Modi Plays Musical Chairs

This story was first published by Tehelka (www.tehelka.com) on 14 November 2014 under the headline Modi Plays Musical Chairs.

After an initial burst of out-of-the-box thinking, Narendra Modi chooses to play it safe and get his Cabinet’s caste arithmetic right ahead of key Assembly elections. Can the BJP still claim to be a party with a difference? asks Ramesh Ramachandran

A

 week is a long time in politics and for the BJP four days were more than sufficient for the script to play itself out. After installing his protégé Amit Shah as BJP president in July, Prime Minister Narendra Modi waited for the afterglow of the BJP’s spectacular win in Maharashtra and Haryana to set in before expanding his council of ministers. Over the past weekend, he rewarded political turncoats from the Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal with ministerial berths, shuffled his pack of ministers by inducting new faces and put underperformers on notice all at once so that he achieved the following:

• get the political (read caste) arithmetic right before more states in the Hindi heartland go to polls;

• suitably reward the states that have stood by him and the BJP;

• swing the balance of power on Raisina Hill, which houses the North and South Blocks and, by extension, the Cabinet Committee on Security, decisively in his favour; and

• keep his detractors within the party and in the RSS, the BJP’s ideological mentor, in good humour.

Come Wednesday and the Modi-Shah duo carried forward the unscrupulous ease and clinical precision with which they executed the expansion of the Union Cabinet, to Mumbai, where they coerced the Shiv Sena into submission and co-opted the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) for ensuring that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis easily won the trust vote in the Assembly. Incidentally, this was the same ncp that Modi had described as a “Naturally Corrupt Party” during the Maharashtra election campaign. No matter that in dumping its idea of being a party with a difference for realpolitik, the BJP lent itself to the charge of rank opportunism. In between expanding his Cabinet and marshalling his resources in Maharashtra, Modi hosted former Kashmiri separatist leader Sajjad Lone while Shah, for his part, welcomed Congress leader Karan Singh’s younger son Ajatshatru Singh into the BJP fold as Modi and Shah plotted their “Mission 44” by triggering a realignment of forces in the run-up to the Assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir.

For the discerning, the events of those four days showcased the best and worst sides of a party riding high on a winning streak. From airlifting a Manohar Parrikar from Goa to head the defence ministry and resurrecting a Suresh Prabhu from political oblivion by giving him the plum portfolio of the railway ministry to (correctly) calling the Shiv Sena’s bluff of severing all ties with the BJP, Modi and Shah worked in perfect unison to outwit friends and foes alike. It was a hark back to 2005 when Modi expanded his council of ministers in Gujarat after winning the 2002 Assembly election. Then, as now, he relented and agreed to induct more ministers only after fortifying his position by getting a man of his choice (Vajubhai Vala) installed as BJP president in Gujarat. Then, as now, he gave ministerial berths to some who were not necessarily seen as being his camp followers in a bid to disarm his detractors within the party. And then, as now, he effected an expansion of his council of ministers only out of compulsion. If, then, it was BJP patriarch LK Advani who nudged Modi to induct more ministers into his Cabinet, it was an appreciation of Shah’s political compulsions ahead of key Assembly elections (Bihar in 2015, West Bengal in 2016 and Uttar Pradesh and Punjab in 2017, among others) coupled with his own desire to salvage what remains of his ambitious agenda of rationalising ministries in order to give to the people “minimum government, maximum governance” that forced Modi to undertake the exercise now.

Spot the difference

Modi took care to allot or reallocate portfolios in keeping with an administrative logic that aims to reduce bureaucratic inertia and put economic reforms on the fast track. The induction of an IIT-alumnus Parrikar as the defence minister, a chartered accountant Prabhu as the railway minister or a Harvard-educated former investment banker Jayant Sinha as the minister of state for finance bears him out. However, for a prime minister who advised Maharashtra Chief Minister Fadnavis to worry about how to serve the people rather than how to save his government, some of Modi’s own decisions smacked of double standards and tantamounted to putting survival over principle. This, when not so long ago, addressing the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Modi had held forth on his agenda for an aspirational India. “Earlier there was a habit in our country to keep small groups happy. Divide in small groups and keep your vote bank intact. This has changed now. The thinking of the young generation of India has changed. The young generation of the country does not want to live in parts. The change has come due to the youth,” he said, explaining how he wanted to transcend caste and community considerations to create opportunities for a neo-middle class.

