Why the BJP are fans of Narendra Modi's fan clubs

With armies of online trolls who sit ready with sharpened keyboards to defend his honour at a moment’s notice, a bedazzled media that hangs on his every word and reports his every move, and a party high command that seems to have been helplessly swept along in the wake of his political rock star quality, it was clearly just a matter of time before the Narendra Modi fan clubs started springing up across the country.

And now they have.

According to this report in the Times of India, the NaMo Brigade, “an eclectic group of activists who came together to launch a society in Bangalore on July 28” is planning a road show to Trichy from Bangalore which will be webcast live with the help of the Gujarat government. “The show is meant to coincide with BJP’s rally in Trichy on September 26 where Modi will be the star speaker,” the report added.

And it doesn’t end with the road show. There is also memorabilia - T-shirts and stickers are mentioned in the report. Not very surprising this, to those of us used to seeing the NaMo masks at his rallies.

It is also not the only club of its kind.

This report talks about a group of people in Shillong “who assembled in a meeting and decided to form a fan Club with office bearers and executive members from different walks of life.”

“According to the members, Modi’s model of development should be emulated in Meghalaya, which is already reeling under severe leadership crisis”, the report added. Notably, Meghalaya is presently ruled by the Congress Party.

Then there is the organisation ‘‘Narendra Mitra’, based in Rajkot, which also does charitable work. Most notably, to mark the occasion of Modi’s 64th birthday, they paid the court fines of three convicts who had served their prison terms, but were still in prison because of an inability to pay their fines. ( More here )

There is no exact figure on the number of Narendra Modi fan clubs, but even a cursory search on Facebook show groups sporting names like “Narendra Modi army”, “Narendra Modi for PM” and “Narendra Modi Tamil Nadu FANS” which indicates that they are mushrooming on the ground and all over cyberspace.

The first impression from such reports - and indeed the stance that the Times of India has taken, is that the towering personality of the Gujarat Chief Minister is threatening to overshadow that of his own party… again.

However it may well be that the BJP has realised the power of Modi’s personality and has just decided to run with it. After the party took the decisive step of naming him their Prime Ministerial candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, what they are effectively telling the general population is that a vote for the BJP is also a vote for Narendra Modi. Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley, said as much in an interview to CNN-IBN, when he called the 2014 Parliamentary polls a “referendum on leadership”.

So what the party has effectively done here is negate the threat of Modi’s personality by harnessing it instead. By bowing down to it, they also ensured that all his fans who were clamouring for his nomination, are also placated.

This means then, that the shenanigans around the Chief Minister’s personality - be it road shows, T-shirts, masks or whatever other hoopla that can be devised -will ultimately work for the BJP too.