Will Narendra Modi be able to carry on the momentum till the end of the elections? Well it appears not.
There is no doubt that the BJP’s election 2014 campaign is synonymous with the NaMo campaign. The party took a huge gamble in naming NaMo as a PM candidate and, as of now, it seems the best gambler in town is Rajnath Singh. Well, this is based on the current poll result predictions and, of course, the crowds at the NaMo rallies. Albeit early, but these indications do point to a huge NaMo momentum.
The current momentum is fine but the trouble is that the completion of the elections is still about two months away and BJP and NaMo will not only have to continue campaigning but will also have to maintain momentum till then. The way BJP has managed the campaign, it seems that the only campaigner it has is NaMo and the rest are all only add-ons who have no apparent individual identity and value. National leaders of the BJP like L K Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and Murli Manohar Joshi are all in the “ADD ON” or the “ALSO” list and am sure this is giving all of them a severe identity nightmare. NaMo has eclipsed the entire party. Way forward, this is going to be the biggest problem for the BJP.
Coming back to the momentum issue, it seems NaMo has finished his rallies in Uttar Pradesh already – even before the election schedule has been announced. And guess what – Mulayam and Mayawati, the two regional bosses of the state are just warming up for the campaign now. The BJP will need a strong second line to support NaMo and to ensure that the NaMo momentum is carried forward, but sadly there appears to be none. In a party which is fast reducing its national leaders to the “ALSO” list, the regional leaders are facing a huge identity crisis. In all the states, the fight that the BJP is going to have, is not against the national leaders of the Congress but against the regional parties who have a regional span and have to concentrate only in one or at the most two states.
This difference in the span between the BJP and its main opponents is something which the NaMo strategy will not be able to counter. A regional political outfit survives and thrives on the basis of the charisma of its leader but a national party survives on the basis of a network of leaders and the BJP, under the influence of NaMois systematically destroying this network. This time around, the top brass of BJP has not appreciated that the federal structure of the country, which the Constitution of India protects also, needs to be emphasized within political parties.
