Narendra Modi scripts remarkable victory for NDA in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, places BJP in a unique political space

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has maintained a remarkable consistency in identifying the correct political prognosis. He was absolutely accurate in predicting that his party would not only win, but also set a record in the annals of the country’s politics by achieving the rare feat of victory with clear majority by a non-Congress formation.

File image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. PTI

As trends indicate, he is set to romp home with a decisive mandate. If the BJP allies are taken along, the NDA’s victory is stunningly comprehensive. Of course, this is the only time after Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi that a prime minister would get a clear mandate for a second time. Modi did it with an elan that is unparalleled in Indian political history.

The inference of these results is quite evident. After a long phase of dominance by the Congress as the principal pole of Indian politics, from Independence to 1971, the Bharatiya Janata Party has finally effectively replaced it and occupies that position. With this result, the BJP has acquired a unique political space from where it would not be easy to dislodge it in the times to come.

How has the outfit, with the image of being an upper caste and Hindi heartland party, gained ground in geographical areas considered to be inaccessible to it till five years ago? This is no ordinary achievement. Once again, there will be a tendency to dismiss this feat as the BJP’s ability to win the propaganda war with its rivals. But that will be an oversimplification of the election and quite akin to burying one’s head in the sand in the face of a coming storm.

In addition to Modi’s personal charisma, he has built a formidable organisation along with BJP president Amit Shah and expanded it exponentially. In fact, the party’s organisational machine worked seamlessly with the government over the past five years to take the right messages to the masses. No doubt, Shah’s formidable capacity to mobilise a huge army of cadres on a war-footing contributed a great deal to the BJP’s performance.

With this victory, let there be no doubt that politics of India would revolve around anti-BJPism in the future. Unlike the Congress, which managed organisational expansion across the country till the 1980s, the BJP is constrained by its ability to breach the psychological barrier in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh. Once Modi crosses that hurdle, he would become a political colossus whose removal would be unthinkable in the foreseeable future.