Will a rising East Wind hit Modi govt in 2019?

With the Narendra Modi government blocking the admission of the Opposition’s no-confidence motion, it is quite possible that the Lok Sabha will continue to be adjourned on flimsy pretexts till the Budget Session ends on April 6.

Although this will deny the Opposition a parliamentary forum to criticise the government, recent moves suggest that it might not prevent them from coming together before the 2019 general election.

The Speaker of the Lok Sabha daily throws up her hands saying that because of disruptions in the House she is unable to count 50 MPs who need to stand up in favour of admitting the no-confidence motion. At first it was the Congress and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) MPs agitating in the Well of the House demanding a debate on the Nirav Modi fraud and special status for Andhra respectively. Then the no-confidence motion galvanised the non-BJP Opposition parties.

Since March 18, it is the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) MPs who have forced adjournments. Political observers believe that they are inadvertently or willingly playing into the hands of the parliamentary floor managers of the ruling BJP.

The no-confidence motion is not about the numbers in the Lok Sabha. On that count, the government is safe. It is about debating the performance of the government. It would seem that the Modi government does not want a live telecast of the Opposition lambasting it, following its resounding electoral defeats in the Gorakhpur, Phulpur and Araria Lok Sabha byelections.

The BJP and its allies should have nothing to fear from a debate in the Lok Sabha where they outnumber the Opposition. However, in Prime Minister Narendra Modi the government has a leader who will not stand for any public criticism of his government. Unlike veteran BJP leaders Atal Behari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani, he is not a product of parliamentary discussions. He has little use for parliamentary debate — unless he himself is holding forth — and sees it only as an opportunity for an “unworthy” Opposition to attack him.

While the government’s record can be criticised on a host of issues, perhaps the one that scares the Modi government most is a debate on the `13,580-crore bank fraud perpetrated by Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi right under the eyes of this government. After all, the Opposition jibe “Chhota Modi” has now stuck to Nirav Modi, and the irony of the PM using the intimate form “hamare Mehulbhai” — literally, “my brother Mehul” — to single out Choksi at a public function at his residence is not lost in the public’s perception.

The government thinks that it may have successfully pushed the “Chhota Modi” issue to the background by publicly pursuing corruption cases against the son of former finance minister P. Chidambaram and announcing the death of 39 Indian workers in Iraq. But a debate on a no-confidence motion would reopen the issue and allow the Opposition to consolidate.

Yet the BJP cannot be unaware of a series of recent developments indicating that a realignment of Opposition forces is taking place.

In the Lok Sabha bypolls in UP, the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) were brought together by fear of BJP president Amit Shah breaking their parties through promises of power and pelf. It is a strategy he has successfully followed elsewhere in the country.

The electoral alliance in UP has spoiled the political atmosphere for the BJP in the run-up to 2019. The manic support that existed for Mr Modi in 2013 before the last general election, with crowds chanting “Modi-Modi”, is completely absent today. The SP-BSP victory and their intention to work together has effectively exorcised the Modi-mania or whatever support was left for the BJP after its disastrous economic policies and its violently divisive Hindutva drive.

Even the windsock of Indian politics, Ram Vilas Paswan of the Lok Janshakti Party, an ally of the BJP, appeared to be politically repositioning himself with his comment that the “NDA needs to take along all sections of society”, though he has since recanted. And the man who-could-have-been-king until he chose political hara-kiri, Nitish Kumar of the Janata Dal (United), has begun to argue for building “an inclusive society” and to appreciate some virtues in the way the Congress governs. Recently a virtual political nobody like Om Prakash Rajbhar of the Suheldev Bahujan Samaj Party got away with the threat that he would not vote for the BJP candidate in the coming Rajya Sabha elections in UP unless he was given an “appointment” with BJP president Amit Shah. These straws seem to indicate a rising wind against the Modi government.

The last 10 days alone have seen a number of initiatives aimed at taking on the BJP frontally. Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s dinner for the Opposition attracted 20 political parties; while Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar is holding a similar event on March 27; even the TDP has broken its alliance with the BJP to move a no-confidence motion against the government; Trinamul Congress leader Mamata Banerjee has held a meeting with K. Chandrashekhar Rao of the TRS to explore the formation of a non-BJP, non-Congress alliance of regional parties; Congress president Rahul Gandhi has called on Sharad Pawar; and at the 84th plenary session of the Congress a political resolution has been adopted calling for “a pragmatic approach to cooperation with all like-minded parties” and “a common workable programme” against the BJP in the next general election.

Of these moves, Ms Banerjee and Mr Rao’s proposed “federal front” has the potential to divide the non-BJP Opposition. In trying to battle the Congress in their respective regions, these leaders may undermine the larger national level struggle of the Opposition to oust the BJP. As of now, however, these are exploratory moves and their outcomes are uncertain. It may be too early to judge whether the rising East Wind will grow strong enough to wither the Narendra Modi government in 2019.