Indian elections have never been boring but I believe post 2014 with the advent of Narendra Damordas Modi they have been a roller coaster ride filled with sudden twists, masterstrokes, emotions and strategies. No wonder the TV news channels have something or the other to debate every single day and keep viewers pinned to their couches. It is super interesting to watch the narratives being built as narrative setting is equally important to win elections even though you might have worked hard with sincerity in the last 5 years for the public. In this article, I will take you through the narratives and counter narratives that parties tried out in this Lok Sabha election of 2024 and who got the upper hand.
As always from 2014, Narendra Modi has been the first to set the electoral narrative for the elections. His announcement in parliament of Abki Baar 400 Paar set the ball rolling. All hell broke loose in the opposition camp. They went to the town challenging this and everyone started talking about whether NDA will cross 400 this time or not forgetting the fact for a few months that Modi needed only 272 seats to win and form the government. This was Modi’s two-pronged strategy to energize his cadres and shake them out of complacency but at the same time demoralize the opposition cadres and force them to believe that they have lost the battle before it began. The first narrative was set. It took some time for the opposition to sit back and stop themselves from running after this narrative.
The opposition, the INDI alliance, especially the big brother in that, the Congress party, who by now had a bit of experience with the Modi and were once bitten twice shy now thought of setting their own narrative. Their earlier narrative of democracy in danger, Modi will change the constitution if elected to power again and all institutions are being compromised, BJP washing machine etc. did not stick with public. They came up with their manifesto around early April in which they talked about caste census, socio-economic survey, reservation in contracts etc.
A couple of days later, Rahul Gandhi in a rally talked about wealth redistribution. The first phase of polling happened on 19 April 2024. A few days later, suddenly, Narendra Modi started speaking about the dangerous intent of the Congress party to take the wealth from some people (using the term Mangalsutra to make it more colloquial) and give it to Muslims and illegal immigrants. I thought Congress set the narrative this time and Narendra Modi, a very experienced politician that he is, understood the same quickly and put out his counter-narrative with his bold statement albeit it looked a bit reactive.
During that moment the opposition seemed to have a bit of the upper hand with the narrative. Every TV channel started debating about the wealth redistribution angle and its pros and cons, good or evil and some sympathisers of the Congress started talking about how Modi’s statement was anti-muslim and didn’t sound nice coming from the Prime Minister of the country etc. Rahul Gandhi had to say in a speech later that they didn’t intend to take immediate action. This along with Sam Pitroda’s subsequent remarks about Inheritance Tax and the looks of Indians pushed the Congress party to the backseat and Narendra Modi came quickly back to batting on the front foot in this narrative game and started giving interviews to every big TV channel which left the opposition camp just talking about the usual godi media rant and resorting to usual Modi abuse through their ecosystem. To me, the simple short term strategy that was playing with the wealth redistribution narrative was Congress wanted to split the Hindu votes and weaken Modi whereas Modi wanted to stop that and further consolidate them. We will come to know only on 4 June 2024 who succeeded in their strategy. Mani Shankar Aiyer’s video talking about Pakistan having an atom bomb and saying India should behave well with them did nothing but pushed the Congress further into back foot. After a few more phases of election behind us, we can observe that the shrill of the wealth redistribution and caste census narrative has died down although Rahul Gandhi still mentions it in his speeches but in a guarded generic way.
There were quite a few other narratives that were tried by the different parties. Suddenly Amit Shah spoke about this election being a direct fight between Modi and Rahul Gandhi. The opposition didn’t want to hear anyone projecting one face especially of Rahul Gandhi which they knew would create unwanted confusion in their alliance. They carefully remained silent and this faded away after a few phases too. From nowhere, Yogendra Yadav, put his psephologist hat again and came on TV channels and confidently said that BJP will not cross 272 on its own but given his minimum estimates it showed that NDA will cross the halfway mark which means still Modi will anyways come to power again. This narrative of the opposition ecosystem shows that they are happy to see Narendra Modi going down on the seats whether they come to power or not albeit Congress supporters like Sanjay Jha in his untiring rants with his 2 mins. videos on X keeps mentioning that Modi will not come to power. Social media influencers on both sides have been trying hard to put out their narratives and counter-narratives. Prashant Kishor’s series of interviews on TV channels saying BJP will equal or do a bit better than their 2019 tally has come as a nullifying counter to the opposition narrative attempt which led their miffed ecosystem go after him forgetting that he was the one who led several of their allies to victory in their assembly elections.
Some time back, Rahul Gandhi suddenly talked about being a good chess player but other than getting a surprise sarcastic comment from the chess legend, Gary Kasparov, no serious narrative was set around this. In the series of TV channel interviews that Narendra Modi is giving now which some say is an act of nervousness and some say confidently leading from the front but not taking any chances, the recent program with India TV’s renowned journalist, Rajat Sharma, of Aap Ki Aadalat fame became quite a big hit. Rahul Gandhi is not giving such long interviews for known reasons but is continuing with his rallies and giving intermittent bytes but the Congress ecosystem is left picking up the statements of Narendra Modi and reacting to it sarcastically which doesn’t set too much of a narrative again to win elections. Other than Arvind Kejriwal trying to do some drama around his arrest in Delhi, I don’t see too much of a narrative setting happening there. The timing of the Swati Maliwal case has also dented his strategy a bit too.
With only the last phase of elections left on 1 June 2024 big game changing narratives are not coming through any more other than some “up in the air” statements like Akhilesh Yadav and Mamata Banerjee vouching that they will win all the seats in their respective states and everyone giving their own convenient predictions about the possible winner. Things are heading to a grinding pause slowly after a super ride of narratives, drama, masala and punch dialogues.
Based on all the above, Narendra Modi still seems to have an upper-hand on the narrative in this election too although it seemed he had to do more of a heavy lifting this time compared to 2014 and 2019. Winning elections for a third time is not going be that easy but the man is visibly out there, active, doing multiple rallies a day and also giving long interviews enthusiastically, present in every moment and leading from the front with the same passion. Let us wait for June 4th to know who emerges as the winner from all this dust, noise and hangama.
Ananth Mahadevan is a political commentator based in Bengaluru.
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