1n Ok folks, you know I don’t much do electoral stuff, but 2019 is going to turn out to be another 2004. Here’s why. 2004 had nothing to do with India shining. The root cause was Vajpayee irritated the RSS so much, their cadre sat it out without mobilising the rank & file. 2019..
2n is similar but different. Of the 31% Modi won, 19% was the core BJP base & 12% the aspirational youth that Modi added through personal charisma. For this 12%, there have been no jobs save pakoda making if that. The 19% - the “urban baniyas” have been the hardest hit by Demo &
3n significantly inconvenienced by GST & new accounting methods etc. Worse still, the “empowerment” of bureaucrats that this PM loves so much, has only increased not decreased the low level day to day tyranny & harassment the middle & lower classes feel. Worse still this..
4n 19% have a significant Hindu identity element, a constituency he has done exactly ZERO for, be it devolving the temples or repealing the disastrous Right to Education act. The ayodhya case again is being spearheaded by others not him. Finally on anti corruption: he hasn’t ..
5n lifted a finger. The person who’s been doing the heavy lifting & giving the BJP any semblance of credibility on this score is Subramanian Swamy. I don’t like anecdotal “my Driver said” stuff, but my talks over the last 6-12 months with my industrialist friends has the same..
6n theme. The small ones have WITHOUT EXCEPTION as in every single one, faced heavy losses. The big industrial houses have seen a downturn. What irks these big houses is the “request to contribute funds”. Unlike previous governments that solicited specific bribes for specific..
7n contracts, these contributions are merely to survive. In that sense it is not corruption, it’s worse: its extortion, a gentle mafia style reminder to “pay up or else” with the “or else” remaining indeterminate. Now normally I would have put this down to gossip, but 13 magnates
8n who I went to school or college with, most of whom don’t know each other, can’t be coordinating the exact same Porkie Pie can they? In short Modi has lost the 12% he got & severely diluted the 19% core & lost the confidence of big business. They wont vote for Rahul, but theyre
9n sure as hell not voting for Modi. What is he betting on? The “poor”, a class that is notoriously fickle. Remember how they abandoned the UPA that had done the maximum by way of sops for them? To be fair some of Modis schemes seem to be working - rural electrification & toilets
10n for example. The issue is they are so fickle you don’t know what sets them off. This uncertainty is compounded by the visible agrarian distress that one sees. Effectively Modi has sacrificed the bird in hand & is chasing 2 in the bush.
11n All up my prognosis is no more than 190 seats for the BJP in 2019 at most, but more likely around the fallback of 140-150.
12n and just to clarify, since we have readers with suboptimal English: The RSS will not sit 2019 out... they will move heaven & earth to make Modi win. It is the middle class that’ll sit this one out... the same middle class that formed the backbone of the BJP for 40 years
