Is BJP Running Scared of Opposition's INDIA?

With this kind of coinage, the Opposition seems to be readily conceding the point that Modi is taller than all of them put together.
So they need something bigger than themselves, collectively or not, to capture the voter imagination when it is about taking on Modi and the BJP in 2024, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.

Ruling BJP strategists at the Centre should be straining their every nerve -- to find ways and means to stop the combined Opposition from using the term 'INDIA' as their main campaign slogan in next year's Lok Sabha polls.

By the same token, they should also be cursing the wordsmith who had coined that terminology, though with a convoluted expansion.

Unveiling the new anti-BJP campaign slogan, INDIA, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge fumbled to declare that the term stood for 'Indian National Developmental, Inclusive Alliance'.

There seemed to have been some leftist reservations to the new name, but they too were overwhelmed by the overall support from other regional satraps, who are the real backbone of the new combine.

INDIA is the closest that the Opposition has come after Sonia Gandhi's 'Aam Aadmi' against the ruling BJP's 'India Shining!' campaign in 2004.

The rival slogans said it all, and the former won the day as the aam aadmi, or the common man, concluded that at least his India was not shining.

The same, the Opposition now hopes and prays, would be the fate of Modi's successful 2014 slogan, 'Achche Din', meaning 'Good days are here'.

They now want to prove to the people that it is not an 'acche din' either for the 'aam aadmi' -- as only the rich have become richer and the poor, poorer, in 'Modi's India'.

For now, however, the wordy duel is all about 'INDIA' against 'Bharat', though the Constitution begins with the phrase, 'India that is Bharat'.

That flows from political Hindutva's arrogation of the slogan 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' which has been with them almost since the birth of the RSS.

'Vande Mataram' is their other slogan that has traversed with time and has become universally known across the country, whether universally popular and acceptable or not.

So much so even in the so-called apolitical Kisan Baburao 'Anna' Hazare's anti-corruption crusade at the height of UPA-2 regime in New Delhi, these slogans were heard at periodic intervals, the response being 'Inquilab Zindabad' from the other side of the audience.

The slogans were thus a clean give-away on who had populated the protest crowd, whatever be Hazare's trust and belief.

Today, the new coinage is intended to place the whole nation against Modi, who is the ruling BJP-NDA's electoral mascot still.

'INDIA against Modi' may be the Opposition's slogan, pun intended. Minus the slogans, it is back to the days of 'Indira Vs the Rest' especially after her party president Dev Kanta Barooah's coinage, 'India is Indira'.

The Congress has since gone one step further with their slogan 'Bharat Jeetega' , or 'Bharat will win', or 'India will win'.

At one stroke, the party has not only hijacked at least the term Bharat from the BJP's traditional slogan, but also translated it from their new alliance name, 'INDIA', to mean one and the same thing.

It remains to be seen if in Hindi, too, they are going to come up with an expansion of the term 'Bharat' now, to make it an acronym like the other.

Yet, with this kind of coinage, the Opposition seems to be readily conceding the point that Modi is taller than all of them put together -- a fact invariably none of them contests, either.

So they need something bigger than themselves, collectively or not, to capture the voter imagination when it is about taking on Modi and the BJP in 2024.

What is even more surprising is the BJP's reaction. As was to be expected, BJP-friendly social media posts do not respond to INDIA's charges and allegations against the Modi leadership, present and past.

Instead, they have gone back to their favourite game of nuanced attack on concepts that are not theirs.

On this particular one, there is already a social media post that reads thus: 'Isn't the acronym INDIA itself against the provisions of the Emblems & Names (Prevention of Improper Use) Act, 1950, especially Section 6 & 7, read with read with Article 1 of the Constitution? Are they sure it will (not) backfire on them?'

Whether or not the choice of the alliance name backfires on the Opposition combine, sure enough, it has done so for the BJP.

Hence, there is such a reaction as this one. No one should thus be surprised if any time between now and the elections next year someone somewhere moves the Election Commission or the courts, or both, seeking a ban on the usage of the term 'INDIA'.

It is not unlikely more than one person or (front) organisation could move the Election Commission and the judiciary, from the various high courts to the Supreme Court.

If not now, they have to be prepared for select returning officers in select constituencies in select states throwing out select nomination papers, citing the usage of the term 'INDIA' -- even though it would not find a place anywhere in the filled-up nomination form.

After all, individual candidates are going to contest only on their party name and symbol, and INDIA as an acronym would have no place there.

The Constitution does not recognise political parties, and the Representation of the People Act does not recognise electoral alliances of the kind, pre-poll or post-poll.

In the normal course, the Election Commission would thus have no say in the matter.

Nor would the judiciary have any for the same reason prima facie, even if called upon to adjudicate the matter.

But like in the context of provisions on 'inciting communal hatred' and the like in other cases seeking a ban of whatever kind, the Emblems & Names Act might be called in for support. And it can happen closer to the polls, if not polling day.

If that were the case, there may be a catch for those challenging the Opposition alliance.

Already the Congress has the word 'India/Indian' in its full name. It is the 'Indian National Congress'.

So is the Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India-Marxist, etc. It does not stop there. If it is 'India that is Bharat', then the name 'Bharatiya Janata Party' too may have to come under the scanner of the Election Commission and the judiciary. It could thus be a non-starter.

Whether or not the BJP is jittery, or the Opposition fears a backfire on its alliance name, the way the former is going about it all seems to be giving the latter the confidence that they may after all be on the right track.

The successive Enforcement Directorate raids on Tamil Nadu's DMK ministers, after the first Opposition conclave in Patna (against Electricity and Excise Minister Senthil Balaji) and now on the very eve of the Bangalore meet (on Higher Education Minister K Ponmudy) is a clean give-away, if one is needed.

Whether there is any link or not, the fact is that seven of the 26 INDIA member-parties are from Tamil Nadu.

Devarajan, who represented the Forward Bloc at Bengaluru, is also from the state -- taking the grand total to eight.

It is nobody's case that there is no case against the two ministers, particularly when it pertained to the pre-Modi era at the Centre. But it has become hard for everyone, including local BJP cadres, to belief that the timing of the raid was just a coincidence.

If anything, the ED raids have come as a free publicity for the Opposition conclaves, sending out the unintended message that the BJP was not comfortable to face them all together in Elections 2024.

Equally so is Modi's perceived over-reaction, of hitting out at the two Opposition conclaves instantaneously, as if they mattered to him, and his party may have started fearing their collective accent.

The party need not ignore the fact of their collective or their conclaves.

But for the prime minister, that, too, a peerless leader like Modi, to take them all at every turn may have worked even five years earlier -- but not necessary now.

That is to say, the BJP may be in need of fresh thinking and ideas, as like the much-touted 'India Shining!' campaign, their current efforts too could bomb at the hustings.

As if his personal intervention at every turn was not enough, Modi has obviously caused a parallel NDA conclave on the same day as the joint Opposition's Bengaluru meet.

It looked as if someone in the BJP's strategy team want to thumb his nose at the Opposition, that 'you have only 26 parties, but we have 39'.

To the voter on the street, those numbers don't really matter.

He is aware that the BJP is not only the single largest party in the NDA but also the single largest party in the country.

The Congress comes a very distant second. Barring the AIADMK in the NDA, the rest of them are all pigmies in every which way.

In comparison, many -- though not all -- of the constituent-parties in the Opposition combine are not write-offs.

N Sathiya Moorthy, veteran journalist and author, is a Chennai-based policy analyst and political commentator.

Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com