Modi had aroused expectations of ushering in a change in the way India would be governed but some of those hopes seem to have been belied by his succumbing to tokenism, caste considerations or the ubiquitous identity or vote-bank politics. Consequently, electoral considerations more than merit seem to have been at play here. Again, in trying to project that he has given a fair representation to Dalits and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in his council of ministers, Modi inducted certain persons with criminal cases, including that of attempted murder, registered against them. For instance, Ram Shankar Katheria has a case of attempted murder, among others, against him. Also, Modi perpetuated a stereotype that a Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi was only fit for the portfolio of minority affairs. Having said that, Modi has yet managed to keep dynasts (such as Varun Gandhi, Anurag Thakur or Dushyant Singh) away from his Cabinet, but one would still be forgiven to ask, “So what’s the difference between him and others before him?” or “Can the BJP still claim to be a party with a difference?”

The induction of certain ministers such as Vijay Sampla from Punjab and Katheria from Uttar Pradesh, both Dalits, or Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, also from Uttar Pradesh, who hails from the most backward Nishad caste, indicated a BJP strategy to woo and to broaden its appeal among the Dalits, the backward classes and the intermediate castes. Clearly, the BJP has trained its guns on the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab by projecting Sampla as its Dalit face in the state. Sampla is the mp from Hoshiarpur, which falls in the Doaba region where the BSP claims to have a base. Sampla’s elevation should also be seen as an indication of the BJP’s desire to branch out on its own in Punjab. The BJP has already appointed Katheria, the minister of state in the human resource development ministry, as the party in-charge for Punjab.

Birender Singh, a Jat and a former Congressman from Haryana, was inducted in the Cabinet so that the Jat community did not feel alienated, especially after the BJP’s win in the recent Haryana Assembly election on account of the consolidation of the non-Jat vote. Sanwar Lal Jat, who belongs to the Jat community from Rajasthan, found a place in the Cabinet, too.

 Again, by giving ministerial berths to Giriraj Singh, a Bhumihar, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, a Rajput who is considered close to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Ram Kripal Yadav, a Yadav, all hailing from Bihar, the BJP intended to convey the message that it valued their contributions and hopes to ride on the back of their support when elections are held in the state. Similarly, Babul Supriyo’s induction as the minister of state for urban development indicated the BJP’s plans to make a foray into West Bengal.

With the expansion of the council of ministers, now there are 66 ministers with 26 ministers of Cabinet rank (excluding Prime Minister Modi), 13 ministers of state (independent charge) and 26 ministers of state. The average age of the ministers is 59. (Earlier, there were 46 ministers in Modi’s Cabinet. The number dropped by one, to 45, after Gopinath Munde’s death.) Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have pride of place in the council of ministers with 13 and eight ministers, respectively, followed by Maharashtra (six); Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh (five each); Karnataka (four); Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan (three each); Goa, Jharkhand and Punjab (two each); and Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Telangana and Delhi (one each.) The states that went unrepresented were Kerala, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and Meghalaya. If it should be of any consolation to the northeastern states, the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (or doner) has been placed under the independent charge of Jitendra Singh, who is a minister of state in the Prime Minister’s Office. Although one more woman (Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti) was inducted into the council of ministers with a minister of state rank, the percentage of women as a whole in the Cabinet dropped from 26 percent to 22 percent and in the entire council of ministers from 15 percent to 12 percent.

An essay in comprehension

Unwittingly, Modi’s penchant for the unconventional failed to live up to its billing, at least insofar as the “historic change” that he had sought to introduce “in the formation of ministries” as a step towards “smart governance” was concerned. Before he was sworn in as prime minister on 26 May, a press release issued on his behalf had said, “For the first time, he adopted guiding principle of ‘minimum government and maximum governance’ and also rationalisation with a commitment to bring a change in the work  culture and style of governance. It is a good beginning in transforming entity of assembled ministries to organic ministries. It will bring more coordination between different departments, will be more effective and bring a speed in process. The focus is on convergence in the activities of various ministries where one Cabinet minister will be heading a cluster of ministries who are working in complimentary sectors. Mr Modi is eventually aiming at smart governance where the top layers of government will be downsized and there would be expansion at the grassroot level” (sic).

