Why Narendra Modi has more than an edge over the others

What characterizes Narendra Modi is that he is a master politician, far above his counterparts in shrewdness, in audacity and in boldness, something his opponents and haters would never be able to fathom, nor emulate. Compared to him, Rahul Gandhi who is trying hard to position himself as his main opponent is a child, nay, a baby perhaps. Rahul's job is made harder by the fact that he is lifted up by a gang of sycophants and a herd of leftists, many of whom have little or no connect with grassroots, and of course even less concern for the national interests. Others who are actively positioning themselves as champions of secularism and also supporting him are one whose interests have been most affected by Modi's transparent policies - notably the corrupt politicians many of whom are busy sewing what they call as "Mahagathbandhan". TV channels and other sections of media are busy writing Modi off based on some flimsy pre election surveys or some by election results. But will they have the last laugh? I, for one, don't think so.

I would not begin this blog typically by giving any disclaimer or making any apologetic statements - that I am doing an objective analysis, that I am not a "bhakt" of Modi, that I am secular liberal and trying to strike a right balance etc. etc. etc. I am, with all sincerity of purpose, concerned with one thing - National Interest above everything else. And if that is the sole concern, I shall vote for Modi under any circumstance by looking at his work in the past five years, irrespective of whether or not he was not able to bring in "acche din" for the masses. 

To look at things from a different perspective, Modi was one of the biggest enemy of the UPA Government between 2004 to 2013. He was literally hounded by them and the UPA stalwarts left no stones unturned to prove him a mass murderer. Of course they were helped profusely by the secular lobby, by the leftists, by Islamic and Christian Fundamentalists, by Modi detractors who wanted his blood because of the transparency and the corruption free regime under Modi in Gujarat, and by a media that was dancing to the Government's tune. Wow! those days were nice. Modi was grilled for many hours by SIT, and then, in the end, despite all the concerted efforts, nothing could be proved against him. Not only that, to add insult to the injury, Modi went on winning one election after another, convincingly, with bigger and better margins. The Gujarat model of development was a talking point of all, including foreign media who had for the first time seen an Indian chief minister hogging so much limelight for right or wrong reasons.

But even in their wildest dreams couldn't the UPA political leaders and their media coterie imagine that one day Modi will be the prime minster of India. He was their enemy no doubt, but not enemy number 1, not atleast until they were aware of the popularity of Modi that could win him on a national level. Until then, he was just another regional satrap, but so were for instance Shivaraj Singh Chauhan or Raman Singh or Prakash Singh Badal or Naveen Patnaik etc. What made Modi different?

There has been enough analysis on why Modi was voted to power in 2014, I would not like to add to them. That is also not the objective of this piece. Suffice it to say that Modi brand of politics triumphed convincingly over his detractors because people found him reliable, a man of promises, a man of action and impeccable personal integrity. That he didnt have a family to feed for was a bonus because people of India still has deep reverence for sannyasis - 200 years of foreign rule and 60 years of imposed secularism and left liberalism have not been able to dent that unflinching belief in those who want to stay away from making a family for greater common good.

Opposition soon grouped together as they saw a formidable force to reckon with. They were joined by all kinds of hotch potch lobbysts, foreign vested interests, fundamentalists, leftist intellectuals, media, NGOs who had siphoned money and anti national forces who had so far got a field day. We remember our ex PM bowing down to the Pakistani counterparts, we remember his soft responses to the hard jabs from across the border, we saw his cluelessness during Mumbai carnage, we saw the massive amount of corruption and loot of public money - all these are not too long distant memories. We have seen how the corrupt, anti nationals and so called secular & champions of minority rights have gathered together to prevent one person from assuming the helm. But the political acumen of that person defeated their designs.  Modi made it clear from day 1 that he was the boss. He had laid out his vision, pushed his government to work harder on the schemes, undid many evils of the past administration, brought in needed transparency, ensured fiscal discipline which had been thrown out of the window by the previous regime who purchased votes by doling out gifts in the form of tax payers money rather than investing them for asset creation and growth. He fast tracked infrastructure development, had very able ministers who also worked hard in their resp. areas to fast track projects and he made major attempts for getting investments. The budgets were not populist but practical. The Niti Ayog did away with the wastage of 5 year plans, corruption was reduced through transparency and administration had to change its mindset to work hard. He rejuvenated the security and brought Ajit Doval, a former spy who knew the game played by the enemy and could play hard balls. His swift decisions in launching a surgical strike (vis a vis many dilly dallying of the previous Governments in matters of counter response to threats from across the border) and giving tit for tat reply to cross border firings and giving a free hand to army in eliminating the terrorists in Kashmir payed rich dividends. The terror network was under control and unlike the regular dhamakas in the previous regime there was next to nothing during the last 5 years. The GST was a gamechanger as for the first time a massive tax overhaul was undertaken. The implementation was patchy but the decision was laudable, so was the action - a clear contrast to the lack of courage of previous governments in going for an overhaul of such a magnitude. A lot has been said against demonitization but except die hard supporters of Congress, the pliant media and the leftists, very few of "aam admi" had any doubts about its intent. Any way, it again exhibited his boldness and courage to take decisions that could have cost him his power. My personal conviction is demonitization together with GST led to widening of tax base, increased compliance, instilled a fear in the minds of the corrupt of the unpredictable and ruthless nature of this Government in dealing with corruption, apart from having short term benefits of drying up terror funding.

