LEADER BOARD

POLITICS, AS MOST OF its practitioners would have us believe, is a tool for the larger public good. But often it’s a no-holds-barred power game played out without any pretence. It has certainly seemed so in the past decade, with the firm grip the BJP and its ideological fountainhead, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), have on India’s political landscape going almost unchallenged. Two consecutive and massive Lok Sabha wins are just one indicator of this dominance. Not surprisingly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his trusted lieutenant and Union home minister Amit Shah and the RSS luminaries—Mohan Bhagwat and Dattatreya Hosabale—occupy the top three slots of india today’s political power list. They are followed by Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, who holds the keys to the BJP’s electoral fortunes in a state with the highest number of Lok Sabha seats (80). There are two more from the BJP stable among the top 10—Union minister Nitin Gadkari, with his superlative performance in spreading our highways network, and BJP president J.P. Nadda, who has taken party organisation and election management skills to another level. With his successful Bharat Jodo Yatra, followed by the party’s landslide victory in Karnataka, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has firmly established himself as the top challenger to Modi. Giving him company in the power list are two other chief ministers—West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee and Delhi’s Arvind Kejriwal. Both have prime ministerial ambitions and are seeking to expand their party’s wings beyond the home turf for national acceptance.

CAPTAIN INVINCIBLE

BECAUSE the Lion Capital, newly rendered even more leonine, is an apt visual metaphor for him—a formidable Field Marshal for the government as well as the BJP, as they fasten the fortress for the big battle of 2024. Gladiatorial at home, a nimble-footed sagacity marks his steps abroad, as evinced by the way he leveraged his global cachet to steer India to a unique exceptionalism vis-a-vis Ukraine

BECAUSE his larger-than-life personality is etched everywhere. He’s the alpha and omega of the BJP’s election campaigns—and he goes into the next general election as the only PM after Nehru with the chance to win a third straight mandate. Behind all that iconicity is a beaver-like builder, always working on the prototype for the next big idea in chintan shivirs with bureaucrats, virtual sessions with social groups, and special addresses at party meetings KARMAYOGI In the last week of December, just hours after the funeral rites of mother Hiraben, PM Modi was back at work, logging on to virtually inaugurate projects in West Bengal

BECAUSE the way he steered policy in the aftermath of the pandemic showed how he rarely blinks even under pressure. More than that, it’s about how exactly he converts crises into opportunity: denying instant gratification and going for long-term strategic objectives, no matter the political cost. The refusal to administer lazy monetary incentives during Covid, to roll back Agniveer, or to revert to the Old Pension Scheme, all speak of a stainless steel resolve