Accordingly, one saw certain key ministries bring grouped together and placed under select ministers but it was dictated more by personalities than processes. Consequently, Arun Jaitley was given the twin (and disparate) portfolios of finance and defence, Ravi Shankar Prasad got law and telecommunications and Prakash Javadekar came to head the ministries of environment and information and broadcasting. To use an analogy, a chess player would find it difficult to advance in a game if his repertoire of openings did not evolve as the game progressed; similarly, Modi, much to his dismay, found himself saddled with a Cabinet that did not quite shape up, or performed, the way he would have liked, leaving him with little choice but to either make the necessary corrections or go back to the drawing board.

Another innovative idea, that of bifurcating the Ministry of External Affairs in order to have a dedicated department dealing with foreign trade and commerce, which Modi himself had flagged in 2013, seems to have fallen by the wayside. Among some of his other ideas that have not seen the light of day are deputing officers from the states to Indian missions abroad and designating a partner country for every state of the Indian Union depending on geographical contiguity or economic linkages.

* * * * * * *

Will Prabhu bring railways on track?

S

adananda Gowda’s loss was Suresh Prabhu’s gain. Gowda was one of two prominent casualties of the Cabinet expansion, the other being Dr Harsh Vardhan. While Gowda was eased out from the railway ministry and moved to the law ministry, Vardhan, who saw his health portfolio being taken away from him and given to JP Nadda, was put in charge of the science and technology ministry.

Prabhu (above) has the unenviable task of ushering in much-needed reforms in the railway ministry. His challenge will be to succeed where Gowda failed, namely, implement Modi’s reforms agenda by drawing up a roadmap for attracting FDI in this sector and make the railways operationally efficient.

Safety and customer service are Prabhu’s other immediate priorities. “The prime minister has decided that the condition of railways has to change. Our two focus areas will be customer service and railway safety as passenger safety is increasingly becoming an area of concern,” he said soon after taking charge of the ministry. The railways was an integrating factor for the economy and “if we work in this direction, we can propel economic growth”, he added for good measure.

The 61-year-old’s induction into the Cabinet was as dramatic as it could get. Shunned by his own party, the Shiv Sena, over the past decade, Prabhu was appointed by the Modi government as the head of an advisory group constituted for integrated development of power, coal and renewable energy. He is also the prime minister’s sherpa for the Group of 20 (G20) summit. On the morning of 9 November, he quit the Shiv Sena to take up the membership of the BJP and was subsequently sworn in as a Cabinet minister.

An Early Warning

This article was first published by Tehelka (www.tehelka.com) on 18 September 2014 under the headline "An Early Warning"

Rude awakening: Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have their task cut out for them and there is neither room for complacency nor scope for hubris

What do the bypoll results mean for the BJP and Narendra Modi? Ramesh Ramachandran and Virendra Nath Bhatt try to find some answers

It may be too early to conclude that the results of the recently concluded bypolls in nine states, particularly Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan and to a lesser extent Gujarat, are a referendum of sorts on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 100-odd-day-old government or, conversely, signal a Congress recovery after its humiliating loss in the recent General Election.

At best, they could and probably should be seen as an early warning for the BJP and its affiliates whose impulse has been to pick the low-hanging fruit in the form of, say, appealing to the baser instincts of man a la ‘love jihad’ than to making a concerted effort to build on attempts by BJP patriarchs Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani to make the BJP the natural party of governance.

Bypolls have now been held in 54 Assembly constituencies across 14 states (Uttarakhand in July; Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Karnataka in August; and Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Assam, West Bengal, Tripura and Sikkim in September) since the BJP-led NDA government came to power on 26 May. The BJP and its alliance partners had held 36 of those Assembly seats but they have managed to retain only 20 of them.

Whither Modi wave?

The BJP rode on Modi’s popularity to an unprecedented win in the General Election when it won 71 out of 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 25 seats in Rajasthan and all 26 seats in Gujarat. Amit Shah, who has since taken over as BJP chief, was largely seen as the architect of the party’s strategy in Uttar Pradesh. Cut to September and the party suffers a setback in varying degrees in each of those states, which is why the contrast is that much starker.

In Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat, which together account for 24 Assembly seats where bypolls were held, the BJP retained only 10 seats (it had 23 seats going in to the bypolls) while its ally, Apna Dal, lost the Rohaniya seat — which falls in the Varanasi parliamentary constituency held by Modi — to the Samajwadi Party (SP).

Apna Dal national president Krishna Patel only managed to garner 61,672 votes, whereas in the Lok Sabha election, Modi had polled 1.19 lakh votes from this Assembly segment alone. (Krishna Patel’s daughter Anupriya was the sitting MLA from Rohaniya when she was elected as the MP from Mirzapur.)

In Rajasthan, the Congress wrested the Nasirabad, Weir and Surajgarh seats from BJP, leaving the latter with only one win in Kota. Similarly, in Gujarat, the Congress won three seats and the BJP six.

The only consolation for the BJP was that it made its debut in the West Bengal Assembly by winning the Basirhat Dakshin seat.

Predictably, BJP spokespersons maintain that the bypolls results are not a reflection on Narendra Modi’s government or governance. They are quick to point out that bypolls in Assembly constituencies, as opposed to Lok Sabha seats, are generally fought on local issues and therefore too much should not be read into the results.

The Congress, on the other hand, claims that the verdict is a clear indication that voters have rejected the divisive politics practised by the BJP. Although some Congress office-bearers went overboard in their assessments of the party’s performance in the Rajasthan and Gujarat bypolls, the only sobering voice was that of Shakeel Ahmad, a general secretary and a spokesman of the party, who sought to suggest that although the verdict is more against the BJP than for a particular party, it would be incorrect to write it off or to say that the BJP has been rendered inconsequential. What Ahmad leaves unsaid is that the Congress was in a similar situation 10 years ago when it performed badly in the bypolls that were held immediately after the UPA came to power in 2004.

History bears it out, too. The party that wins a Lok Sabha election tends to perform below par in the Assembly bypolls immediately afterwards, especially if the Centre and the state(s) concerned are ruled by different parties or coalitions. That may, therefore, explain the BJP’s less-than-impressive performance in Rajasthan and Gujarat, where it is in power, and also its particularly disappointing tally in Uttar Pradesh, which is ruled by the SP. It is not to say that there are no other factors, or a combination thereof, that could be at play here: complacency, a lack of motivation, local issues holding sway over regional or pan-national concerns or even the choice of candidates are also known to have affected the outcome of a bypoll.

For the BJP in particular, Modi’s absence would have affected its political fortunes in the recent bypolls, too, which sends out another equally worrisome message to the party rank and file: that Modi is still the BJP’s (only?) best bet; that the BJP’s organisation and leadership in certain states are not as strong as it would like them to be; and that going forward, the services of Modi and a battery of other leaders would be required if the party wants to come good in the Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir this year, Bihar in 2015 and Uttar Pradesh in 2017, among others. (In the bypolls held in Bihar in August, the alliance between and among Janata Dal (United), Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress won six out of 10 seats.)

BJP campaign backfires in UP

So what went wrong for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh? At the outset, the BJP’s campaign in the run-up to the bypolls in the state saw the party employ some of the same rhetoric or tactics that one saw in the Lok Sabha election. That gambit may have worked for it then but not this time; on the contrary, it benefited the SP as the minorities voted en bloc for it even as the Dalits remained indifferent towards the BJP.

For a party that was voted to power at the Centre on a hugely popular poll plank of development, the BJP chose to whip up communal passions. For instance, Sakshi Maharaj, the sitting BJP MP from Unnao, described madrasas as a breeding ground of terrorists while Yogi Adityanath, the BJP MP from Gorakhpur, was accused of making inflammatory statements. Union minister Maneka Gandhi, in turn, claimed that money from meat trade was being used to fund terror activities. The BJP had also staged a month-long drama at Kaanth town in Moradabad after the district administration removed a loudspeaker from a temple frequented by the Dalits living in a predominantly Muslim village during Ramzan in the month of July.

