The Midway Battle: Modi's Rollercoaster Second Term

THE MIDWAY BATTLE

THE MIDWAY BATTLE

Modi’s Roller-coaster Second Term

GAUTAM CHINTAMANI

BLOOMSBURY INDIA

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First published in India 2021

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Copyright © Gautam Chintamani, 2021

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Once again to Tiny

Contents

Prologue

PART ITHE GREAT INDIAN ELECTION

1The Great Indian Election

2A Populist Leader

3All Roads Lead to Raisina

4The Opposition

PART IIHOME AND THE WORLD

5The State of the Nation

6A New World

7Factions and Faultlines

PART IIIDESPAIR AND HOPE

8New Year, New Trouble

9The Battle for Delhi

10A Pandemic at Hand

11The Second Wave

Afterword

Endnotes

Index

Acknowledgements

About the Author

PROLOGUE

Socio-political change can be daunting; more so, if it challenges the concepts upon which a country’s edifice rests. ‘Reforms’ have been the byword for a long time in India. They dictate a political party’s course of action and, more often than not, can even predict the course of an election. Yet most political outfits and their leaders trying to initiate revisions or remodelling of the entrenched system run the risk of losing power, annoying ‘vote banks’ and alienating the electorate. This is the reason why perhaps many sectors in dire need of reforms have been mainly left untouched.

In September 2020, both houses of India’s Parliament passed three acts to usher in long-overdue reforms in the agriculture sector. The ruling BJP party claimed that the laws would remove the middleman’s monopoly, unshackle the farmer from the government-controlled Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) that ran local agricultural markets or mandis and allow them to sell their produce anywhere in the country. Popularly referred to as the Farm Bills, the three acts replaced ordinances promulgated by the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in June 2020. In addition to providing barrier-free trade for farmers’ produce beyond these notified mandis, the farmer was now free to sell to agricultural businesses, supermarket chains, online grocers or, as before, through the APMC mandis.

After Independence, though India remained non-aligned, it chose the Soviet economic model. The command-and-control economy impacted agriculture as well. Unlike Europe or the US, Indian farmers could not sell their produce in open markets. The government-controlled APMC meant to safeguard the farmer from exploitation ended up becoming the biggest oppressor over time, the BJP government contended. The three acts — the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020; and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020 — would reverse the history of Indian agriculture, the ruling party claimed. It would purportedly empower farmers to enter into farming agreements with private players before production for the sale of agri-produce. Besides empowering the farmer, the laws offered enough safeguards to the farmer, and most importantly, appeared to have the potential to raise the farmer’s income, averred the architects of the law.

Since Independence, each successive government has promised to transform farming laws, bestowing more power to the farmer, yet every time something was attempted, it was met with significant opposition. In 2003, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee set up India’s first National Commission on Farmers (NCF) led by Sompal Shastri, a pathbreaking body that would look into problems of farmers and suggest solutions to improve farm income and the standard of living of farm households. It sought to make farming not only more remunerative but also more attractive to younger generations. Unlike a fact-finding commission, the emphasis of the NCF was on farmers rather than on agriculture. It would help prepare the road map for sustainable development of agriculture, optimize its contribution to the economy’s growth and development, and make Indian agriculture globally competitive.

The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government later appointed M.S. Swaminathan, the well-known geneticist, renowned for his leading role in India’s Green Revolution, as the chairman of the NCF. In its 2006 report, the NCF recommended a minimum net income to improve economic viability and brought attention to enabling sustainable rural livelihoods, completing unfinished land reforms and more. Unfortunately, in the decade that followed, for some reason or the other, the government did not or was unable to act upon most of these recommendations.

For nearly two decades, the debate surrounding agriculture reforms continued. The Manmohan Singh-led UPA government didn’t seem keen to take action on the Draft National Policy for Farmers, prepared by the NCF and placed before the Parliament in October 2007. Some of the Modi government’s initial attempts to initiate reforms in the sector, such as the Land Acquisition Ordinance, were labelled anti-farmer. In his monthly radio address, Mann ki Baat, Modi later declared that his government would not reissue the 2015 ordinance that made it easier for companies to acquire agricultural land and accept any suggestions to benefit farmers in the pending Land Bill.

