Modimatic

The Narendra Modi and Amit Shah arithmetic proved the Opposition calculus on widespread anti-BJP discontent wrong, and how!

- Bhavna Vij-Aurora

WORDS like ‘epochal’ get used lightly these days, for cricket and other diversions with only a fleeting effect on deep realities. But if there ever was consensus on the use of words to des­ cribe an epic event, on all sides of India’s many political divides, it emerged this week. Every­ one shared one view: that historians looking back a cen­ tury or two later would see May 23, 2019, as a day when history turned. In some ways, its import is deeper than May 16, 2014. That was a huge wave...they called it ‘Tsu­ namo’. But that was only 31 per cent. A word is waiting to be coined that can express something way bigger than that: a collective act, performed by almost 40 per cent of those who voted in this general election, across the coun­ try. PM Narendra Modi’s helmsmanship has been re­endorsed in a most emphatic way. History was not made without other things making way for it. Established po­ litical premises stood dem olished. A caste coalition, crafted only for this battle and without any deeper mut ual empathies, crumbled before a universalising, homog­ enising narrative, and a wall­to­wall BJP campaign covering the last mile. The miles left untouched will now exist as vul­ nerable zones: the BJP’s new chieftains, who have tasted the kind of success their progenitors perhaps didn’t envision, have promised to conquer all.