Sushil Kutty
Devendra Fadnavis, likely to be appointed Maharashtra Chief Minister, tweeted ‘Ek Hai toh safe hai’ as the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance was heading for sure-shot victory, concluding with ‘Modi hai toh Mumkin hai’. This, as celebration broke outside his residence and women in pink (the colour of ‘Ladli Behan Yojana’) danced and proclaimed him the next Maharashtra Chief Minister while somebody was heard saying, “Fadnavis Pradhan Mantri Narendra Modi Ka Ladla Hai”.
Narendra Modi is credited with coining ‘Ek hai toh safe hai’, a copy of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s original ‘Ek hai tohnek hai’. The Prime Minister had to think hard to come up with the “safe” version, which he did towards the end of campaigning in Maharashtra, and which was quickly snapped up by Modi’s legion of sycophants, both in the Bharatiya Janata Party and in the media, BJP led Mahajyuti trounced the MVA by getting 233 seats as against 49 by the INDIA bloc. BJP’s own tally crossed 133 seats.
On “Victory Day, November 23, these trusted sycophants did their given job, and credited ‘Ek Hai toh safe hai’ for the Mahayuti landslide. In the process, they forgot Yogi Adityanath’s ‘Batenge toh katenge’ and ‘Ek rahoge toh nek rahoge’. It was as if Maharashtra hadn’t heard ‘Batenge toh katenge’; it was as if AIMPLB’s Sajjad Nomani didn’t find ‘Batenge toh katenge’ hard to digest and didn’t go all out to eliminate the threat.
The entire focus on November 23 was to erase ‘Batenge toh katenge’ from the collective memory of the people of Maharashtra, those of them who took note of ‘Batenge toh katenge’ and voted for the Mahayuti, and those others who reacted to ‘Batenge toh katenge’ and voted against the ‘Mahayuti’. The Prime Minister’s image of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ was preeminent, especially on the international stage, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s image stood disabused and wounded because of the US indictment of Gujarat’s model citizen and Modi’s friend, billionaire Gautam Adani.
Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut spoke of the Adani-Modi nexus and alluded to its role in the Mahayuti victory. Raut straightaway went for the ‘Modani’ jugular and refused as “unacceptable” the Maharashtra poll results. “This is an Adani victory,” Raut pointed out, “There is something fishy about it.”
This as BJP spokespersons and BJP-friendly media buried ‘Batenge toh katenge’ and highlighted the Prime Minister’s ‘Ek hai toh safe hai’ as the sole reason for the Mahayuti victory. So much so, it didn’t matter that Sajjad Nomani took out all his ire on ‘Batenge toh katenge’ to galvanize Muslims against BJP. Prime Minister Narendra Modi wanted to win Maharashtra without snubbing the Muslim vote banks of secular parties.
For Modi ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ was his comfort zone. But the BJP couldn’t go ahead with its campaign without ‘Batenge toh katenge’ for the votes it promised to fetch. At the same time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was scared of the implications of this communal slogan to his global quests. Also, there was the spectre of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath getting too big for his boots. And too popular for the Prime Minister’s peace of mind.
The last resort was his rank and file of sycophants. Gone are the days when “Modi Magic” took everything in Modi’s way by storm. The slogan ‘Batenge toh katenge’ is still going strong and will outlast even Modi. The BJP’s Hindu vote-bank wants more than just assurances. And Hindus are overwhelmingly tired of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’. Nobody heard anybody talking of ‘Modi Magic’ throughout the BJP campaign for the Maharashtra polls.
Devendra Fadnavis spoke of ‘Dharma Yudh’ as he went all out against Aurangzeb and Asaduddin Owaisi, studiously ignoring Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s sentiments or any mention of ‘EkHaitoh safe hai’. Today, on November 23, after the Mahayuti sweep, when a Chief Minister has to be chosen ASAP, Devendra Fadnavis tweeted ‘Ek hai toh safe hai, Modi hai to Mumkin hai’ on ‘X’ and everybody in Maharashtra knows why?
Point to note is, Modi’s development agenda has to be kept front and centre and distractions like Hindu vote consolidation shouldn’t come in the way of Modi’s quest for ‘Greatness’. Modi wants to be recognized as the architect of “Developed India” just like Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was recognized as the “architect of Modern India”.
The irony is, Modi is not universally loved, like Nehru, as the early historians, who had written about Nehru, long before Modi even thought of Nehru as a model to follow. The irony is also that Prime Minister Narendra Modi knows very well that without Hindu votes consolidation, Maharashtra would not be in the NDA kitty. The Muslim votebank of the Congress and the Samajwadi Party understood this simple truth, which threatened to undo their plans and which made them go all out against the BJP.
The fact is, Modi is caught between two sets of hard calculations. And the BJP’s Prime Minister has buried his head in the sand because his international image and national compulsions are divergent. Therefore, the narrative shifted to crediting ‘Ladli Behna Yojana’ with the Maharashtra victory. It helped that more women voted this time in Maharashtra.
It also gives the BJP the choice of saying that even Muslim women, who benefited from ‘Ladli Behan Yojana’, voted for Modi. But this is like saying that Hindu women weren’t influenced by ‘Batenge toh katenge’; as if Hindu women were less Hindu than their male counterparts. Isn’t it also a fact that most Muslim women are more Muslim than their male members?
The reality is, there is every possibility that more women, Hindu and Muslim, voted in this Maharashtra election than in any earlier Maharashtra election, both sets of female voters casting their votes on religious and communal lines. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is blinded by his own compulsions. If he refuses to change track and tack, chances are he will be out of reckoning long before the next general elections.
This Maharashtra assembly election was swept by a wave of Hindu vote consolidation, period. It has left both the Opposition and the Muslim vote-bank of secular opposition parties stunned. It is time for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to get real and stay grounded. (IPA)
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