Why the Desperation

On surface, everything appears to be going well for the ruling dispensation headed by the long time duo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. The BJP has stormed back to power in four of the five states, where Assembly elections were held recently. They include the trophy state of Uttar Pradesh, which sends 80 members to the 545 member Lok Sabha, the lower House of Parliament. What is more, Punjab, the state which it did not win, went to the Aam Aadmi Party, and not its principal challenger, the Congress. The Congress failed to snatch victory in any of the five states, where elections were held earlier this year.

That is why the desperation on display by the ruling dispensation is all the more surprising. One can see it in the energy being poured into the polarisation strategy of the ruling dispensation and its allied outfits. Even before the hijab controversy had died down, come the outpourings on azaan. The use of bulldozers to demolish alleged unauthorised structures built illegally on public lands supposedly has opened a new front to push the polarisation agenda. After Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, the use of bulldozers to flatten alleged unauthorised structures has now reached the national capital, Delhi.

Apart from the stepped up polarisation campaign, the ruling dispensation has intensified its efforts to whittle down its principal challenger across the country, the Congress. A stream of leaders from the Congress are joining the BJP in ones and twos. To say the least, the defections are not on account of ideology but perhaps other more mundane reasons. And where people are not defecting to the ruling dispensation, they are being  involved in cases of different types. The arrest of prominent Gujarat activist Jignesh Mevani for a tweet by Assam police is a case in point. Without going into the merits of the case, which will no doubt be decided by the courts, it appears extraordinary. The question arises, is the ruling dispensation not sure of victory in the Gujarat elections, due in about a year’s time, despite all its bravado.

Perhaps our political analysts, who have been proclaiming that there can be no challenge to the BJP-LED political dispensation in the near future are way out of tune with the widespread discontent in the country. The ruling dispensation may be good at election and perception management, but has failed signally on the economic front. Poverty, unemployment and inflation are at levels not seen for the past many decades. People may not be rising in revolt, as is happening in Sri Lanka, but there may be seething anger below the surface. Just wondering why the ruling dispensation is so desperate if all is hunky dory.

(Writer is a political Analyst. He is retired DG, AIR, News)