A HUNG HOUSE

Four months away from the general election, our survey shows the NDA in a vulnerable position for the first time. 2019 is far from being in the bag

2019 will be anyone’s game, with neither the ruling NDA nor the opposition UPA anywhere close to the majority mark, says the India Today-Karvy Insights survey

FOR NARENDRA MODI, the choice for the voter in the upcoming general election is clear: Do you want a majboor (helpless) government or a majboot (strong) one? The prime minister spoke in the same vein in his speech at the annual Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in Varanasi on January 22 even though only around 25,000 non-resident Indians—a miniscule percentage of the total electorate—are expected to vote.

For Modi, the hour of reckoning is nigh and it is turning out to be a surprisingly tougher fight than his party had anticipated. Just a year-and-a-half ago, his re-election as prime minister was considered a given. Now, it is no more a certainty. Instead, Modi is aware that every vote, including that of NRIs (apart from the money they could donate for the party), counts. Forget the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) repeating its feat of winning a majority on its own as it did in 2014, it is far from certain that even the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) can cross the 272 mark in Parliament.

That is the stunning conclusion of the India Today Group-Karvy Insights biannual Mood of the Nation (MOTN) survey conducted between December 28, 2018, and January 8, 2019. This MOTN is significant as it comes barely four months before the general election. Also because it is the first time since Modi came to power in May 2014 that an MOTN poll is predicting that the NDA will not cross the majority mark. It confirms the declining trend in its fortunes that these surveys have recorded in the past two years with the NDA and the BJP progressively losing ground.

The January 2019 MOTN predicts that if an election were held now, the NDA tally would drop by a 100 seats—from the 336 seats it got in the 2014 election to 237—35 short of a majority. The BJP would be the single largest loser in the alliance with the number of seats dropping by as much as 80— from 282 in 2014 to 202 now. In such an eventuality,

the NDA would have to scout for other partners to garner a majority and there could also be doubts about Modi emerging as the consensus candidate to head a coalition government.

While the opposition may rejoice at having put the NDA and Modi on the mat, the survey also reveals that neither the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) nor any other Opposition alliance will be in a position to form the government on its own. The UPA is likely to multiply its tally by three times, according to this survey—from 59 in 2014 to 166. That’s still a 106 short of a majority. And the rest of the Opposition, that includes the Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and a dozen others, will get the remaining 140 seats. All this means that if there are no major shifts in alliance partners, the 2019 general election will deliver a truly hung Parliament.

For many voters, such a fractured mandate and the political uncertainty it spells is a disconcerting scenario. That is why Modi and the BJP have been hammering home the need for voters to give them a full majority or, as they warn, the country could be plunged into chaos. Senior leader Arun Jaitley expressed exactly this on his blog, “It is Modi vs an unviable and an unworkable short-lived combination. Or it is Modi vs Chaos.”

The prime minister went further than Jaitley and argued that it was coalition governments in the past 30 years that had stymied India’s growth, made corruption endemic and left the nation in a shambles before he took over. The Congress party retorted by mocking Modi for deriding the work of BJP icon A.B. Vajpayee, who had led a coalition government from 1998-2004. The party also claimed that it was during the coalition era that Congress governments ushered in far-reaching economic reforms and the country recorded its highest rates of economic growth.

Other findings of the survey might be equally disconcerting for the prime minister. While Modi’s personal popularity remains high at 46 per cent, it has dropped from the peak of 65 per cent in the January 2017 edition. During the same period, Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s popularity has surged from a low 10 per cent to 34 per cent. There is still a gap of 12 percentage points between the two, but the distance

A MERE ONE PERCENTAGE POINT DROP IN THE VOTE SHARE OF THE NDA WILL LEAD TO A LOSS OF 44 SEATS

Rahul has covered in the past two years is creditable. On Modi’s performance as prime minister, 54 per cent consider it good to outstanding. Though there is a drop of 7 percentage points from last year, it is still a substantial figure which endorses the hard work Modi has put in.

So, what are the reasons for the NDA’s dismal slide at this juncture? For one, the survey shows a consistent decline in the overall perception of the government’s performance. From a peak of 71 per cent in satisfaction levels in January 2017, the rating has dropped to 54 per cent in the latest edition of our survey. Modi, though, still comes out looking good, with 34 per cent of respondents saying that running a corruption-free government and his crackdown on black money are his biggest achievements—rated higher than the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (12 per cent) and infrastructure improvement (11 per cent).

