On eve of historic election, BJP and Modi should be planning ahead.
By Rajiv Theodore
All outings and fun are bound to freeze this weekend, for it will be one of the most momentous times that India has faced in recent memory. It will decide the future course of the nation that has been hit not only by double or triple, but many times scores of whammies that its 1.2 billion people are waiting for change, earnestly.
Two decades of United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government led by the dynasty dominated Congress (I) party has left the people fuming, hopeless yet determined for change at the helm. As the voting ended early this week, overall figures show that the percentage of voting spiked to an unprecedented high during the massive exercise that had been split into nine phases and carried out for more than a month. Folks came out of their homes, shaking of ennui to record the highest voter turnout ever at 66.4%. This surpasses the 64% polling witnessed in the 1984 polls and makes the 58.2% turnout of 2009 pale in comparison. Plus, this election costed the government Rs 3,426 crore a whopping 131% more than the Rs 1,483 crore spent in 2009 polls.
And by Saturday, if not on Friday evening, the picture will be clear over the outcome of the polls. There is a palpable wave all around the country that is clearly blowing towards the direction of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which is set to take over the reign of the government from the Congress led UPA. Moreover exit polls here have all but one chorus playing on their lips, that of a BJP win and Narendra Modi’s march to number seven Race Course Road. Votes will be counted on May 16 (Friday), and the results are expected on the same day, thanks to the blistering pace of changes in information technology.
The crystal ball gazing on the magical number of 272 has already begun and political pundits have given the mandate already to the BJP and their alliance partners for getting the number through to form the government with ease.
And the BJP party members already in jubilation mode, currently in a huddle to chalk out the next obvious strategy that would come logically after the victory ceremony on Friday night. Most of the party leaders are heading towards Gandhinagar, the capital of Gujarat and the present seat of the state Chief Minister Narendra Modi, the man of the moment, presumably to discuss the immediate future but in realty to get a taste of what could be in store.
What next? Who could be the heavyweights and the middleweights once the new government is formed under the aegis of the BJP? Modi is keen on performers and not let the pit falls of the previous government creep up when he rides at the helm of affairs later this month. Lawyer Arun Jaitley, the suave yet vociferous senior party member, could take the mantle of managing the finances of the country that is in an unenviable position given a string of scams and corruptions of the previous government.
The defense portfolio, which had suffered owing to a terrible ennui of the previous minister, could be handled by the man of the moment himself at Modi. Yashwant Sinha who has a long inning as a career diplomat and being in previous portfolios as the foreign minister could once again land the job of the external affairs minister at a time when India’s relations with countries across the world is not exactly rocking especially the United States after the Khobragade episode.
The Home affairs, another critical area may also be directly controlled by Modi because he would find it tough as of now to hand over this extremely sensitive post that was unfortunately not expertly handled by the UPA.
Then there are the portfolios of Railways, Law, Industry and Commerce, Urban Development, Petroleum, Power, Renewable Energy, telecommunications and IT to name a few important ones on the one hand which could be handled by anyone ranging from Arun Shourie, Sushma Swaraj, the aging Murli Manohar Joshi, B C Khanduri, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Ravi Shankar Prasad etc
In short Modi is not going to hold on to his laurels rather let his task be distributed amongst the doners in his party, his pre-poll and post-poll alliance partners too? But the overwhelming welter of the burden of running the government (with a dubious legacy) would surely be a challenge. For starters, there are several projects, worth millions of dollars stalled for want of regulatory clearance all over the country. Then there is the pile of debts piled up by the country’s business houses with many of them reeling under bad loans. This is because says experts, more to do with state lethargy rather than New Delhi’s lassitude. Modi here has to act swiftly on restoring trust between the Union Government and the State Governments, more specifically, between the Prime Minister and the Chief Ministers to get things right.
A huge amount of cleaning is to be executed in several of the welfare and subsidy schemes of the previous government, which had been but filching points by the authorities to line their pockets. There are several regulatory issues that have to be clarified –in defense, in retail and a host of other sectors where investors are awaiting a new leader to do some streamlining.
One of the biggest challenges Modi and co. would face would be to take stock of the country’s manufacturing sector, which had been tottering after several false starts. This would entail reforming the laws governing land sales, labor, intellectual property, taxes and many more. But if pulls it off an unprecedented wave of growth would engulf the country which would in turn transform the life for the better for the 1.2 billion people majority of them languishing for decades.
Modi would also find the going tough once he steps into the rarefied fields of foreign policy where India has been suffering from the confusion created by the country’s earlier leaders. Also, there are the critical issues of hardcore diplomacy — of India engaging in counterbalancing China or the United States. And also, whether India would shake of its past to remake the wider global order with or without the help of the United States.