Chaar sou paar pe kya takraar?

 India at its inflection point with BJP @240 and NDA @293

"When a cricket match is lost, critics to armchair journalists come out calling for the head of the captain. It is quite but natural" - Anonymous

"Decisions are not made with discussions. Decisions are made and discussed later. If you keep discussing, you can never decide" - Thyrocare founder Arokiaswamy Velumani

 "You have hundred reasons for a failure and everyone watching you will give you one new one, once they feel that you haven't won or not performed so well" - Anonymous

The reason I started with these not so famous quotes is the outcome of the General elections of 2024. Modi has put his best touring and travelling across the country, working hard along with Amit Shah tirelessly to return to power and launch NDA 3.0 or rather Modi 3.0 government at the centre. Ab ki baar chaar sou paar was the slogan - 370 to BJP and 400+ to NDA. Not to be. Here comes the problem. BJP has ended with 240 and clearly short of the magic number of 272 for the simple majority in the 543 member house. 

Every election is a different challenge, every state is different in cracking the elections and every election of every state, be it a state assembly election or the parliamentary election, is a different ball game. So, the reasons for the loss of the aspirational or the magic figure of simple majority becoming elusive are so diverse too.

 PMO has become the central command for the administration and all the ministers were namesake. This is the biggest allegation against Modi. We have seen the developmental works of the NDA government in the past 10 years and was there a semblance of policy paralysis because of this so-called centralisation of power? Definitely not. In fact there is cohesion and continuity in the functioning of the diverse ministries. When Manohar Parikkar was the Defence Minister, we got the best things done for the country's defence and the armed forces. OROP or setting up of foolproof procedures for the defence procurement, so much so that the channels of corruption or the infamous Chandigarh lobby had little scope. They you have Rajnath Singh who did no bad job either.

 Sushma Swaraj was the exceptional External Affairs Minister and she was like a agony aunty the next door to reach out to any Indian struck on a foreign soil. Did the good work stop with Sushma? It became better on the foundation stone laid by her, by none other than Dr. Jaishankar. 

 Piyush Goyal, the Charted Accountant did a decent job on modernising the Indian Railways. He was shunted and then came Ashwini Vaishnav. We have seen the magic of the Indian Railways. They competed with the best across the world in terms of amenities and functioning.

Did Indian economy suffer because of the less educated or the incompetence of the Modi government? India was among the fragile five and leap leapfrogged to the top five. 

Nitin Gadkari did wonders with his Ministry of Road transport and Highways. Record works have happened in the past decade on the infrastructure front.

 It goes on like this with every ministry, with non-performing minsters mercilessly shown the doors. How was this possible? Were there individuals responsible for the glory. Definitely yes, but it is primarily due to the team leader at the helm, who has an eagle's eye for detail from the top and reviewed the ministers' performance periodically. Informed people say, it is safe to be not part of Modi's ministry and remain an ordinary MP, with the kind of workload and KRAs to be worked upon. Most of the Modi's critical ministers suffered bad health because of the heavy targets they need to achieve.

 

How much did BJP lose vote share-wise between 2019 and 2024?

It dropped from 37.3% in 2019 to 36.6% in 2024

What was the spread of BJP's victory in 2019 as compared to 2024?

In 2019, BJP's win was mighty in the Northern, Central and Eastern India(partly), while in 2024 it is pan India. Yes, now BJP vote share got secularly distributed across North, South, East, Northeast and Central India. 

Was it the failure of the ability to stitch pre-poll alliances on the part of BJP that hit it badly?
Nope. BJP did not want to ally with TDP, inspite of Jana Sena's Pavan Kalyan's insistance on unitedly fighting YCP's Jagan, as they could not trust Chandrababu Naidu with this armtwisting tactics, based on his past record and the way he has abused the party and Modi personally before the 2019 elections. Naidu made 5 trips to Delhi, waited for hours to meet Amit Shah, though he did not get an audience with Modi at that time. At that stage Modi and Shah calculated the pros and cons and agreed for the alliance with TDP, though they had their apprehensions. It worked.

