The Price of Arrogance

In the run-up to the 2019 general elections, Union Home Minister and BJP’s top leader Amit Shah had made an outrageous comment: The BJP will rule the country for the next 50 years. No leader who believes in democracy and people’s power to elect or reject a party or candidate could have made such a remark. It betrayed dynastic and fascist traits and tendencies embedded in one’s thought process. Not even the tallest leaders of independent India have ever made such an undemocratic remark. It is an affront to the people, the electorate, who are at the centre and core of democracy. The results of the just-concluded general elections have given an unequivocal answer to Amit Shah as the BJP on its own could not muster enough seats to form the government.

The results have come as a slap on the face of the BJP and its top leaders for taking the electorate for granted. It substantiates the old cliché “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The arrogance of its top leaders has made them fall into a pit that they were trying to dig for others by hate-speeches and outright lies. The BJP which came out with slogans like ‘crossing 370-mark for the party and 400-mark for the NDA’ has fallen terribly short of even winning a simple majority for itself in Lok Sabha. In fact, Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the party to defeat, unlike the previous two occasions, winning only 240 seats, failing to cross the 272-mark. Now it will have to run the government on crutches provided by coalition partners.

The general election results have thrown up many a lesson for the BJP. The shelf value of polarizing issues is far too short. It can bring only short-term gains, but in the long-term people will ask for redressal of their genuine problems. No despot can hoodwink the public for long. It is of no use to promise ‘guarantees’ unless the previous guarantees are taken care of.

India is a Parliamentary democracy and elections have to be fought accordingly. It cannot be fought as in Presidential system where individuals and their charisma matter a lot. But Modi and his team seem to have forgotten that India is a Parliamentary democracy. The whole focus was on Narendra Modi, and ‘Modi brand’ was projected all the way. He carried out one of the most self-centred election campaigns. It was not the BJP that gave guarantees to the people, but it was termed ‘Modi guarantee.’ The party manifesto too titled it Modi guarantee.

Instead of promising to maintain harmony, the speeches of Modi and other party leaders were meant to polarize the society and portray that the majority community was in danger. He went to the extent of spreading the misinformation that the Opposition, if came to power, would do away with the reservation granted to Dalits and others.

The BJP’s loss of both seats in Manipur should send alarm bells ringing for the party as the state had seen one of the worst ethnic cleansings in the recent years in the country. While Modi had all the time to visit various places in the country, including the Kaziranga National Park in the neighbouring state of Assam, he did not bother to visit Manipur and apply the much needed ‘soothing balm’ to heal the wounds, both physical and emotional. It shows the apathy of the ruler to the people hit by a pogrom.

The election results are also a strong message to those who sought two-thirds majority for the BJP which was interpreted as a move to change the Constitution. In spite of the Supreme Court verdict that the basic structure of the statute cannot be altered, several BJP leaders clamoured for changing the Constitution, sending out fears that a new Constitution would be formulated giving expression to the majoritarian views. As the Opposition made it a major election issue, the BJP’s top brass had to run for cover, repudiating such views of its leaders. The people saw the danger in the BJP’s double-speak and this found expression when votes were cast.

The BJP seems to have played yet another ‘dirty trick’ as several opposition leaders have claimed that the party may have a role in manipulating the exit polls as all of them turned out to be off the mark when the actual results came in. It has never happened in the electoral history of the country that almost all exit polls, that came out with more or less similar winning figures for a party, went terribly wrong.

The election results have proved that India is a vibrant democracy and any effort to hijack it would be thwarted in the long run. The new government, irrespective of who runs it, should take a leaf out of the people’s verdict. People are not mere vote banks, but their votes have a decisive impact. A party or a leader can ignore it only at a heavy price. The electorate decide who should rule and for how long; no leader can appropriate that decision-making power of the people.

  • By Marydasan John
  • (The writer is a former Senior Assistant Editor with The Hindu, Delhi)

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