Editorial: Is 400 par for the course?

NEW DELHI: Soundings taken at midpoint of an election should normally give a sense of the coming mandate if not a foretaste of it. This time, however, with three phases of polling done, there is no agreement on which way the winds are blowing. That in itself should make the BJP uneasy. Four weeks ago, the ruling party was crowing about Abki Baar 400 Paar, and polling agencies were predicting a safe 320+ haul for it. Conversations have since then become less certain, with prophesies now clustering around the 250 mark. Also, some factors dismissed as irrelevant to the outcome have returned to the reckoning  credibility of EVMs, jobs and mangalsutras.

While the poll season is in a state of suspended certainty, a few clear departures from the ruling party's script have come to the fore. The first of these is the post haste abandonment of the 400+ slogan. After rousing the troops with that slogan in his end-of-term speech to the BJP Parliamentary Party in February, the PM stopped using it by the first phase of polling on April 19. Reports of voting percentages dipping 6% have cooled the BJPs enthusiasm and, any mention of the number is now waved away with the remark that it was not a forecast.

The next shibboleth to fall was the one that said the only issue in this election is Modi himself. As failed strategies go, this has been the BJPs biggest miss. The party adopted it at its national executive in January 2023 when it attributed all its achievements to him, and swore to offer him to the people as the only answer they needed. From that point, when its nine-point political resolution chanted his name 39 times, to the release of its manifesto, which mentioned him 79 times, it has been Modi all the way. In the run-up to polls, spectacles hoped to generate an aura around him  the G20 meet, the Sengol drama, or the Ayodhya Pran Prathishtha.

However, under the electoral sun, the aura has evanesced as bread-and-butter issues such as employment and poverty continue to dog the campaign. With local and provincial leaders barred from speaking, Modi has, for the first time since 2014, struggled to make the election all about himself. His efforts to do so have grown feebler, ranging from lachrymose interviews to milking emotions with his mangalsutra innuendo. He has strayed from his Modi is the message_ pitch and ended up making items from the Congress agenda the main campaign concerns. Thats how social, power and income inequality, and wealth distribution have become the issues of this election. The benefits to the BJP from these talking points are uncertain to say the least.

The most critical departure from form relates to the Constitution. Three months ago, BJP was in a buccaneering mood as regards the fundamental precepts of our statute, throwing hints that it couldnt wait to amend its basic features. The poll campaign has all but killed this fervour. Fear of a voter backlash had seemingly gripped top campaigners, including the PM, who in the past two weeks, took pains to assure voters that the statute wouldnt be touched. Not even Dr Ambedkar can discard the Constitution, Modi said as apprehensions spread among subalterns that amending the statute meant an end to reservations. If any certainty has emerged from the election campaign so far, it is that sacred spectres still protect this nation from kings and tyrants.