Editorial: When the PM turns 75
The BJP’s pet media and its army of trolls on social media stoked the notion that there was no alternative to Modi and that five more years of him were a foregone conclusion.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Singhbhum public rally (ANI)
NEW DELHI: The unexpected release on bail of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is a major turning point in the current election season. It came just as doubts had begun to creep into the consensus that the nation is resigned to Narendra Modi. With the latter scoring some astounding own goals in the past two weeks, the match stood delicately poised, and the entry of a skilled polemicist like Kejriwal is likely to impart greater vigour to the opposition campaign just ahead of the fourth phase of voting on Monday.
When Kejriwal was arrested on March 21, Narendra Modi appeared to voters as a swashbuckler who could not be bested. The BJP’s pet media and its army of trolls on social media stoked the notion that there was no alternative to Modi and that five more years of him were a foregone conclusion. This must have been reassuring to the vast numbers of cult-like followers of Modi. But it took no more than 24 hours for the freed Kejrwal to sow doubt into such minds.
In his speech to Delhi voters on Saturday, the Aam Aadmi Party leader drove two prongs of suspicion into the core of the BJP’s campaign in this election. One was the prospect of Modi retiring after turning 75 in September and handing over the reins to someone younger, possibly Amit Shah, abiding by a precept he himself employed to rid himself of L K Advani and other potential challengers. The other was the mutual wariness between Modi and UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath, who is seen by a considerable section of the BJP as a potential challenger. Together, these two propositions are likely to play on the minds of fence-sitting voters in the Hindi belt constituencies that will vote in the remaining phases of the election.
Just as the prospect of Modi retreating into vanaprastha ashrama is alluring to the nation’s liberals, it is discomfiting to the Modi-loving middle class, especially the corollary of him being succeeded by Amit Shah or Adityanath. In cult followings, the laity’s faith in the guru never quite passes to his favourite disciple. The idea of voting for Modi and then seeing their mandate handed over to his acolyte is not what core BJP voters bargained for when this campaign began. Kejriwal’s bold thrust seems to have gone home. Less than a day later, Amit Shah hastened to assure voters that Modi will serve beyond his self-set superannuation age of 75. Nonetheless the doubt has been sown.
Kejriwal’s intent may only have been Machiavellian but age is an important, if not decisive, point to consider. It’s true that India has been guided through challenging times by leaders in their senior years. Manmohan Singh was 72 when he became PM in 2004 and gave us some of our most progressive legislations and navigated us through the Great Financial Crisis of 2008. P V Narasimha Rao was 70 in 1992 and led us through the throes of liberalisation. However, the world over, the trend is towards younger leaders and lawmakers, both on the liberal and conservative side. India in the past 10 years has been travelling in the opposite direction, with its Lok Sabha getting older. The average age of MPs has increased from 46.5 years in the first Lok Sabha (1952) to 55 in the latest. Older leaders do bring wisdom but are burdened by the past, while younger leaders are likelier to be policy smart. In this respect, our states have made the generational shift much sooner and more smoothly than the Centre with Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra leading the way.
