“Unka Sankalp, Vipareet Bharat”
“Sab ka Naash, Sab ka Vinaash”

IT is widely expected that the forthcoming Assembly Elections in Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand will sound the death-knell of the Modi-Shah leadership in the BJP. Unless the BJP is steered by a moderate and accommodative leadership, the party’s disappearance into political oblivion is inevitable.
Independent surveys indicate that the BJP may not secure more than 15 seats in the Haryana assembly. The failure of party managers to shepherd more than 5,000 people in Modi’s first rally in Kurukshetra sometime back and more than 10,000 people from an estimated 22 constituencies, for Modi’s second rally at Sonipat in Haryana, reassert the reliability of the surveys held so far.
Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand seem to have been deliberately delayed by the Election Commission of India to help Modi & Shah manipulate for a few more assembly seats. While the Mahavikas Aghadi of Uddhav Thackeray, Sharad Pawar and Rahul Gandhi, is expected to win with a thumping majority in Maharashtra. The combination of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and the Congress, under the leadership of Hemant Soren, is expected to romp home without any difficulty in Jharkhand. Modi-Shah’s strategy of luring Champai Soren into the BJP fold is doomed to prove a misadventure, even as “Laadki Bahinn” bonanza is being showered on several crore women voters in Maharashtra, is unlikely to translate into a big vote-catcher for the BJP government.

MID-TERM ELECTION
THAT the Modi-Shah duo is preparing for a mid-term Lok Sabha election sooner than later, is obvious from the conspicuous absence of Chandrababu Naidu and Nitish Kumar from the nationwide celebrations of Modi’s birthday. Modi knows that the axe will inevitably fall on him after the results of Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand are announced.
The strategy of the vindictive Modi-Shah duo to retain their strangle-hold on the BJP has three components: First, to resort to the time-(dis)honoured tactics to trigger communal riots and polarize voters; second, to do everything possible to reduce electoral chances of the Congress and work towards the creation of hung assemblies in Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand; and thirdly create endless confusion by spreading messages on unrealistic and impossible political programs like “One Nation, One Election.”
In the recent past, the nation was a witness to a sudden spurt in provocative statements from the chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Yogi Adityanath reportedly exhorted Hindus to stand united and warned his countrymen that they would be destroyed if they allow themselves to be divided: “Batenge toh katenge.”
Mohan Yadav, chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, reportedly warned Muslims that they would have to chant Hindu prayers if they wanted to live in India. These provocative outburst from cow-belt chief minister, if true, failed to spark any communal violence, much less, trigger voter-polarization. The 2024 Lok Sabha results proved that the BJP could no longer use religion as the opium of masses.
The Modi-Shah duo is aware of the bleak future for their leadership. They have now reportedly begun to throw their weight behind independent candidates and those belonging to smaller parties to create hung assemblies and bring the election-bound states under President’s Rule. If you cannot occupy the Indian political space through the front door, do it through the back door. That seems to be the wily strategy.

ONE NATION-ONE ELECTION
JUST in case these tactics in the overall strategy don’t work, “the one nation-one election” smokescreen has been approved by the BJP cabinet. The objective seems to be the creation of so much brain-fog and confusion that the BJP will have no other choice but to continue with the present leadership. For, overhauling the election system, the federal structure and other innumerable rules and regulations would require for the ruling party a two third majority in Lok Sabha and support of at least half the states.
Currently the BJP doesn’t even have a simple majority in parliament. It is very likely that Chandrababu Naidu and Nitish Kumar will withdraw the support to the government very soon. The country may have to go in for a mid-term election very soon. BJP or no BJP, Modi wants to be the prime minister or the head of the government, by whatever name you call him.
WE, THE PEOPLE, have already shown the way in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Now it is time we move forward and defeat the BJP dictators and help secular parties rule our country in the manner envisaged by the framers of our Constitution.