THE THIRD COMING

PM NARENDRA MODI GETS A HISTORIC THIRD TERM BUT WITH THE INDIA BLOC DENYING THE BJP A MAJORITY ON ITS OWN, SOME OF THE SHEEN WEARS OFF

- RAJ CHENGAPPA

What leaders propose, the gods of democracy, the voters, dispose in their own way. For Narendra Modi, the crowning glory of his being prime minister for a decade was to be the induction into a rarefied league of statesmen in 2024. For that, he had to emulate the record held by Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, who had three consecutive terms with a full majority in Parliament. Modi intended to achieve the distinction with a thumping mandate in the general election. The year began auspiciously enough, when as Yajmaan (patron) he led the consecration ceremony of the Balak Ram idol at the new and awe-inspiring Ram Mandir in Ayodhya on January 22. The event was regarded as a spectacular demonstration of Hindu resurgence and pride. Modi captured the zeitgeist when he began his evocative address by saying, "Our Ram Lalla will no longer be living in a tent, he will now reside in his divine mandir."

The material culmination of a century-old struggle to build the mandir and the deep emotional valence it held for India's Hindu majority was considered a game-changer for the Lok Sabha polls. So much so, Modi set a high benchmark for his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partners with the war cry, 'Ab ki Baar, Chaar Sau Paar (This time, 400 seats-plus). The confidence stemmed from the BJP's belief that it had dealt a body blow to the Opposition INDIA bloc early in 2024 by winning over Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, its prime mover. The other trump card was the BJP wresting power in Maharashtra in 2022 after it engineered a split in the Shiv Sena, and later the Nationalist Congress Party, in this crucial state.