The schedule for the 2024 Lok Sabha election was announced by the Election Commission on Saturday, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking a third term in office, declaring that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by him was fully prepared for the election. He framed the polls as a contest between the NDA that ushered in “a glorious turnaround” and an Opposition that was “rudderless and issueless”.
Minutes after the election schedule was announced, Mr. Modi in a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter), described his tenure of the last decade as being “about filling gaps created by those who ruled for 70 years”. “It was also about instilling a spirit of self-confidence that yes, India can become prosperous and self-reliant. We will build on this spirit,” he said.
Mr. Modi claimed that 10 years ago, before the BJP came to power at the Centre, the people of India were feeling betrayed and disillusioned “thanks to INDI Alliance’s pathetic governance”. “No sector was left untouched from scams and policy paralysis and the world had given up on India. From there, it has been a glorious turnaround,” he said. In a swipe at the Opposition, he called it “rudderless and issueless”.
Earlier in the day, he had also released a letter, shared by various BJP leaders, where he referred to 140 crore Indians as his family, as well as a campaign video on the theme “Modi ka Parivar” (We are Modi’s family). This was in reaction to a recent jibe by Opposition leader Lalu Prasad Yadav that he has no family, prompting him to emphasise his connection with people of the country who, Mr. Modi has asserted, were his family members. Like “Chaiwallah” and “Main bhi chowkidaar” (I too am a security guard) following Opposition jibes before the 2014 and 2019 elections, “Modi ka Parivar” is set to be a major theme for the 2024 election.
The BJP may be feeling confident with regard to prevailing in the 2024 election but the significance of the election with regard to Mr. Modi cannot be understated. If he prevails in the election, Mr. Modi will only be the second Prime Minister to get a third successive term after India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
More to the point, according to political scientist Ashwani Kumar of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), he would be doing so “riding on a complete political and ideological shift that he has affected in Indian politics, something that we can refer to as the Second Republic”.
Elaborating on the theme, political scientist Rahul Verma, associated with the Centre for Policy Research, said that what differentiates Mr. Modi from former PM Nehru is that “there are chances that his [Mr Modi’s] strength and popularity are increasing, unlike for the Congress”. “Between 1952-57 and 1957-62 and after that, there were growing electoral and ideological challenges for the Congress. There was the Kamaraj Plan in 1963 as a reaction to organisational challenges and the departure of C. Rajagopalachari in 1959 to form the Swatantra Party as a reaction to a very statist outlook of the Congress under Nehru,” he said.
“In that sense, the BJP has become a bigger tent, expanding socially and politically and forging new ideological path. The challenge would be to consolidate a new path on economic reforms,” he added.
For Mr. Modi therefore, whatever the public discourse on the results of the election, this would be an epoch-making contest, and would further cement his prime ministerial legacy.
