After state election results, it is advantage Modi all the way

A struggling and demoralised Congress cannot hope to crystallise an Opposition challenge to the Prime Minister in the run up to 2024 elections.

With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) winning four out of five states, including the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), the direction of national politics for the next few years is set. Economic and political challenges to Prime Minister Narendra Modi have lost ground. Even the incipient challenge of the Aam Adami Party (AAP), victorious in Punjab, will not be an immediate threat. The confidence the voters of North India have reposed in him has made him unassailable moving forward to the 2024 general election.

He has already begun his next election campaign. It is no accident that the victory parade for winning Uttar Pradesh (UP) was hosted in Gujarat which goes to the polls in December this year. Rather than holding that roadshow in UP where he would have to share credit with Yogi Adityanath, Prime Minister Modi has chosen Gujarat where he can be projected as the only leader whose charisma defies state boundaries.

Not that Yogi Adityanath has lost ground. The handsome victory in UP has catapulted him into the top echelons of BJP leadership, perhaps inserting him into a troika with Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. The Centre’s interference in the state will now cease as the poll results have reaffirmed public acceptance of his leadership. His role in swinging the state in favour of the BJP in the 2024 general election will be seen to be invaluable. With Yogi Adityanath propitiated with a prestigious space, any putative challenge to Prime Minister Modi from within the party will be deferred beyond 2024.

The challenge from without is unquestionably diminished, with the Congress reduced to the status of an upcoming 10-year-old AAP--controlling just two states in the country. A struggling and demoralised Congress cannot hope to crystallise an Opposition challenge to Prime Minister Modi in the run up to 2024.

The Congress will find it difficult to defend its shrinking political turf with no likelihood of a rethink within the party on leadership failure, faulty decision-making processes, weak party structure and campaign strategies that resonate with the electorate. The party could possibly split if the G-23 dissidents are emboldened in their criticism of the party leadership and the BJP may try to entice them to leave--even if it is to form a breakaway party. This process may well begin in Jammu and Kashmir where Congress could be facing an imminent split before the elections in the Union Territory expected later this year.

With the only other party with a national network reduced to tatters, Prime Minister Modi will find himself politically very comfortably placed for 2024. There are 186 Lok Sabha constituencies where the BJP is in direct contest with the Congress. In 2019, the BJP had won 170 of these seats (a strike rate of 91 percent) bettering its strike rate of 84 percent in 2014 where it won 162 of them. With a broken, disheartened and demoralised Congress, the battle in 2024 will be perceived by the BJP as relatively easy.

The resurgence of AAP in the politically and strategically important border state of Punjab will take time to develop into a challenge at the national level. Punjab, however, could be looking at a difficult period ahead with permanently strained relations between the BJP-led Centre and the AAP government in the state. Punjab is a border state and has in the past been the preferred route for weapons delivered by Pakistani drones to arm Kashmiri militants. The drone drops will probably continue and are likely to be used by the Centre to renew charges against the AAP of being in cahoots with separatist forces.

While hyping the threat to national security, the Centre will also not hesitate to use the Income Tax and Enforcement Directorate to carry out raids on AAP leaders and supporters.  If anyone associated with AAP’s campaign can be linked even remotely to a Khalistan sympathiser, one can expect that to be amplified to dub the entire administration anti-national. While the BJP cannot emasculate the AAP government in Punjab as it did in Delhi by transferring power to the Lieutenant Governor, its actions can aggravate the financial crisis of Punjab. The state is already on the brink of bankruptcy. According to CAG estimates, the state’s debt burden, which was Rs.1.79 lakh crore on March 31, 2019, is expected to reach Rs 3.73 lakh crore by 2024-25.

Meanwhile, AAP's election promise of 300 units of free electricity to 70.61 lakh domestic consumers would cost an additional Rs 7,500 crore in FY2022-23 apart from the already existing subsidy of Rs 14,500 crore. The promise to increase old age pensions by Rs 2350 per person is estimated to put an extra burden of Rs 4631 crore in addition to the existing Rs. 1399 crore. And the promise of Rs 1000 per month financial benefit to all women over 18-years in the state (about 1.02 crore) would cost Rs 12241 crore. The total subsidy bill along with debt servicing it is estimated will account for 97 percent of total revenue receipts of the state. The already fragile finances of Punjab will become even more vulnerable with GST compensation from the Centre likely to end in June this year.

The Centre was so far reluctant to create problems for Captain (retd.) Amarinder Singh or to act against Charanjit Singh Channi because he was a Dalit chief minister. There will be no such compunctions in tightening the screws on the AAP government. However, AAP National Convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s challenge may yet gather momentum if his party performs well in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh in state elections later this year. By next year, Haryana will be another state ripe for the picking.

In these state elections, economic issues were made irrelevant by the acceptance of a majoritarian and ultra-nationalist rhetoric. It seems populism will continue to trump the stark economic challenges facing the people. Protests and agitations based on sectional interests like the farmers’ year-long protest will lose salience. Prime Minister Modi can hope to reign supreme for the foreseeable future.