Is Narendra Modi Nervous About Losing the Parliamentary Election

Image Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

April 7, 2024

The major TV and other media outlets in India forecast that Narendra Modi will easily win the national parliamentary election scheduled to start on April 19. The only unknown, they say, is the size of the majority that will be won by his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Yet, for the first time, the BJP faces a united opposition which is gaining traction by campaigning on the failed economic policies.during his ten years in office, Modi has failed to deliver on his key promise: of creating 100 million new jobs. In fact, more than 200 million Indians, mostly youths, are unemployed, underemployed, or have given up looking for jobs. Some, including Hindus from Modi’s home state of Gujerat, have gotten so desperate that they are willing to lose their lives working for the Russian army in its war with Ukraine.   

Despite forecasts of an easy win, Modi’s government and the BJP are aggressively pursuing tactics to try and cripple the opposition as well as inflame Hindu Muslim tensions to appeal to Hindu voters.

In February, income tax officials the froze bank accounts of the Congress Party, the leading opposition party, alleging failure to file taxes. This action by Modi has crippled the Congress’s ability to campaign, Rahul Gandhi, the party’s leader told the media. “There is no democracy in India today,” he added.

Last month, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), India’s domestic investigative agency, arrested Arvind Kejriwal who leads the opposition Aam Admi Party and is Chief Minister of Delhi. The ED said that investigation against Kejriwal’s alleged financial crimes is at an early state. Yet, as The Hindustan Times noted, the case was filed “as if the probe has been completed…”

Denying that the arrest was linked to the upcoming parliamentary elections, a government lawyer told a court that criminals “have no business to say that we will commit a crime and will not be arrested because elections are here.”

Apparently Kejriwal’s arrest is more a signal to some other opposition leaders who can help reduce the BJP’s majority, if not defeat the BJP. Key among them is Mayawati, leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party, who has faced major corruption charges. She can impact the outcome of the elections in Uttar Pradesh (U.P.). This key state accounts for 80 seats, or 15% of the 543 seats in parliament. More important 17 of the seats in U.P. are reserved for scheduled or low caste candidates.

Mayawati, who has support among the low castes, said her party will not join the opposition alliance in the upcoming parliamentary elections. In the 2022 U.P. state legislature elections Mayawati pursued the same strategy of contesting independently. Her party secured 7% of the votes, thereby splitting the opposition votes and enabling the BJP to win the state elections.        

In addition to trying to split the opposition, the BJP and its affiliated organizations are seeking to gain support of Hindus, who account for four fifths of the 970 million voters. Hindu nationalist groups are demanding that Hindus be allowed to pray in mosques – notably one in Varanasi, U.P. which is Modi’s parliamentary constituency - claiming they were originally sites of Hindu temples.

In January, Modi inaugurated the Ram Mandir temple in Ayodhya, U.P. It was built on site of a 16th century mosque which was illegally demolished by a Hindu nationalist mob in 1992. The destruction of the mosque led to riots across India that killed at least 2,000 people, mostly Muslims.

Modi’s inauguration of the Ram Mandir temple, Reuters reported, “came months ahead of a national election due by May and is expected to boost Modi's chances of winning a rare third term.”

Last month, the Modi government began enacting a 2019 law that denies citizenship to Muslim immigrants in India from other South Asian countries.

When the law was passed in 2019, there were massive protests across India with Indian Muslims fearing they would lose their citizenship rights. In fact, in the state of Assam, more than a million Muslims became stateless due to citizenship screening.

In the 2014 elections, due to splintered opposition, Modi was first elected Prime Minister with only 31% of the votes. The Congress Party, the major opposition party, secured 29%. Similarly in the 2019 elections, with the opposition parties failing to unite, the BJP was re-elected with 37% of votes.

The BJP’s unease over the upcoming elections is due to an alliance between the major opposition parties to field one candidate in each constituency. The opposition alliance will lead to a tough contest, possibly at least a decline in the BJP’s majority.  

In 2014 and 2019, a key factor in Modi’s win was the support of the Dalits, or low caste voters. So Mayawati not joining the opposition alliance could be a big factor in the outcome of the 2024 election.

Speaking of the arrest of Kejriwal and the freezing of the Congress Party’s bank accounts, a spokesperon for Amnesty International said in a statement, “What we are witnessing is a brutal crackdown on human rights including through the misuse of central investigative and financial agencies, attacks on peaceful protests, arbitrary arrests, use and export of invasive spyware for unlawful surveillance, systematic discrimination against religious minorities to feed into their majoritarian Hindutva politics and targeted suspension of opposition leaders from the Parliament who dare to hold the authorities to account…The growing crackdown clearly shows the authorities’ blatant disregard for human rights and rule of law.”

Kejriwal’s lawyer told a court this week that the reason for his arrest is due to the “ulterior motive” of destroying his Aam Aadmi Party opposition party before this  month’s parliamentary elections.”

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