The Land Acquisition Ordinance in 2015 sparked opposition and demonstrations by farmer organizations across India, but it was nothing compared to the reactions the 2020 Farm Bills have generated. Two months after President Ram Nath Kovind gave his assent, thousands of farmers began camping at several points on Delhi’s borders, demanding a repeal of the three farm laws. Dominated by farmers from Punjab, Haryana and some parts of Uttar Pradesh, the protests attracted national and international press. The reportage focused on how the bills ran the risk of alienating the farmer and many communities across India.

Media and on-ground reports indicated that farmers apprehended that moving towards a market-based system would eventually pull off the Minimum Support Price (MSP) safety net for their crops. The government’s assurances that the ‘old system’ such as mandis and mechanisms such as MSP for crops would continue, did little to alleviate their fears. Experts from institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) saying that the bill was a step in the right direction did not help in quelling misgivings about the laws.

Most political parties at some point had promised what the Farm Bills intended, but that did not stop the Opposition from joining the protests. The Congress 2019 election manifesto had declared that it would repeal the Agricultural Produce Market Committees Act and make agricultural trade, including exports and inter-state, free from all restrictions. One of the oldest allies of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), quit the NDA, citing that the bills were not in the best interest of the farmers. Ironically, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, the Akali Dal’s lone minister in the Modi government, in a social media video urged Punjab CM Amarinder Singh to not mislead the farmers over the Centre’s ordinances on agricultural reforms only days before the bills were passed. The Facebook video showed a letter written by Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar to the SAD chief, Sukhbir Singh Badal, assuring that the MSP and government procurement system will continue.¹

The farmers’ protests began to mirror the resistance that met the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), 2019. In addition to the protesting farmers, civil society members, Opposition parties and foreign supporters rallied behind the protesting farmers. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s comments backing the agitating farmers acted as a shot in the arm for the demonstrators but, at the same time, critics were quick to point out the Canadian Premier’s hypocrisy as it was Canada that routinely opposed MSP and other domestic agriculture measures of the Indian government at the World Trade Organization (WTO). Comments similar to Trudeau’s made by other politicians in Canada and the United Kingdom (UK) also encouraged the farmers to continue with their agitation. In early December 2020, the Congress leader and MP from Ludhiana Ravneet Singh Bittu in an interview to a newspaper said that some Khalistani elements had penetrated the farmer protests and urged Home Minister Amit Shah to intervene.² A few days later, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) summoned 40 people to investigate alleged Khalistani funding. However, independent analysts pointed out that the agitators were not only from Punjab but other states as well, where there were no so-called Khalistani links.

The government had initiated talks with the farmers in the first week of December 2020, but there was little headway for nearly eight weeks after 11 rounds. With the agitation coloured by political, economic and regional overtones, the situation has turned rather complex and entangled in knots.

On the afternoon of 26 January 2021, India’s Republic Day, a tractor parade organized by thousands of farmers turned into anarchy on New Delhi’s streets. The march broke through barriers, attacked the police and scores of protesters breached the towering walls of the iconic Red Fort and unfurled the Nishan Sahib, the triangular saffron-coloured flag representing the Sikh faith. The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), a coalition of over 40 Indian farmers’ unions that had announced the parade with tractors and marching contingents in Delhi, distanced itself from the Republic Day violence and claimed that anti-social elements had infiltrated the peaceful march.

Irrespective of how the events played out, the violence-marred images of 26 January were bound to raise questions about India’s position as a world leader. A series of nationwide lockdowns resulting in the migrant crisis had worsened India’s financial and logistical burdens, which had been reeling under a slowdown of the economy for the past few quarters.

However, despite the world being in the throes of a global pandemic since March 2020, India has emerged as a significant player, both in terms of setting an example in handling the COVID-19 crisis and in providing relief to other nations.

