing the rounds.
But variations in data sets apart, all of them establish that the turnout is significantly lower than in 2019. It is a truism to say that in countries like India, where voting is not compulsory, voter turnout is the most important indicator for health of democracy.
Reduced turnout, near absence of the famed cadre of the Sangh parivar, lacklustre campaign of Modi, and the need to resort to his second nature – divisive and communally polarising spiel – all suggest the Modi script of 2024 has gone awry and over the next five phases, one can expect him to make an all-out effort to put it back on track.
30/04/2024
