["If Modi pulls off a victory, it will confirm that a tectonic shift is taking place in Indian politics. If he fails, it will signal a spectacular fall in a very short time."
As we had commented earlier, in the wake of the dismal BJP performance in the bypolls since the last Lok Sabha poll, that the Maharashtra and Haryana assembly polls will be an acid test for Modi, the author here in no uncertain terms concurs with that view. Not that the profile of the Lok Sabha will change, but the political legitimacy, in the event of failures, will be seriously undermined and will surely have cascading effects. Of course, successes will reassert and reinforce his commanding position.] http://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/paint-it-black/lots-of-love-from-splitsville/ Lots of Love, from Splitsville September 27, 2014, 10:25 am IST Arati R Jerath <http://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/author/aratijerath/> in Paint it Black <http://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/paint-it-black/> *|* India <http://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/india/>, Times View <http://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/times-views/> *|* ET After weeks of brinkmanship, two of the country's most enduring political alliances have ended in bitter divorce to set up what promises to be a fascinating -- and possibly game-changing -- election in Maharashtra. Following the BJPShiv Sena combine's near sweep in the state in the Lok Sabha polls just five months ago, the outcome of October's assembly battle was considered a foregone conclusion. Now, with the BJP, the Sena, the Congress and the NCP deciding to slug it out separately, even the satta bazaar is likely to hedge its bets on who will form the next government in Mumbai. The collapse of the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance is not quite the surprise it's being made out to be. Narendra Modi and Uddhav Thackeray have poor personal chemistry. Rumblings of discontent could be heard from the time Modi's star started rising and have only grown louder with the BJP's spectacular Lok Sabha victory that made allies redundant in the NDA. Once the party's chief interlocutor with the Sena, Gopinath Munde, died in a tragic road accident shortly after the formation of the Modi government, the writing was on the wall. The story may have been different had the BJP tempered its soaring national ambitions with a dash of hard-nosed pragmatism. In alliance with the Shiv Sena, it could have scripted a repeat of the Lok Sabha results in the assembly polls. The two together were sure-fire winners after 15 years of Congress-NCP rule in Maharashtra. But Modi is not only a high-risk player, as evident from the way he staked everything he had to win the Lok Sabha election, but he has also set his sights on replacing the Congress as the country's preeminent political force. *An Umbrella Called BJP* His master's voice Amit Shah spoke for Modi the day he took over as BJP president in August. In his address to the party's national council, Shah exhorted the cadre to spread the BJP's reach across the country, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. "For long, Congress vichaar has been predominant in the country's politics. Now it is time to ensure that the nation's politics bears the imprint of our vichaar," he declared. The testing ground for the Modi plan is Maharashtra -- and to a lesser extent Haryana, which is going to polls at the same time. In both states, the BJP will not project a chief ministerial candidate. It intends to fight under the banner of Brand Modi in the hope that the huge groundswell of support for the man five months ago has not subsided and will translate into votes even today. The strategy is fraught with risk. These are state elections, not Lok Sabha polls. Constituencies are smaller and local issues tend to dominate. The BJP traditionally has been the little brother to Shiv Sena's big brother in Maharashtra. It does not have a statewide footprint. Although it has a strong presence in Vidarbha, the biggest of the five regions, it has mere pockets of influence in Marathwada and western Maharashtra. The alliance with the Shiv Sena worked so well because the Sena did the heavy-lifting in the two remaining regions: Konkan or the Mumbai-Thane area and the Khandesh-northern Maharashtra belt. Now, without the Sena, the BJP has nothing to fall back on. It will have to scramble together an organisation in 24 hours in places where it doesn't exist. It's much the same story in Haryana where the BJP has been essentially an urban phenomenon. It has no caste leaders in the rural areas and has tried to fill the vacuum with defectors from the Congress. *A Personal Battle* But the real significance of the upcoming elections lies in the impact that it will have on national politics in general and on Modi in particular. These are assembly polls but they have become a prestige battle for Modi personally. Prime ministers and national level politicians have allowed themselves to be used as star campaigners in state elections before. But this is the first time that a PM will be expected to campaign as a CM candidate and an MLA aspirant all rolled into one. That's the only way the BJP can hope to overcome its deficiencies on the ground and win a majority on its own. This was the strategy for the Lok Sabha elections. It seems to be the strategy for the assembly polls as well. *Russian Roulette* Will voters in Maharashtra, or for that matter in Haryana, buy into the concept of PM Modi as CM Modi? The Sena can be expected to run an entirely emotional campaign with the aim of whipping up 'Marathi manoos' passions. Its recent statements and tweets suggest that its target will be the BJP rather than the Congress-NCP. It's a huge gamble for a PM to put himself on the line for what is, after all, a mere state election. If Modi pulls off a victory, it will confirm that a tectonic shift is taking place in Indian politics. If he fails, it will signal a spectacular fall in a very short time. DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
