I was wrong about Narendra Modi

A campaign fought on the strength of a man’s personality won't change the dynamic of the caste-based Indian election.

I was wrong in writing here that Gujarat’s chief minister, Narendra Modi, would not offer himself as prime ministerial candidate.

I wrote this a few months ago, arguing that Modi had no reason to expose himself. The support of the ordinary Bharatiya Janata Party worker was already with him. And, after his appointment as campaign head, in the eventuality of a Bharatiya Janata Party victory, he would be the obvious candidate. There was nobody else in the party who has the sort of pan-national appeal Modi has, particularly in the middle class.

Given this situation, to put himself out as the candidate would mean having to carry the burden of a party that he wasn’t fully in control of (as LK Advani’s sulk demonstrates).

It made more sense for him to bide his time and wait for the results to come in before showing his hand.

That was my logic.

Modi has chosen to do the brave thing. He will approach Indians and ask for votes on the basis of his performance in Gujarat and his ideology, which he has crystallised and not kept hidden to those who have observed him. For this, he must be applauded.

He will also have to take on the task of mollifying former and prospective allies who have fled the National Democratic Alliance in fear of him. These are many, and the new arrangement with them will take time. And then he will need to work hard to bring onside those in his own party — leader of the opposition Sushma Swaraj, Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan to name two — who did not want this sort of promotion for Modi.

Today, Modi holds three important positions. He remains Gujarat’s chief minister, is the BJP’s campaign committee chairman and, now, in effect the leader of the NDA. Advani, whose only official job is to manage the BJP’s coalition, stands eclipsed.

The BJP’s one-man one-post rule, which was bent when Modi was made campaign chairman, is now broken.

Advani can complain about this, but there is also the fact that Modi is offering to deliver on all of these and that is enough for his party. Certainly it is not a problem for the cadre of the party which has elevated Modi.

The Congress has a tough, tough campaign on its hands. India has not seen the likes of what it will soon witness: a modern approach to electoral messaging and to voter mobilisation.

Gujarat saw glimpses of it last year and we are familiar with some of the things tried, including holographic images. Now, assuming the election will be sometime in the second quarter of next year, Modi has time on his side. We will soon have news that he has raised the resources to deploy his modern campaign on a national scale.

Modi’s great strength is execution and implementation. In this he has no equal in politics. He has executed everything he has touched, from Advani’s Rath Yatra a quarter century ago to the three elections he has won in Gujarat.

He will throw himself at the details. One of his immediate tasks would be to look at such things as how to bring in rebels in states like Karnataka and ensure the BJP vote is not fragmented.

His drive and energy will be of an intensity that the Congress will not be able to match.

All of this may be dismissed by Sonia Gandhi’s chamchas as smoke and mirrors, but the media will be interested and the pressure will build.

A campaign fought on the strength of a man’s personality will not change the dynamic of what will be,as always, a caste-based Indian election. Region, language and community will always be larger issues here than either communalism or development.

Modi cannot change that, in my opinion, but I’ve been wrong about him before.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 15^th, 2013.

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