THE MODI MAKEOVER
The recent BJP National Council Meeting held on March 1st made it amply clear that Narendra Modi shall be propelled to the centre as the BJP?s Prime Ministerial candidate for the 2014 general elections, even if he hasn?t been formally anointed as such. The BJP has in the recent past been very generous in showering praise on Modi: both deserved and undeserved. In response to which Modi has played the overwhelmed party-junior humbled by all the lauding he has received. At the meeting Modi termed Atal Bihari Vajpayee as his role model and commended him for all that the BJP has achieved under his reign. This was an implication to Modi?s hard-line stance on many issues as was Vajpayee?s before he was elected to power.
Yet, it is farcical for Modi to aim to emulate Vajpayee. They are different as chalk and cheese in terms of secular, consensus-driven governance on the one hand and a communal, go-it-alone brand manager style on the other. Further Modi has absolutely no parliamentary experience, which Vajpayee had in abundance.
Modi has focused ad nauseumon the Gujarat development model. Simultaneously, the BJP seems rather determined in highlighting his economic and financial prowess and his ability to reverse the trend of economic slowdown which has set in today. Yet they all are reiterating that which the people already know. It is excessively discernible that the party has remained tight-lipped on the point of Hindutva and their all-weather friend the Sangh Parivar. Modi?s affiliations to the VHP and RSS remain a mystery; what are his stands on the Ayodhya Ram Mandir, influx of Bangladeshi migrants, bringing to justice the perpetrators of the 2002 carnage no one can tell.
If the NDA is seriously looking at forming government next year, it has to woe allies which will wield sufficient numbers on the floor of the house. These allies (for instance the RJD, TDP and DMK) will want an unequivocal answer to the communal question before they are willing to commit support. It would be politically sound to address this issue as soon as can be.
Keeping in mind what happened in the last general election (2009) one sees a structural drift from traditional parliamentary practices to those which are specific to the American presidential system. In the parliamentary system, the party wins an election, not an individual representing his/her party. It is only after the election that the leader of the winning party is called to form government; he may in fact chose not to be Prime Minister (as Sonia Gandhi declined the post in 2009 despite being the Congress chief). In a parliamentary system the voter is to be wooed by the party as a whole; he thence elects in favour of the candidate representing that party. In contrast to this system, in the presidential system the presidential candidate himself is the whole and sole object of adjudication amongst the electorate. It is hewho contests the election against another person,both campaigning in their individual capacities. Here the party does not play a very crucial role as the personal qualities of the presidential candidate are put to test. The electorate do not know which persons are to comprise the president?s cabinet before the election, however in the parliamentary system the coveted portfolios in the cabinet are assumed by party heavy-weights.
In 2009, the NDA had declared Lal Krishna Advani and the UPA had declared Manmohan Singh to be their respective Prime Ministerial candidates. Hence, the spotlight was shifted from previous party record and general competency among its members to the personal attributes, capabilities and propensities of the candidates. We may see a recurrence of just that this time around too. The NDA has more or less pushed for Modi and the UPA has just stopped short of doing so officially with Rahul Gandhi. Either way the voter ought to be cautious of such a trend. In a country like ours, only an entire party can substantially represent India?s diverse populous, not a single individual. Which way the people?s verdict will go only time can tell, yet in case of the NDA?s preparation to the election next year, it is essential that its sceptical allies be given a little more before they can be expected to take the Modi makeover seriously.
