It is a common perception about Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he is always in election mode and as soon as he wins an election, he and his team start preparing for the next election. Now, BJP ally and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu has formally said the same thing. He said in a media group program that with the conclusion of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the formation of a new government, Modi has started preparing for the next elections, i.e. the 2029 elections. According to Naidu, Modi has made a plan to win the next elections. If Naidu is to be believed, the difference between the politics of BJP and Modi and the politics of Congress and Rahul Gandhi will be clearly visible.
The Congress could not even prepare properly for the assembly elections of the four states held after the Lok Sabha elections, nor did it campaign properly in these elections.
After winning the Himachal, Karnataka, Telangana assembly elections and increasing some seats in the Lok Sabha elections, it forgot the contribution of the parties involved in the India alliance and cherished the illusion of destroying the BJP alone. The alliance came back to power in the assembly elections in Jharkhand because the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha led by Hemant Soren, following the religion of the India alliance, contested the elections in unity, leaving the seats required by the Congress, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the CPI (ML). In Maharashtra, the Congress did not care about the Left parties. In the by-elections of other states, it did not bother to coordinate with the Left, secular and tribal parties.
In Punjab, familyism and mutual discord prevailed. As a result, Amrita Warring, wife of Punjab Congress President Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, lost the by-election of Gidderbaha Assembly constituency, and the wife of MP Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa lost the by-election of Dera Baba Nanak. Congress candidate in Barnala Kuldeep Singh alias Kala Dhillon won by 2157 votes.
About two and a half dozen opposition parties formed the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance-India at a meeting in Bengaluru in an attempt to oust the BJP from power in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. At that time, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had said that the ideology of the alliance revolves around the principles of development, inclusiveness and social justice. By combining their efforts, the member parties aim to protect democratic values, promote welfare and progress and combat ideologies that threaten the idea of India. This alliance prevented the BJP from securing a clear majority in the Lok Sabha elections. The Congress’s seats increased to 99. Although the alliance could not stop Modi from becoming the Prime Minister for the third time, the Congress, instead of following the principle of inclusiveness with the alliance parties in the next elections, adopted the illusion of demolishing the BJP alone. After the defeat in the Haryana Assembly elections, it was expected that the Congress would follow the ‘India Dharma’ but it could not get rid of the illusion. What it has done in Maharashtra is in front of everyone.
While Modi has started working for 2029. This not only reveals Modi’s hunger for power, it also proves that he has made his party a machinery for contesting elections. The decisions of the government are also made according to the elections. In this regard, we can say that the BJP is like a student who starts preparing for the next exam as soon as one exam is over and the Congress is like a student whose studies start after the exam time table is released. Congress should understand that defeating the BJP, which is fighting elections with the support of big corporate houses, is not within its control. Modi’s rule can only be defeated by taking every state’s smallest party and mass organization along.
