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FROM well before he was declared his party’s prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 parliamentary elections, Narendra Modi has left no stone unturned in his attempt to convert the hustings into a US style presidential contest. Evidently, he and his image consultants are convinced that Modi’s decisive persona gives his campaign a clear edge with an electorate ‘tired’ of the ‘weak, vacillating, at odds with each other, and stubbornly unavailable for public scrutiny’ leadership – Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Manmohan Singh – of their primary opponent, the Congress-led UPA.

The Modi team’s high voltage campaign, the flurry of public meetings, aggressive use of social and electronic media to tom-tom the performance record and personality of the ‘chosen one’ is finding purchase. Nowhere is this most apparent than with the urban electorate, not merely the better-off chattering classes in our metro drawing rooms but also the much larger cohort of young, aspirational voters, disappointed and angry with the ‘non-performance’ of the government and the ‘self-serving’ attitude of its leaders. A deadly cocktail of crippling inflation, a dramatic decline in job creation, and an unending series of corruption scandals, does little to lift the mood.

Contrast this with the mood in 2009 when, contrary to expectations, the Congress did remarkably well in the urban constituencies, across the country. Not only was the economy doing much better, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, fresh from his victory on the Indo-US Nuclear Deal despite the threat of withdrawal of support by the Left Front and significant opposition from sections of his own party, came across as firm and decisive, someone willing to risk office in pursuit of ‘national interest’. Unsurprisingly, many read the 2009 verdict as a victory more for Singh than for his party.

The mood today is very different, and few believe that the government has the ability to engineer any meaningful shift in the few months before the parliamentary elections. And unfortunately for the Congress, each of the new initiatives that it is banking on, mainly the Food Security Bill, are perceived by many as only further proof of populist profligacy, desperate attempts at handing out largesse to buy votes, without sufficient regard for the health of the economy. The ‘aam aadmi’ is, in this frame of thinking, perceived as an obstacle, its invocation a diversionary ploy to avoid taking much needed tough decisions.

Finally, Modi and his team, more than their opponents, seem to have better grasped the increasing significance of the urban in our electoral fabric. It is insufficiently realized that the urban mindset influence far exceeds the Census demographics. The growth of media and communication technologies, greater mobility of people between rural and urban areas, the shifting age profile of voters and other associated social changes has significantly altered the aspirational mix, such that conventional electoral strategies crafted around caste and community calculations are unlikely to have the same purchase. The new voter wants a change and displays little patience with earlier style of accommodating and reconciling diverse interests. What they want is decisive leadership and therein lies the attractiveness of a Modi. Possibly this is why, even in the 2013 elections to five state assemblies, Modi loomed larger than his party or the state leadership in the campaign.

Intriguingly, however, as we come closer to the elections, this mix seems to be changing. Far more frequently Modi now extols the virtues of the state leadership and the party in his speeches. Equally, the central leadership of the BJP is no longer as willing to link the eventual election results to the charisma of their prime ministerial aspirant. The voices presenting 2013 as a semi-final contest have lost their aggression.

One wonders whether this implies a belated recognition on part of the Modi machine of the inherent limits to the appeal of both their leader and the party. Narendra Modi may well enhance its prospects in the urban constituencies as also in regions where the party has substantial presence. But beyond the states of the West and North, Modi’s appeal has to factor in the presence of strong regional parties, none of whom seem vastly excited at the prospects of playing second fiddle to the strong man from Gujarat. Equally, team Modi can ill-afford to neglect the resistance from the party’s own state leaders, worried about the potential loss of authority in a Modi dispensation. A high-pitch, personalized campaign, while captivating the media, also invites subversion by those fearing displacement.

Overall then, the jury is still out and those expecting a dramatic turnaround under Narendra Modi have anxious moments ahead. Possibly, to be a meaningful long-term player in national affairs he needs to revise his enthusiasm for plebiscitary politics.

Harsh Sethi

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