Yet, the MOTN listed two other major electoral determinants—lack of jobs and rise in the prices of essential commodities—as among the Modi government’s biggest failures. What should concern the prime minister even more is that the number of those citing

lack of jobs as his worst failure has risen steeply within the past year—from 22 per cent in the January 2018 MOTN to 34 per cent now. On price rise, he gets some relief. The numbers show a downward trend from 23 per cent to 20 per cent in the same period, indicating that the recent drop in oil prices has had an impact. But this still remains the electorate’s other major concern. What is coming as a triple whammy for the prime minister is that the agrarian crisis, including farmers’ suicides, now figures high on his non-performance list.

Of the numerous schemes that Modi launched since he became prime minister, only two seem to have made a strong impression on the respondents: the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (to supply free cooking gas connections) and the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (construction of toilets). Both these programmes have a high number of women endorsing them. Hearteningly for him, the government’s initiatives to provide clean drinking water, building of roads and supply of electricity have received widespread appreciation.

Some of Modi’s other big initiatives, however, have taken a beating. Demonetisation was viewed positively by voters when it was announced in November 2016. But the number who believe that it has destroyed small busi-

nesses, led to a loss of jobs and badly impacted farmers has grown to a whopping 72 per cent since then. These are substantial vote banks and one of the reasons why the NDA tally in the MOTN has dropped significantly in the past two years. In terms of economic performance, nearly half believe that the Modi government has done a better job than the Congress. But only 40 per cent believe that their economic status has improved during his tenure. Of Modi’s promise of achhe din (good days), 63 per cent believe he has failed to deliver on his promise.

So, is it all downhill for Modi, the BJP and the NDA from here on? Our biannual MOTN surveys reflect the perception of the electorate at a given point in time. There is much that Modi and his NDA compatriots can do in the remaining months to ensure that they retain a majority in Parliament. For one, with the NDA falling short by 32 seats in the current survey, it should enter into pre-poll seatsharing with new parties such as the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu (which has 39 seats) and the YSR Congress to replace the TDP in Andhra Pradesh (25 seats). Meanwhile, it should keep on the right side of the fence-sitters— Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik of the Biju Janata Dal in Odisha (21 seats) and chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi in Telangana (17 seats)—and negotiate a post-poll arrangement depending on the final outcome. The BJP also has to keep restive allies within its fold, like the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra (48 seats). All the measures could pep up the NDA’s chances significantly.

The other major weapon the NDA has in its poll armoury is Modi himself. Not only does his personal popularity remain high, he also retains the ability to communicate his message effectively to the electorate and galvanises the masses. The prime minister continues to hammer the Congress and the Nehru-Gandhi family and also derides the way governments handled crises before

he came into the picture. However, it’s time now to shed the past and showcase the work he has done and what he plans to do in the next five years if he gets re-elected. On the development front, he has shown exceptional focus on key issues, especially in providing houses, toilets, cooking gas, electricity and roads. He has also taken innovative measures to plug loopholes and reduce petty corruption. Rather than list government programmes as he is wont to do in his interviews, he needs to build a convincing narrative describing what he had really strived to achieve in his first term—he believes it is sustainable development for both the people and our nation. He also needs to elaborate how he plans to take this forward if he is given a second term. Among the first-time voters, there is plenty who still believe in Modi’s credo of development, something that Rahul Gandhi has to counter.

Modi, in the main, has so far kept on the path of development and restrained from hyping the Ayodhya temple issue or the movement to prevent cow slaughter. The BJP and RSS have been pushing hard on these two issues in the belief that they need to convince hard-core Hindutva voters that they are delivering on key promises. But any effort to polarise voters during an election may prove to be a double-edged sword for the NDA. What should put the brake on such plans is our survey’s finding that, for the first time, caste and communal violence have together moved up as the number one security concern, well ahead of cross-border terrorism.

The Achilles’ heel of Modi and the NDA, though, lies in the widespread farmer unrest, rural distress and the perceptible lack of jobs. The UPA and the other opposition partners are bound to push the knife deeper on these three big issues. While Modi may come out with some sops for these sections in the budget, he may have left it too late. Large sections of people have been pushed to the margins by a series of blows dealt to the economy, including demonetisation and GST. This will determine the course of the coming election. If Rahul Gandhi and his party have surged ahead in the ratings, it is because he has successfully mobilised public opinion on these issues. The recent wins in the Hindi heartland states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are an indication of the traction Rahul has been able to get. But the Congress president will not be able to win by just running down Modi’s performance. He will also need to come out with a convincing enough vision of how he plans to put the nation on a high growth path, apart from maintaining peace and harmony.

With our survey showing that 2019 could be anyone’s game, it will be tough going for all the key players. Those who show steel could steal the moment.

Do you think achhe din, as promised by Narendra Modi during the 2014 election, have arrived?