On the one hand, the Modi government was battling the coronavirus pandemic, and on the other hand, it was engaged in one of its worst military stand-offs in decades. In May 2020, Chinese troops had come deep into the India-patrolled territory of Ladakh’s Pangong Tso Lake and had erected tents and guard posts. The row escalated on 14 June 2020 when an unprovoked attack by the Chinese border troops in Galwan Valley claimed the lives of 20 Indian soldiers. Armed with weapons such as nail-studded iron rods, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had ambushed Indian troops, who eventually managed to overpower the enemy and inflict considerable damage despite being outnumbered. A fortnight after the heinous attack, the prime minister in an unscheduled visit to Ladakh addressed army troops at Nimu, a forward base at a height of 11,000 feet, and saluted them for their courage. Modi had sent out a tough message that while India wanted peace and was willing to engage in dialogue, it was also ready to go to war if needed.

India’s assertive stand against China’s expansionist schemes did not go unnoticed. The Indian Army engaged with the PLA in sustained talks over months, while at the same time, deploying thousands of soldiers, fighter aircraft and heavy artillery along icy Himalayan slopes. Towards the end of August, the PLA reportedly resorted to an aggressive move in the areas opposite south of Pangong Tso, but the Indian Army forced the Chinese to negotiate by occupying heights on the southern bank of the lake.

In a statement in Parliament in February 2021, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh announced that both countries had reached an agreement on disengagement on the Pangong lake’s north and south banks. In a rare sight, the world witnessed China withdrawing 130–140 tanks, 30 artillery guns, some 2,000 troops from the south bank and 30 artillery guns and almost 5,000 soldiers from the north bank.

Besides emerging as an alternative Asian giant in the region that could stand up to China militarily, India also emerged as the global relief and humanitarian leader as it began exporting the COVID-19 vaccine to various countries of the world. In the last days of January 2021, India also kicked off the world’s most extensive vaccination programme to inoculate 1.3 billion people as quickly as possible. Dubbed as the world’s pharmacy, India’s vaccine diplomacy saw nearly 60 million Made-in-India COVID-19 vaccines supplied to 77 countries as of late May 2021.³

Sometimes, crisis and threats unexpectedly present the right platform to question traditional approaches and provide new solutions. The 2020 coronavirus pandemic pushed agriculture reforms in India after nearly a decade-long discussion. The lockdown induced mass migration of the urban workforce back to villages, increasing pressure on resources. For the first time in independent India’s history, a government put laws in place that sought to do away with restrictions on the sale and pricing, ostensibly to enable a national market for farmers. The BJP government has pointed out that criticizing the Narendra Modi government as anti-farmer or anti-MSP is misplaced as procurement of crops from farmers and payments made at MSP was higher than that offered by previous governments. Between 2014–19, the government procured 76.85 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) pulses, a 74-fold rise from 1.52 LMT procured between 2009–14. As of 21 September 2020, the government made ₹7 lakh crore in MSP payments, nearly double than that made by the previous government.⁴

India now also stands to become one of the biggest beneficiaries of companies shifting their manufacturing base out of China in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Global telecom giant Samsung has decided to move its ₹4,800 crore factory from China to Uttar Pradesh. Pitching India as the fastest-growing Asian economy in 2021, experts at research houses such as Nomura have shown India in a very positive light. Expecting India to be on the cusp of a cyclical recovery, Nomura anticipates a growth rate of 9.9 per cent in 2021, eclipsing China and Singapore that are pegged at 9 per cent and 7.5 per cent respectively during the same period.⁵

As India emerges from the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic that engulfed it in April 2021, it faces a multitude of challenges across numerous fronts. Experts believe that the economy is showing signs of overcoming the impact of the second wave-induced lockdown.

India’s economy is set to get a boost with the establishment of a regulated international bullion exchange that would make gold a mainstream asset. Slated to be operational by August 2021, the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) in Gujarat’s GIFT City will shift a considerable portion of gold trading from Dubai to India, the largest consumer of gold in the world at 800–900 tonnes annually. The setting up of an international bullion exchange would also see a portion of the estimated 22,000 tonnes of idle gold lying in Indian households come to the market as sellers will get a fair and transparent price. The challenges in the healthcare system as well as its management and administrative services need to be addressed to ensure that any future emergency does not strain either to the limit.

India is well on its way to charting its new place in the world, notwithstanding challenges, criticism and opposition, both at home and abroad.

