How not to have an opposition-less India
New Indian ExpressIf Narendra Modi wins for the third time, equalling Jawaharlal Nehru’s record, he will be realising a long-cherished personal dream. Last Sunday at Mumbai’s Shivaji Park, when Rahul Gandhi ended his second yatra, all opposition leaders on stage said, not without a touch of nostalgia, that a third term for Modi would be the end of India as we know it. The BJP’s stated objective of a Congress-free India is a potent one, not just because they would like to free modern Indian history that lionises the roles of the Nehrus and the Gandhis—that is, free it from anglicised dynasts and their equally colonised cohorts. With a very powerful BJP at the Centre and the absence of a functional Congress, regional parties must work at new equations of reconciliation with the dominant national power. In effect, with a few maverick, unpredictable exceptions like Arvind Kejriwal or Mamata Banerjee in the North and Dravidian-identity politicians like M K Stalin in the South, there is a strong possibility the political vacuum created by a possible decimation of the Congress would lead naturally to an electoral autocracy.
History of this topic
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