The challenger to Narendra Modi for 2019

A section of media is projecting that there is a serious challenge to Modi for 2019 Election. Here is my take . 

The bjp and modi have faced a lot of flak for the loss of Karnataka and the loss of three Lok Sabha by Election in critical state of UP as dipstick for and seems to be smelling a kill with these victories . Their hypothesis and narrative is that if all there is an joint opposition against BJP than it would be almost impossible for Modi to win 2019 and these electoral wins are being touted to prove this theory . All sort of permutations and combination are being drawn to sell this theory viz UP sending the maximum member and BJP got 73/80 in 14 , to BJP had hit the peak in ‘14 by clean sweeping Rajasthan , Gujarat , delhi , Himachal , Uttaranchal and did exceptionally well in UP , Bihar , MP , Haryana , Maharashtra and Karnataka , the state who send maximum MP’s . It is being promoted that it would impossible for Modi to repeat this performance in these state and coupled with a united opposition ,translating into consolidation of anti BJP votes ,they see it is very much a chance to stop this juggernaut. On paper it does looks very much a possibility plus the victory in Gorakhpur, phulpur and kairana has given a new lease of life to this theory . Already the congress is harping on the theory of probable anti incumbency in Rajasthan and MP , the two state which will go to poll in December this year . Moreover the opposition is also quite rattled by Modi Shah as they have been sweeping state after state and thus its a question of survival for a lot of parties who if are not able to get some foothold than they will cease to exist or there clout will get diminish quite considerably . The result is that BSP, read Mayawati , supporting SP in these bye polls ,who were real sworn enemies and even actually tried to physically burn her down . Same was the case in karanataka where congress supported Kumarswamy for CM of the fact that both vie for the same vote bank and are sworn enemies at ground level .

My take is that , that this theory has couple of spanners and can fall apart on any of the reasons .

1.   There is no single leader who will lead this alliance and Modi will make this as a personality clash ,thereby cornering the majority of votes who are caste agnostic and specially the under 30 voter who are 60% of the voters in india .

2.   All the challenger are regional players , for eg RJD in Bihar , TMC in West Bengal , KCR (TRS) in Telangana , TDP(N Chandrababu) in Andhra ,Mayawati and SP in UP ,BJD (Navin patnaik) in Orissa,DMK/AIADMK in Tamil Nadu  and in rest of the states it is mainly congress against BJP . so the division of vote is not that big an issue as it has been touted. Infact any consolidation in opposition will inturn result in similar consolidation in favour of BJP and Modi as well .

3.   All the regime changes have taken place when there is towering leader who catches the fancy of voter that he will change the system but somehow all the so called challengers are embodiment of the rotten corrupt system . For eg the way Akhilesh’s ruffian ransacked his official bunglow will not go down well with the general public ,leave aside the prevalent corruption when they have been in power . So is the case with the RJD leadership , Mayawati etc and on the contrary there has been a general perception that Modi is Non Corruptible , there by giving him a big plus and moreover the general message in the public is that Modi has highly improved india and Indians image worldwide . This perception will also be encashed by the campaign manager of BJP .

4.   I see a huge undercurrent for Modi in under 30 and surprisingly in 60 year + age voters . I have seen that the senior citizens are totally sold out for Modi and they are quite vocal and have seen that voting percentage of this class is also quite high. The main vocal opponents of Modi are the male business class of 35-55 age bracket who have been hit by the change in economic policies etc beside the political workers of various parties. The approval numbers for Modi is way higher than any challenger.

5.   The road to Raisina is always through UP , the opposition is banking on SP+BSP combo to stop the juggernaut of Modi Shah . My take is that since mayawati does not fights bye election so he has conceded to SP’s demand but she will be first of all a tough bargainer in ’19 as she believes that her vote is transferable but she does not get the other parties vote so she would arm twist to corner the maximum seats in election because in case of SP/BSP alliance atleast there will be a minority consolidation in the alliance favour . The moment there is minority consolidation will lead to a majority consolidation at the ground level as well in favour of BJP . Also since there will be a lot of local leader of these parties who will be denied ticket will force them to fight either independently or with smaller outfit resulting in again making dent in their vote bank . Also the grass root worker of these parties are at loggerhead on local level politics ,how this will be handled will be one interesting scenario . And what will happen to congress in this arrangement in UP is again a mystery ,nobody wants them atleast for the price they will be asking . SP/BSP combine could probably give them Amethi/Raebarelli plus another 2 seats but congress just cannot settle for that type of situation because that means that they have accepted their status as an extinct species in the biggest state of india which they just cannot let it happen . Moreover in the last 11 years mayawati has slowly and steadily alienated herself from common man and other caste leader of his parties ,moreover the organisation of BSP is also in a bad shape . She will also have to work hard to resurrect the organisation and cobble support in other smaller caste segment which were being represented in BSP structure have left or unceremoniously kicked out .Caste and community leaders like Babu Singh Kushwaha , Swami Prasad Maurya , Nassimuddin Siddique etc have since left the party and there is hardly any big leader left . The situation in SP is not that bad as Akhilesh is at helm but people like shivpal, Ramgopal and Azam will try to exert themselves during this election . The worst will be congress as it has so many MPs aspirants ,who were even minister in UPA2 ,will be expecting to fight the election but will the alliance give that to them has big question mark . The congress leader like RPN Singh , Jitin Prasad , Salman Khurshid ,Shriprakash Jaiswal, Pradeep Jain,Nirmal Khatri ,PL Punia etc would rather try to promulgate the theory that we should fight alone than to concede the demand of alliance and write their own political obituaries .  

6.   Same is the case of Bihar as well with JDU and other smaller alliance partners bringing their respective caste combination NDA will be having a clear edge over RJD/Congress combo .

My take is that the media will create a lot of hype and try to show that there is some of neck to neck fight ,that’s the only way to get the viewers TRP which translate into revenue and more power to TV news guys . In the end Modi Shah will romp home but this time because of social media there will be a lot of high pitched drama Pre election .