Part I

THE GREAT INDIAN ELECTION

1

The Great Indian Election

One of the mandates of the Election Commission of India (ECI) states that no voter should be more than 2 km away from a polling booth. This straightforward rule assumes great significance in a country that is home to nearly 18 per cent of humanity. As almost 900 million people are eligible to vote in a general election in India, little wonder then that by the time a Lok Sabha poll ends, every development attracts world attention and is seen as an important milestone in democracy. Interestingly, in the 2019 election, the staggering electorate included over 84 million first-time voters, which was a little more than the entire population of Germany, and of which nearly 15 million were aged 18–19, giving a unique dimension to the election. To ensure smooth conduct of the elections, the sheer volume of resources deployed was mind-boggling and included almost 11 million government officials and security forces who travelled by foot, road, special trains, helicopters, boats and sometimes even an elephant.¹ All these facts, undoubtedly, make Lok Sabha polls spectacular and colourful affairs, but amidst all the grandeur, it is the commitment to ensure that not a single voter is left behind that makes an Indian election singular and a true test of the success of a democracy.

The 2019 elections to elect representatives to the 17th Lok Sabha saw the ECI set up over a million polling booths across India. The number of polling stations had increased by 10 per cent over 2014. Locations ranged from a booth in Tashigang village in Spiti Valley in the Himalayas that at 15,256 feet above sea level was the highest polling station in the world to Malogam village in Arunachal Pradesh’s Anjaw district where a booth was set up for just one voter, Sokela Tayang, 39.²

Whether it was Uttar Pradesh, the state with the highest representation in the Lok Sabha, with 1,60,000 polling stations due to the high density of voter population or the far-flung islands of Lakshadweep or the crocodile-infested mangrove swamps of the Andaman Islands, every polling station served about 900 voters on an average.

Even before the ECI announced the dates of the staggered seven-phased polling, there were signs that the elections would be an epoch-making event and that the contests would not be based on typical issues. Traditionally, nearly every general election in India irrespective of the era or the players had been fought on issues like bijli, paani, sadak or the promise of roti, kapda aur makan. Nestled in between the two components comprising basic amenities such as water, food, shelter, infrastructure and other facilities, corruption issues too play a significant role in elections in India. Financial impropriety in public office came to the fore in the mid-1980s when rampant corruption within the system compelled the late Rajiv Gandhi, the then prime minister, to remark how of every rupee spent by the government, only 15 paise reached the intended beneficiary. Gandhi had said this during a visit to the drought-affected Kalahandi district in Odhisa.³ Add to this, the caste factor where the oft-repeated phrase, ‘Cast your vote, don’t vote your caste’, had come to be accepted as a slogan of sorts and you get what can be defined as the classic Indian election.

The parameters that determine the context of any general election in India have been entrenched in the minds of not only the politicians, but also the public and the commentators. Pundits across mainstream media assuming the framework of issues on which political battles are fought base their projections on the old criteria. When it comes to interpreting elections, experts and analysts often operate upon a broad perspective irrespective of whether it’s a civic body or parliamentary polls. The 2019 Lok Sabha election issues were different from the earlier ones. This was not an election where corruption was an issue like in the 1996 and 2014 elections. This was an election that was contested by the incumbent on the plank of what they had achieved while in office, as opposed to the Opposition’s pitch of what the government in power had failed to deliver. The economy, the impact of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) along with the success of social welfare schemes bridging the gaping final mile, foreign policy and national security were the issues highlighted by the incumbent party that political reporters, analysts and psephologists failed to consider while evaluating the mood of the average voter.

In the season of the ‘great Indian election’, most journalists and columnists venture out into the field to get the pulse of the people. This exercise starts well in advance and sets the tone and the tenor of the election coverage. For some political parties, the stories filed in this period serve as a project report of sorts to get a feel of the voter’s mood. While traversing the length and breadth of the country, many urban journalists were surprised at the manner in which the locals, especially the rural voter, responded, expressing pride in the way Prime Minister Narendra Modi had enhanced India’s standing in the world. Instead of an insight into how things were actually on the ground, the standard voter that many newspersons met in the field, or more specifically, in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, spoke more on events beyond the borders of their villages and towns.

