Early Bird catches the Worm

One does not have to be an admirer of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his outfit to acknowledge the systematic way in which they go all out to achieve their objectives.The next Lok Sabha elections are two years away but already the ruling dispensation’s different wings and fellow travellers are hard at work preparing the ground for victory. And let there be no doubt, the fight is for absolute power to mould the country according to their worldview.

The prime place in their strategy of course is polarisation. Even before closure of the controversy over wearing of hijab by girl students in educational institutions, new issues are cropping up with the potential to divide society. The hijab matter is now with the apex court.The controversy over Muslim small traders opening shops and sharing space with their Hindu counterparts at temples is the latest in the series of moves with potential to create divisions. Small traders professing different religions traditionally have shared space at temples as well as mosques without any controversy arising in the past. Am told most of the stalls at a major mosque in Bhopal have traditionally been set up by Hindu traders.

From Uttarakhand comes a report that after retaining the state in the Assembly elections, the government is working on a uniform civil code. Nothing wrong with that but the proper course would have been to hold consultations with different communities before embarking upon such a course. Another major tactic of the ruling dispensation has been to shut eyes on governance failures. The leaders of the dispensation have been in a permanent denial mode. Early on, it was apparent when the government kept a blind eye on the sufferings of the people because of the ill thought out demonetisation blunder. And when demonetisation failed to achieve any of its objectives, there was not a word of regret, not to speak of apology, from the Prime Minister or any other functionary of the government.

There is widespread unemployment in the country because of the failures of governance but you do not find anyone in the ruling dispensation making even a mention of that. The belief appears to be that if we do not mention what has gone wrong, it will fade from public memory and perception. Another major tactic of the ruling dispensation to win elections has been of course the use of its B teams to erode the vote base of its main opponents in different states and different scenarios. This is apparent from what happened in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Goa in the recent Assembly elections in five states. The build up of forces which can chip off votes from the main opposition in various states may become even more pronounced in the coming months.

The use of money power in elections is a sad reality in India. The BJP is not only the largest party in the world, as it claims, but also the richest party in India, without any doubt. How will the opposition parties face the challenge? Some of them have been talking about setting up a front but so far, they have not taken any meaningful step towards that. Unless the opposition parties wake up quickly from their slumber, talk of taking on the Narendra Modi led dispensation will remain just that, empty talk without any basis.

(Writer is a political Analyst)