Looking back, the law of diminishing returns appears to have put paid to the shrill campaign orchestrated by the likes of Yogi Adityanath and Sakshi Maharaj as it clearly failed to enthuse even the BJP's own supporters. Drafting Adityanath as a star campaigner proved to be another fatal flaw as the SP conveniently exploited it to its advantage. Fearing communal polarisation, the SP and the Congress fielded few Muslim candidates; the Congress fielded two Muslims and SP one. As it turns out, the SP’s lone Muslim candidate won from Thakurdwara, defeating the BJP candidate by more than 27,000 votes.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the BJP singularly failed to capitalise on the strong anti-incumbency against the Akhilesh Yadav government, whose tenure has been marked by an unprecedented power crisis; a record number of incidents of communal tension and riots, including, but not limited to, Muzaffarnagar; and a steep rise in crimes against women.

Pramod Kumar, a professor at Lucknow University, says that the BJP probably misattributed its performance in the Lok Sabha elections in the state to communal polarisation when it was actually the development plank, strongly marketed by Modi in his inimitable style of communication, which influenced the voters.

On balance, if a political obituary for Modi and the BJP is premature, so are the assertions by a section of the political parties ranged against the NDA, particularly the SP, that the results of the bypolls indicate a strong voter preference for their respective leaderships or programmes. The SP wrested seven out of the 10 seats held by BJP (and one seat held by Apna Dal). It won the Charkhari Assembly seat, in Bundelkhand region, vacated by Union minister Uma Bharti, with a comfortable margin of more than 50,000 votes; the Congress came second and the BJP third. Incidentally, the bypolls were necessitated in the state because the BJP MLAs from all 11 seats have since been elected to Parliament.

Akhilesh Yadav, who completed 30 months in office on 15 September, says that the voters have reposed their faith in the SP in spite of the criticism heaped on the party and the government by its political rivals and media alike.

“Communal forces should draw a clear lesson from the poll verdict… the voters have rejected them and endorsed the development agenda of the Samajwadi Party government,” says Yadav.

A senior SP leader, in turn, says, “It is the end of the so-called Modi magic or wave… For the BJP, the party is over.”

However, AK Verma, who teaches political science at Christ Church College in Kanpur, counters by saying that the results of the bypolls to 11 seats can neither be interpreted as an indictment of the Modi government nor an endorsement of the Akhilesh Yadav government.

An analysis of the SP’s performance would also not be complete without first understanding the consequences of the BSP’s decision to keep away from the bypolls. In the March 2012 Assembly election, the BSP had finished second in six out of the 11 Assembly constituencies where the bypolls were held. This time, the SP managed to get some Dalit votes, particularly in the Bundelkhand region (Hamirpur and Charkhari seats) and eastern Uttar Pradesh (Sirathu seat in Kaushambi and Balha in Bahraich).

In Bundelkhand, the victory margins of the SP candidates — with more than 66,000 votes — gives a clear indication that this would not be possible without a chunk of the Dalit votes voting for the SP. Also, the Congress did not have winnable candidates in the bypolls. That meant that the BJP was in a direct contest with the SP as compared to the four-cornered contest in the parliamentary election. Therefore, the victory of the SP, whose record of governance has been uninspiring from the word go, needs to be seen in its proper context.

Verma explains that the SP’s vote share fell by only 1 percent, from 22 percent in the 2009 parliamentary election to 21 percent in the 2014 parliamentary election, but its tally of seats plummeted from 21 seats in 2009 to a mere five seats in 2014.

“The SP was wiped out by a Modi wave as it was Modi versus the rest,” says Verma. “Also, the people of Uttar Pradesh had overwhelmingly voted for Modi’s development plank and not as much for the BJP. However, Modi was missing in the bypolls and the BJP did not enthuse the voters that much. Moreover, the BSP was not in the race and the Congress’ candidates were too weak to pose any challenge to anyone. Therefore, it became a straight contest between the SP and BJP. The voters were left with not many options, so they voted for SP; it not only won by default but it almost got a walkover in eight of the 11 seats.”

