A Much-Needed Reality Check

Too much central control, voter and cadre apathy, arbitrary candidate selection, all conspired to give the party a humbling lesson at the hustings. The high command can ignore it at their own peril

- Anilesh S. Mahajan

More embarrassment than riches. That’s what the 2024 election results have brought for the top echelons of the Bharatiya Janata Party—a narrow face-saving win, a potentially worse fate averted, and plenty to introspect over. An unusual predicament for a party that had been lulled by a decade of unquestioned supremacy, but just about enough to put up a brave front. That allowed images coming out of the prime minister’s residence in New Delhi to exude an air of normalcy and cheer. It was a historic third straight term for Narendra Modi, after all. But among all the smiles, two faces bore visible signs of stress and exhaustion—that of Modi’s ‘Chanakya’, Amit Shah, and party chief J.P. Nadda. They had a series of unending back channel negotiations. Partners, potential friends, anyone who could lend the required stability to Modi 3.0. It may be just the beginning of a long-drawn phase of labour: for the first time in a decade, the BJP doesn’t have a full majority. It will be dependent on external life support.

That calls for softer tones in bargaining, and a more supple language overall. PM Modi adjusted fast enough. The previous evening, at the party headquarters, he scrupulously avoided any mention of “Modi sarkar”—removing, with verbal symbolism, the near-synonymity that had come to develop between his office and his self. Instead, it was the “NDA