Elections 2014: Will Modi be a game-changer for BJP?

Frenetic, high-decibel celebrations broke out among BJP cadres  in Goa and elsewhere following the announcement that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi had been appointed chairman of the party’s election campaign panel on Sunday. Some of the ecstatic responses - like this one from party MP Tarun Vijay - were clearly over the top and premature, given that the appointment in itself has only symbolic value, and in any case, the merit of the move will be adjudged as wise only if leads the BJP onto electoral fortune. But the spontaneous eruption of party cadres’ sentiments was perhaps a cathartic release of the tension that had been building up over three days over the perception that the BJP was deeply divided on investing campaign  authority on Modi, and that senior party leader LK Advani, who did not make it to the national executive meeting, would remotely spike the move. Party insiders claim that the outcome was always known to those in the loop; to external observers, however, it looked every bit like a political cliffhanger. And  party foot-soldiers, particularly those who have enlisted to serve on Narendra Modi’s Army, were clearly wary that their boots-on-the-ground campaign to seek Modi’s elevation would be neutralised by political skulduggery among the party’s own Delhi Durbar. Which is why they turned up outside Advani’s door and staged a noisy and indecorous protest. [caption id=“attachment_855405” align=“alignright” width=“380”]  The projection of Modi in messianic terms isn’t helpful. PTI[/caption] The BJP disowned the Modi Army, and claimed that the protestors had been planted by the Congress to accentuated the rift within the BJP and to discredit Modi. But the protestors’ with-us-or-against-us mentality entirely fits in with a section of Modi’s  most artlessly vocal grassroots-level supporters, who do him more harm than good. Symbols count for a lot in politics, which is why Sunday’s appointment is being interpreted as the first step towards projecting Modi as the party’s prime ministerial candidate.  It’s true, of course, that there have been  instances in the past when the BJP’s election campaign head was not the party’s candidate for the prime ministership. Additionally, this time around, as the BJP’s coalition partners in the NDA made clear on Sunday, the party must still overcome residual inhibitions - both within the BJP and among its NDA allies - to naming Modi as the NDA candidate. But by appointing Modi to head the campaign panel, the BJP has played what it reckons is its best hand to energise cadres, even while keeping its options about its prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 election. That strategy appears to be working for now: the blare of bugles from the party rank-and-file points to an army that stands ready to march under the command of their General. Simultaneously, the BJP’s allies - from the JD(U), which remains viscerally opposed to Modi, to the Shiv Sena - have conceded that they cannot hope to influence the BJP’s choice of whom it appoints to head its own election campaign chief. But, they also added as an afterthought, that any attempt to foist Modi on the NDA would be resisted. The BJP perhaps calculates that a campaign spearheaded by Modi can potentially propel it to a better electoral position - where it will have greater leverage over its alliance partners. That prospect, while not improbable, must, however, reckon with the BJP’s  organisational  weaknesses in many pockets of India, as _Firstpost_ observed here . Such calculations are also symptomatic of the heightened - some would say unrealistically high - expectations of precisely what Modi can hope to achieve if he ever became Prime Minister. Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy, who has always backed Modi, framed it in civilizational terms when he said:

India's century has begun. Global economic power by 2020,Akhand Hindustan by 2025, overtake China by 2030, and giver of civilisation by 2050

— Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) June 9, 2013

It’s one thing to project confidence and optimism as you prepare your troops for electoral battle.  But it’s not immediately clear that the BJP or Modi are well served by all this  excessive euphoria and  hyperbolic expectations of victory and the projection of Modi in messianic terms.