The road ahead

The message from the results of the bypolls is clear: the BJP and Modi (not necessarily in that order) were elected to power by the development- and good governance-starved voter who hopes to have more of the two over the next five years. Veer away from the straight and narrow and the Modi-Shah duopoly runs the risk of committing the same mistakes first made by Manmohan Singh and the Congress and then by Arvind Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

If the slew of scams in UPA-2 came as a disappointment to a section of the middle classes that swore by Manmohan’s Teflon image, those who voted Kejriwal and AAP to power in Delhi in the hope of getting for themselves an efficient administration felt let down when he quit within 49 days.

Modi and BJP have their task cut out for them and there is neither room for complacency nor scope for hubris. As one who excels in micromanagement and pays attention to detail, Modi knows only too well that he cannot take the voter for granted or insult their intelligence. Belie their hopes and expectations and the unforgiving voter will strike back.

BJP's NDA partners pitch for minus-Modi formula for next parliamentary election in order to bait new allies

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on the cover of the
26 March 2012 issue of the Time magazine of the U.S.

Hyderabad

17 March 2012

Making it to the cover of Time magazine may prompt two-time Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi's followers to believe that he has it in him to lead India, but BJP's allies seem to think otherwise.

These parties seem to be making up their mind that the NDA's electoral prospects in the next parliamentary election, whenever it is called, would be better served without Modi in the lead. Some of them have suggested sotto-voce that the NDA could hope to become more acceptable to voters and allies -- present and potential -- alike, if the likes of a Narendra Modi or even an LK Advani are not projected as shadow premiers. They are calling it a minus formula, similar to the minus-one or minus-two formulae seen in the politics of neighbouring Bangladesh and Pakistan.

For one, the JD(U), which is the second largest constituent of the NDA, sees Modi as a liability and it does not fancy the idea of going to polls with him at the helm. More so, when JD(U) leader and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar himself is seen as a potential choice for prime minister. What goes in Nitish's favour, as compared to Modi, is the degree of acceptability towards him among non-BJP, non-Congress political parties, some of whom are coming together to constitute what is loosely being called a third or federal front comprising regional parties such as the Trinamul in West Bengal, BJD in Odisha, AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, and, now, SP in Uttar Pradesh, where Mulayam Singh Yadav's party has emerged the winner of the recently concluded Assembly election.

The third front is not without problems or internal contradictions, though. Complicating matters for this motley group is that there are many potential contenders for prime minister, including, but not limited to, Mamata Banerjee and Mulayam Singh Yadav. Already, Samajwadi Party sources have indicated that their next goal after getting a brute majority in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly is to make "Netaji", as Mulayam is called in his party, the prime minister. The SP has indicated its support to the UPA in the event of the Trinamul pulling out of the alliance and there it is speculated that the Congress could offer Mulayam a Cabinet berth to return the favour.

From the Deccan Chronicle, Bengaluru edition

From the Deccan Chronicle, Hyderabad edition

For its part, the Trinamul would not mind an early election because it is better placed than its rivals after winning the last Assembly election. However, if Congress veteran and finance minister Pranab Mukherjee is to be believed, Mamata has a huge challenge ahead of her simply because she is not fluent in Hindi. "If you don't know Hindi, you cannot be a prime minister. There are certain skills that are required for certain work. That is why Narasimha Rao became a good prime minister", Mr Mukherjee had famously remarked in 2009 when asked whether he was in contention for the top job. The language handicap notwithstanding, Mamata's Trinamul could emerge as the pivot of this front and a potential kingmaker in the event of a hung Parliament, where no party or alliance has absolute majority in the Lok Sabha.

Incidentally, the question asked about Modi has been used for Rahul Gandhi, too. A section of the Congress party is in favour of seeing the Gandhi scion succeed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh before the next parliamentary election, if only to enthuse party cadres and voters alike, but Congress President Sonia Gandhi has dismissed the possibility for now. Like cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, Dr Singh is faced with a career dilemma: they would want to know when is a good time to retire. Dr Singh's anxiety is compounded by the fact that for one who invested a large quantum of political capital in the UPA-1 on seeing the India-US nuclear deal through, even at the cost of risking his own government, he is today having to explain why nuclear projects in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and West Bengal have not taken off. Also, big-ticket reform measures such as entry of FDI of up to 51 per cent in multi-brand retail, or in insurance sector, has been put on hold for want of consensus among the UPA allies.