In the meanwhile there were some spectacular wins and some losses too. But going by the statistics BJP gained much more than it lost - for the first time it truly became a pan India party. Every election lost was celebrated and every election won was downplayed in the media and the intellectual circle. In the meanwhile opposition, sensing danger had regrouped. The bharat tere tude gang, the separatists, the urban naxals, the leftists together with their traditional arch rivals, the corrupt, the "secular" and the fundamentalists belonging to the minorities, the foreign press and enemy sympathizers, all had joined together with one agenda - of preventing Modi from continuing, creating ruckus in parliaments thereby proving the Government ineffective, even taking help of vested interest in the judiciary to create obstacles, blow every issue and fringe assaults out of proportion, giving them communal colours and vilifying directly the majority community, in the process keeping eyes closed in the event that similar atrocities are committed by others whom they favour. Also they had several genuine issues, like distress of the farmers. However who is to blame for the distress? Certainly the farmers were not distressed only during the past 5 years - nothing had been done before that to alleviate their sufferings - a fact that was conveniently forgotten. Job creation was another favorite topic - media was too quick to blame "Modinomics" for all social evils & problems - tracing their origin to "demonitization" and GST, completely oblivious to the fact of fiscal discipline, the growth story that washed away the lies of so called noted economists who predicted a complete bust of the economy on account of demonitization. Then the opposition made an issue out of a complete non issue - the Rafale deal of defence purchase. Possibly it was all driven by a rivalry between Eurocopter or Augusta and Dassault, and the former possibly had committed big money to discredit the latter. But the opposition completely ignored India's defense interest. And the most hilarious part of it comes when the leader of the opposition links it to a betrayal of interests of HAL. He has clearly lost his priorities - National interest should come before a company's interest. Even Supreme Court refused to oblige the opposition as there was no ground to the baseless allegations. Rafale is a non issue with the masses anyway - even his worst detractors cannot claim Modi to be corrupt - masses wont believe it. The leader of the opposition camp aided by his sycophants goes to the extent of peddling lies with a cancer patient whose sense of duty is worth recognizing. Personal attacks and vilification on Modi were rampant, to the extent of throwing dirt on his mother and father who were not spared. To be fair some of the BJP leaders were no less repugnant in their statements. But Modi remained quiet, he did not indulge in mudslinging - a cleaver strategy that would earn respect.

However there were several wins. Despite being the single largest party Karnataka was lost by BJP and then they lost the three states. However Karnataka hangs on a precarious balance. It will be interesting to see how long Congress can remain playing second fiddle to Devegowda clan. Already signs of rebellion are evident. Then the three states were lost by BJP. But if we see objectively, Modi had nothing to lose in any of them as they were fought on local issues. In two of the cases Congress could just scrape through a victory and in Chattisgarh BJP lost due to corruption and incompetence of local leaders. Congress badly lost in Telengana. Chandrababu, a Modi lover turned Modi hater is in a very uncomfortable position in AP. AAP - which is led by their "hit and run" leader is also no longer regarded as a champion of anti corruption. Their leader has been too close to the known corrupt public eyes to escape scrutiny. Only he was let off very easily by the media, but public may not be so forgiving, esp. given his party's track record of delivery problems and failed promises. A mahagathbandhan is formed in UP and this the opposition has hailed as a significant win - if UP is lost, BJP will not come to power - is what the media and the entire opposition camp are counting upon. But they forget that this alliance is like an alliance between Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha. It is very unlikely that the votes will add up according to their support base as the media pundits are predicting. Also the lady in charge of one of the entities is known for switching loyalties - and if she perceives any threat to her base she may become a turncoat. In Bengal the once formidable  Didi, the demolisher of the Asuras in the form of leftists is no longer looking formidable. Instead she is increasingly vulnerable owing to her policies. After assuring a parivartan from the 30 years of leftist misrule, her party is increasingly adopting the same tactics that leftists used to hang to power - viz. pampering the minorities and creating a culture of violence and threats by brute force. She should know better - the leftists are a history. Ironically in her hatred for Modi she did not have any qualms of allying with the same left who was her arch enemy a few years back. And people who have neither forgiven nor forgotten the leftist misrule have taken note of the same. 

Just when the opposition, after winning the three states and scoring a "moral victory" in the rest, thought that they had now got the better of the situation, things began to take a different turn. First came the 10% reservation for economically weak upper castes - a master stroke that would nip in the bud various reservation demands across the country that the opposition was trying to take advantage of. Before that had come the SC ST amendment act. After that came the 2019 budget of raining sops on middle class and the farmers, the two most disgruntled lots. And suddenly things were not so rosy. Opposition camp sensed danger. Media cried foul - "Unethical" - shouted Economic Times. Others were not far behind. Several others expressed their doubts on the implementation. But all of them had one common theme - of fear. They are afraid. They know that they are dealing with a willy politician, who is sincere, unpredictable, person of integrity and a master strategist. 

I am not a psephologist or an astrologer - but what I  can surmise of the present political situation is that Modi has no parallel - he clearly enjoys upper hand over others and it is very unlikely that he will not return to power in May. And people of India are no fools, they may vote for castes and religions but then there may be a fairer than slim chance that they understand what works in the longer term interest of the country over narrow, petty selfish vested interests.