In early April 2019, while travelling through Bihar, a well-known author and journalist found every child, man and woman that he interacted with aware of the ‘surgical strike’ undertaken by the Indian government and the assertion of our forces of claiming 300 of them for our 40.

The author was referring to the airstrikes that took place in the wee hours of 26 February 2019 when Indian Air Force warplanes crossed the Line of Control (LOC) into Pakistan and dropped bombs in the vicinity of the town of Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan. The target was Balakot, a training camp of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), a Pakistan-based jihadist group that has been designated as a terrorist organization by Pakistan, Russia, Australia, Canada, India, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the UK, the United States (US) and the United Nations (UN). India’s pre-emptive strike on the terrorist organization was in retaliation to the 14 February 2019 IED (Improvised Explosive Device) attack on a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) convoy in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir, that resulted in the death of 40 personnel. JeM had claimed responsibility for the attack. A video of the man who carried out the attack, Adil Ahmad Dar, a local from Pulwama district, went online a few hours after the heinous act. It was the first time since the 1971 India-Pakistan War that the Indian Air Force had entered Pakistani airspace.

The highly secretive mission had Indian Mirage 2000s carrying the ‘SPICE’ (Smart, Precise Impact, Cost-Effective) and ‘Popeye’ missiles that were dropped at specific targets across the JeM’s headquarters in Bahawalpur, Pakistan.

As the news of the Balakot airstrike spread, the details about the intricate mission, too, became public. PM Modi and his cabinet’s response cemented the government’s tough stance towards terrorism. The next day, 27 February 2019, saw Pakistan retaliate in the form of an airstrike at military establishments on the Indian side of the LOC. In an aerial dogfight that has since captured the imagination of most defence analysts and flying enthusiasts across the world, a wing commander of the Indian Air Force, Abhinandan Varthaman, flying a MiG-21 that was scrambled to intercept the Pakistani intrusion, brought down an enemy F-16.

In the course of the dogfight, Varthaman crossed over into Pakistan territory and a missile struck his aeroplane. Although Varthaman ejected safely, he found himself in enemy territory in Horran village, approximately 7 km from the LOC. The villagers attacked Varthaman but before more harm could be caused, the Pakistan Army arrested him. In addition to the Balakot airstrike, the diplomatic victory of the government to repatriate Wing Commander Varthaman within 60 hours after his capture was also hailed as a great win for the Modi government.

Following their initial euphoria, the Opposition began asking for details of the airstrike and ‘proof’ to authenticate its claims of success. For days, television news debates, newspaper editorials and reportage focused on aspects of the Pulwama attack and the subsequent Balakot airstrike. Consequently, a parallel narrative emerged that perhaps the Balakot airstrike was not as triumphant as the government was claiming.

Over the next few weeks, ‘nationalism’ occupied centre stage in any conversation about the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The argument made by the Opposition was simply this — the government has failed on most fronts and is using nationalistic pride to woo voters.

In the last four decades, nearly every general election has seen the lack of performance as opposed to the actual work done by the government translate into a theme for the polls. When Indira Gandhi called for elections in March 1977 after imposing the 21-month long national Emergency, the election was fought on the issue of restoring the basic rights of the citizen. Similarly, the failure of the Janata government between 1977–80 saw Indira Gandhi contest the 1980 Lok Sabha elections on the plank of strong, decisive leadership that the incumbent government was lacking. Rajiv Gandhi lost the largest ever mandate won by a government four years earlier, in 1989 as his government failed to address the issue of corruption in the Bofors kickback case. Later the P.V. Narasimha Rao-led Congress government as well as the Manmohan Singh-led UPA-II lost due to their inability to alleviate charges of misconduct on the part of several individuals and ministries.

