2024 Election Analysis

2024 ELECTION ANALYSIS

"The inflation and unemployment of the last 5 years brought BJP down from 303 seats to 240 seats" - this is the consensus opinion of all political analysts about the election. But if this was the case, then BJP/NDA's seats must have come down in every state. However, NDA increased its seats in several states (see table) - including in states like Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh where there was hardly any room for improvement. So inflation and unemployment are only half the story. The other half of the story is the state-level variation in the constituency-level factors like performance of the MPs, selection of the candidates, caste equations, etc . . .

Narendra Modi

NARENDRA MODI

Liberals: "Getting less than a majority will destroy Modi!".

Do they have any idea who they are even talking about?

This is NOT a man who has become Prime Minister by being born in a political dynasty.

This IS a man who has risen from being a poor tea-seller to become Prime Minister.

This is NOT a man who had power handed to him on a golden plate in a golden palace.

This IS a man who has fought a thousand battles in his life to get to where he is today.

This is NOT a man who is the puppet of a few rich and powerful people of the world.

This IS a man who has been chosen by the crores of poor people of India as their leader.

This is NOT a man who is the agent of India's enemies - both inside and outside.

This IS a man whose historical mission it is to restore the Indian civilisation to its lost glory.

Aum Bharata Matayai Namah . . . !

2024 Election, Economic Reforms And Modi

2024 ELECTION, ECONOMIC REFORMS AND MODI

Now that BJP has been reduced to 240 seats, what will happen to economic reforms? In a FICCI meeting in February, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman had said: "In our third term, we will carry out factor market reforms - ie, land reforms and labour reforms". What will happen to them now?

One view is: "Now it is a coalition government - so forget about economic reforms". But the Vajpayee government (1998-2004) was also a coalition government. In fact, then BJP had only 182 seats - as against 240 seats today. And Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee did carry out economic reforms, including one of the toughest reforms of them all - privatisation (something which the Modi government with a clear BJP majority has not been able to do for 10 years - with the one exception of Air India).

So political will is more important than numbers. So the real question is: How strong is Narendra Modi's political will? In his first term, he carried out demonetisation and GST. In his second term, he tried to implement three agricultural reforms. Demonetisation was a mistake. GST was great - though its implementation could have been better. The three agricultural reforms were also great - but Modi underestimated the power of the Arhatiyas (middle-men) of Punjab and Haryana. All the three moves were politically very risky. So Modi is not short of courage. We can question the way he used his courage - but we cannot question the courage itself.

As for the coalition partners, the two biggest parties are Chandrababu Naidu's TDP and Nitish Kumar's JDU. Naidu has been one of India's most pro-reform Chief Ministers. Nitish may not be very pro-reform, but he is not fundamentally anti-reform either. In any case, land is a state subject and labour is a concurrent subject. So both land reforms and labour reforms will have to be carried out in partnership with the states. So a coalition government at the centre is not really an excuse for not carrying them out.

Finally the most important point is this: Narendra Modi wants to go down in history as India's greatest Prime Minister (currently this place belongs to P V Narasimha Rao - who carried out the 1991 economic reforms). And he can do that only if he carries out land reforms and labour reforms. And he knows this.

So let us cross our fingers and hope for the best . . .