Lok Sabha poll dates in: With Modi as mascot, BJP rides high on Hindutva, vikas; plugs holes with new allies

Unlike the past Lok Sabha elections, the incumbent BJP appears confident about clinching the upcoming polls, even as the Opposition bloc has been struggling to come up with issues, ideas and narrative to counter Modi.

While the BJP has managed to balance its pulls and pressures to project a united face rallied behind Modi, the parties of the INDIA alliance are still working at cross-purposes and going after each other, with the Congress and a few major Opposition players failing to reach the seat-sharing agreements in some key states.

Setting a target of 370 seats for the BJP and 400 seats for the NDA, PM Modi has put the past behind for the larger cause of a triumph, roping in even partners who had earlier targeted him personally.

In the last few months, the NDA, which already had over 30 smaller allies, has expanded its fold to induct new partners – the JD(S), JD(U), TDP and Jana Sena Party (JSP).

The BJP’s alliance with the JJP in Haryana has however collapsed recently, even as its negotiations to bring back its erstwhile ally SAD have not progressed much while the party’s alliance talks with Odisha’s ruling BJD still remains inconclusive.

Despite being in pole position, the BJP has not left any stones unturned to see that its election machinery is well-oiled. While stitching up alliances with various regional and smaller parties in the regions where its prospects are relatively weaker, the party has already released two lists – with 195 and 72 candidates, fielding almost 25 per cent fresh faces, that too without any hiccups or public outbursts from the dropped MPs so far.

The BJP has also been giving tickets to defectors from the Opposition parties, mainly from the Congress, which despite its significant decline still remains the main Opposition party at the national level.

Modi has infused an ideological rationale into the 370-seat target for the BJP rank and file, asserting that it will be a tribute to the party’s key ideologue Syama Prasad Mookerjee

Mookerjee had campaigned against Article 370, demanding complete integration of Jammu and Kashmir with India. In August 2019, the Modi government ensured the abrogation of Article 370, ending the special status of J&K.

While sounding optimistic about its target, some BJP leaders admit that there could be several factors which could be bumps in its way. While its existing seats in a number of its bastions – Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh – are already at the maximum level, the southern states, except Karnataka, still remain out of bounds for the BJP despite its unrelenting efforts.

There are also states like Maharashtra, West Bengal and Bihar which are sending out mixed signals. But party insiders say both Modi and his chief strategist Amit Shah, the Union Home Minister, are “conscious” of the party’s past instances of “overconfidence” as the party had faced a fiasco in 2004 despite its “India Shining” campaign.

The BJP’s freshly-forged alliances with N Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP in Andhra Pradesh and Nitish Kumar’s JD-U in Bihar might appear tactical, but the regional parties have always proved to be adept at positioning themselves on right occasions to seek a larger pie. The BJP has seen this in its alliance with the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, the SAD in Punjab, the JD -U in Bihar and the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu in recent years.

Another significant difference between 2019 and 2024 would be the changes which have occurred in the BJP itself. Although the party remains a formidable organisation, it has now been overshadowed by Modi, essentially turning into a carrier of the PM’s messages — and becoming the chief beneficiary of his popularity.

If the Assembly elections are taken as pointers to the voters’ preferences in the last five years – although the dynamics could be different in the Lok Sabha and the Assembly elections – of the 26 state elections held since May 2019, the BJP has won 15 states while wresting power from the Opposition in Maharashtra and Bihar to form its own coalition governments there.

The outcome of the recent Assembly elections in north India has also indicated that the Opposition’s welfare politics or OBC push may not be getting much traction. In contrast, Modi’s “social engineering”, his “guarantees” and his pitch for “vikas” (development) worked for the BJP again. They also signalled that caste may no longer be a dominant electoral factor and that voters trust Modi’s “model of development”.

The Supreme Court’s judgment scrapping the electoral bonds on the eve of elections might have dented the BJP’s high-pitched campaign against corruption, even as it has given the Opposition camp some talking points against the ruling party.