They wanted to ally with SAD but it did not work out. This has proved to be a no loss game and SAD is a no winner there in Punjab. Punjab is now happy electing pro-khalistani leaders. You only get what you deserve, in life of politics.

They opened the doors for Nitish Kumar, fully knowing that he is in a helpless situation, a palturam, became unpopular in Bihar, struggling to keep the CM chair what with the day to day threats from RJD's Tejaswi Yadav. They lapped it up, as they realized that this is a blessing is disguise to disarray INDI alliance. That too worked for the BJP.

In Orissa, the stage was all set for a grand alliance with BJD, as Naveen Patnaik was at his end after peaking and had the challenges of bad health and no succession plan in the party. At the last minute, at the behest of the state leadership and Amit Shah, they dropped the idea of the alliance. It was a real masterstroke. They got both the assembly and the parliament seats. It is historical. So, that too worked for BJP.

 It goes on for each of the states and the space is limited to go elaborate on this.

If the roads were built, highways laid in record time, railways did wonders, every ministry functioned so well and Modi worked like a passionate CEO and made every member in his team accountable, ministerial corruption literally vanished, how come that they did not hit the 370 or atleast 303+ mark this time.

Like Karna's death, there are many reasons, but let's limit it a couple of them. Muslims were made to vote strategically throughout India, particularly in the constituencies where there are substantial number of Muslim votes. Thanks to the 120+ organizations within India and abroad working overtime, allegedly funded by the ORF foundation of George Soros, CIA or China, they got the recipe well cooked. In each of the mosques of these constituencies, announcements were made as to which party candidate they all should vote in the election, to ensure that BJP candidate loses. Social media groups of Muslims were formed and after a thorough scientific study, the brief was given to them. In UP, WB, Karnataka and Rajasthan, it worked so well for the opposition parties.

A narrative was built alleging that BJP will bring in a new constitution, dumping the Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar's constitution. Did any of the reservation beneficiaries are so impressed by the constitution that any attempt to change it will affect them? May be or may not be. For the beneficiaries of the reservations, if the constitution is changed, it is simply removing the reservations and ultimately losing the advantage they have now. This is unfathomable for them, though there isn't an iota of truth that Modi or BJP would have even dreamt of bringing in a new constitution for India. There isn't any reason to do so, as anything can be amended in the constitution without any major risk. They know this better when they could neutralize the Article 370 without even having a majority in the Rajya Sabha. But the narrative is what sells in an election. This too worked well for the opposition.

The bottom-line. It is easier to blame the captain or the leader for being authoritarian or not accommodating, when the team or the party fares not so well or on expected lines. It is Modi who has single handedly carried on the challenge criss crossing the country, giving dozens of interviews to the news channels, conveying the message to the public using every platform, doing roadshows which were an eyesore to the opposition parties and the anti-Modi lobbies, within and without the country. The roadshows were most successful in the states where there was hardly any popularity for the party. Modi and his team have put in their best efforts. The results were not as anticipated by any is an understatement. They came as shockers to even Congress and Samajwada party, as much as Mamta Banerjee.

The voter is the ultimate winner. The Election commission of India did a great job in conducting the elections, almost major incident free. Thanks to the results, nobody talks about the hacking and manipulations of the EVMs now, not even asking to count each of the VVPATs. Expecting the opposition or the media to give credit to BEL and ECIL from manufacturing such foolproof machines is beyond our expectations.

One thing is clear. The pace of the developmental works and the pace of reforms will be hampered with the coalition government, with demanding coaltion partners, which are now termed as kingmakers with 16 & 12 seats in the 543 seat parliament. This is the reality and I hope and wish India will regain the past glory and continue with the good work of the last decade, thanks to the safe hands in which it is in.

No need to give a label to me. Even if it is condscending in some people's minds, I don't mind being called a bhakt for supporting Modi unconditionally. I am not worried about the personal benefits that come to me or the ones that I did not come to me by supporting Modi's leadership. This country needs deshbhakts, not intellectuals. So, let me be called a bhakt, though for me deshbhakti is paramount.