In addition to the badly handled ‘India Shining’ election campaign, Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s NDA government is also said to have lost their reelection due to them being unable to address the concerns of some minority groups. The run-up to the 2004 general elections saw a lot of developments within the Muslim community where the call of Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the influential Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid, to give BJP a chance was met by opposition from the All India Imam Association that threatened his social boycott if he did not apologize for hurting Muslim feelings.⁴

Although most pollsters regularly fail to read the signs when calling out elections, few choose to learn from past fallacies. One of the first elections that some of the more celebrated ones refused to read based on what was happening on the ground was the 1983 Andhra Pradesh assembly elections. It was an election where the matinee-idol-turned-politician N.T. Rama Rao and his newly formed Telugu Desam Party (TDP) had challenged the incumbent Congress. No one gave the film star even an outside chance to make a dent, not even after watching him traverse nearly 75,000 km across the state perched atop a modified Chevrolet van called ‘Chaitanya Ratham’, addressing crowds that thronged to hear him. Despite this, almost all analysts continued to predict a Congress victory.

In the end, TDP swept 201 out of 294 constituencies and NTR became the tenth and the first non-Congress chief minister of Andhra Pradesh. A year later, in 1984, Rao’s TDP won 30 seats in the 1984 Lok Sabha elections and became the first regional political party to become the national Opposition party. The change in undivided Andhra Pradesh in 1983 did not go unnoticed. A few years later when already anti-Congress sentiments had been drummed up by people such as V.P. Singh, a former Congress party member who had served as a chief minister of Uttar Pradesh as well as finance minister in the Rajiv Gandhi cabinet before resigning from the party, NTR was seen as a major force who formulated the United Front government in 1989.

The bulk of the press acknowledged the electorate thumbing its nose at the Congress party; however, it still did not credit the voter for ‘choosing’ someone, but rather focused on their ‘rejection’ of someone. Traditionally, Indian political commentary tends to pivot around the acceptance or rejection of an individual, a party or an ideology. If how the polity chose were emphasized upon, it would offer a more profound and perhaps a better understanding of mandates. Even after a five-year period, only a few political parties and newscasters seem to have imbibed the paradigm shift in the way the average voter responded in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

In 2014, the BJP’s margin of win in terms of vote share over the closest opponent was nearly 10 per cent and above in seven states — Bihar (9.3 per cent), Chandigarh (15.4 per cent), NCT of Delhi (13.5 per cent), Goa (16.8 per cent), Himachal Pradesh (12.6 per cent), Jammu and Kashmir (11.5 per cent), Maharashtra (9.2 per cent) — and over 20 per cent in six states — Gujarat (26.2 per cent), Jharkhand (26.8 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (20.1 per cent), Rajasthan (20.5 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (20.1 per cent) and Uttarakhand (21.3 per cent).⁵

As the Modi government hit the halfway mark in its first term, there had been 23 state elections in India, and the BJP went on to form the government in 15 of them, on its own or with an alliance partner. It is interesting how the BJP’s emphatic victory in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections was read as a ‘black swan’ moment, but rather than studying what dominant role the event would have in terms of impact, observers applied hindsight to rationalize it instead. Ironically, the 2014 election was termed a ‘Modi wave’ insofar as the results went, yet it was only partially understood and barely accepted as an event that could potentially change the way elections operated in the country.

By the time the ECI declared the dates for the seven-phased 2019 general elections on 10 March 2019, most of the political parties were in election mode. It had been a little over three months since the BJP had lost assembly elections in three states — Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh — in November 2018, which provided a platform for the Opposition parties to come together. Almost a year earlier, even though the BJP managed to retain the Gujarat assembly in December 2017 for a sixth consecutive term, it had nonetheless hinted at chinks in the armour. Winning Gujarat had come to be seen as a significant achievement for the incumbent irrespective of the margin due to the Opposition pitching it as a referendum on the Modi government’s implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Launched at midnight on 1 July 2017 by the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, in a special midnight session of both houses of Parliament, the long-overdue GST replaced multiple flowing taxes levied by the central and state governments. It was only the fourth time when both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha convened for a midnight session besides the declaration of India’s Independence on 15 August 1947, and the silver and golden jubilees of Independence.

The Congress party along with members of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the communist parties boycotted the launch even though several high-profile guests from the business industry such as Ratan Tata attended the session. The Congress blamed the government for how the GST was implemented and continued to protest against the tax for the problems that it felt it would create for the middle and lower classes. The initial criticism for GST mostly centred around problems such as tax refund delay and increased documentation as well as heightened administrative effort. For months after its implementation, the Congress lamented how the adjustment in the tax regime had caused massive disruption for business. Thousands of textile traders protested against the new tax in Surat, Gujarat, just days after the GST rollout.

