MADURAI: From problems of plenty to a situation of no choice. This is the huge marked difference in India’s national politics in the last three decades that is working to the advantage of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and keeping Mr.Narendra Modi in Lutyens’ Delhi.
Yes. An objective assessment with a simple understanding of our politics, parties and elections will establish the critical point that it is the TINA factor that is going in Prime Minister Mr.Narendra Modi’s favour. THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE (TINA).
Is India facing scarcity of national leaders? Are there no appealing personalities who can pose a challenge to Modi-Shah-BJP in general elections? Have powerful regional parties in India become a casualty because of bulldozing and bombarding politics of the BJP?
From the time of Mrs.Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister in the early 80s, Delhi was flooded with powerful political figures, leaders of regional parties and party chiefs from State capitals who used to call the shots in New Delhi. There was no shortage of PM material and leaders emerged out of situations.
Despite having a brute majority, the Congress Party had faced stiff challenges during the times of Mrs.Indira Gandhi and Mr.Rajiv Gandhi. In every State, there was a leader looking towards Delhi and tried to curtail the domination of Congress in the 80s. The emergence of the National Front and the presence of personalities like NTR, Jyoti Basu, Biju Patnaik, Ramakrishna Hegde, V.P.Singh, M.Karunanidhi, E.K.Nayanar, Farooq Abdullah, Praful Mahanta and others was putting the Delhi bosses in check.
But just see the political plight of India today.
The strong emergence of BJP and Mr.Narendra Modi from 2014 in particular is a death knell for many parties and leaders. On the performance side, there is nothing much to claim for the Modi government and the BJP from 2014-19 on any front especially economic indicators. Yet, the saffron won with a huge mandate in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. How did this happen?
From today 3rd July 2020, we plan to bring out a series of write-ups taking opinions of political experts and analysts on how Mr.Modi is managing to hold thanks to TINA factor. Because, the results are visible in the last six years from 2014 to 2020. Just watch the economy, China, Corona, employment or rather unemployment, black money, GDP growth, foreign investments in India etc. federalism etc.
Nothing much to boast, yet Modi and BJP winning and able to demolish some regional parties. When there is no one to counter or pose a challenge to even a poor performing government at the Centre, these aberrations happen. It is time for people to ponder. Think twice.