The traders felt the seemingly complex tax system could lead to harassment of smaller traders. The issue got traction as the city with its nearly 175 retail and wholesale textile markets generated almost ₹300 crore turnover per day and was the nerve centre of the Indian apparel industry. The anger against GST became one of the primary election issues during the assembly election in the state. At a public rally in Gandhinagar in October 2017, the Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi dubbed it ‘Gabbar Singh Tax’ and criticized the central government for a faulty tax regime inimical to small businessmen and industries in the country.

Public outcry against GST along with the series of public demonstrations held by the state’s Patidar community seeking Other Backward Class (OBC) status from July 2015 onwards reached a fever pitch as the assembly polls got closer. Since Modi became the prime minister after nearly three terms as the CM, Gujarat had already seen two chief ministers — Anandiben Patel and Vijay Rupani, who in the wake of the Patidar stir appeared to be ineffective in handling the state. Once Amit Shah, who was the home minister in the state government, took over as the national president of the BJP, he, too, in a way had moved away from the state. A loss in Gujarat would have meant a dent in the fabled ‘Gujarat model’ of development, which had been Modi’s calling card during the 2014 general elections, but more importantly, it would suggest the plateauing out of the ‘Modi wave’. The BJP’s inability to perform well in most of the by-elections held between May 2014 and June 2018, where it won only 4 of 23 seats, and failure to add even a single new seat to their massive May 2014 tally, was reason enough for some to consider the assembly polls in the home state of the prime minister and Shah an acid test.⁶

In some way, this was Congress’ best shot at regaining power in a state that it had lost a little over two decades ago. The Congress sharpened the attack and formed a far-reaching coalition with a bunch of youth leaders such as the Patel Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) leader Hardik Patel, OBC leader Alpesh Thakor and Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani. Rahul Gandhi undertook the ‘Navsarjan Yatra’ across the state, and much to the chagrin of his critics, also visited several temples in Gujarat to placate the state’s majority population. Traditionally, the BJP had maintained a 40–49 per cent vote share in the state since 1995, the year it first came to power.⁷ Between October 2017 and the final phase of polling on 14 December 2017, the race had become neck-to-neck.

In the 182-seat strong Gujarat Legislative Assembly, winning 92 seats constitutes an absolute majority. On counting day, 18 December, the BJP won 99 seats, whereas the Congress garnered 77; despite the BJP winning 16 seats less than the previous election, and the Congress gaining 20 seats along with a 4.1 per cent increase in the vote share, the results meant different things depending on where one stood.

For the Congress, and some of the other Opposition parties, the Gujarat results indicated the way forward — play it on the front foot and grab any chance to undermine Modi. Even though most opinion and exit polls had suggested that BJP would manage to retain Gujarat, the number of seats it finally won was undoubtedly fewer than what was expected. What was clear from the mandate was that disagreement with some of the government’s decisions or any unfavourable action on the part of the PM did not necessarily translate into a loss of support from the electorate.

Had Modi not swung into action by addressing over 30 election rallies between end-November 2016 and 11 December 2017, the outcome in Gujarat could have been different. According to a survey conducted by Lokniti-CSDS (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies), he managed to sway over half of the 43 per cent voters, who took a final call on who they would vote for in the last two weeks of campaigning.⁸ A post-poll survey by the same agency, suggested that 72 per cent of the respondents liked Modi the most in the state.

Owing to the way nearly all elections after 2014 were viewed, the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, too, were bound to become a verdict on Modi and on much of what his government did in its first term. The Modi government planned to go to the people with the government’s report card and talk about what the PM had delivered and what was still a work in progress. Perhaps this is the reason why, unlike the previous election, the campaign for 2019 focused not only on the issues of the past and the present but also about the future. The future was also not underscored as much on the lines of a vow or potential. Instead, it was about the path the country had already chosen in terms of economic social and national security policy.

While Modi and the BJP focused on these and pointed out a roadmap, the bulk of the Opposition concentrated elsewhere. Although,