With majority eluding in 2019, BJP has to accommodate allies

As things stand at the moment, it is unlikely for BJP to get simple majority in 2019 elections but will retain the position of the single largest party. Assuming that large parts of the opposition remain together, BJP may hold on to at best 210 seats in the Lok Sabha. This would bring the BJP to the size of the Congress in the last UPA government. 

• Regional parties that are not currently in it but have been at one time, like some of the Tamilian parties, may join in. Which were once there but have become opponents (TDP, BJD etc.) could join again or remain neutral. Therefore, even if the BJP loses 70 or 80 seats, it should still be possible for the party to return to power.
• This will be an entirely new situation for Modi, who became the chief minister of Gujarat without having fought a single election. He has always led a majority government. A few months into his term, Gujarat burst into flames.
• Modi's only experience is as a CM in heading government where he controlled the full majority and often a two-thirds one. Old leaders were sidelined. New loyal faces were brought in. Modi picked and chose his Cabinet and dominated by holding all the key portfolios.
• Amit Shah, the second most powerful leader in the country today, was not given cabinet rank and was kept as MoS in the decade he served under Modi in Gujarat.
• Modi’s brilliant campaign of 2014 then produced a similar situation in Delhi and he was the undisputed leader of a party that had previously had some divisions but was always more disciplined than the Congress. Old leaders like LK Advani and MM Joshi were shunted out. Others like Sushma Swaraj had to submit. The party is seen as a big happy family today but it is not. BJP also has many who are capable of doing more but are being deliberately held back. With BJP having less than 210 seats, these individuals & regional leaders will assert themselves in a way that they are not doing now. 

It will be fascinating to see how Modi, for the first time in his political life without a majority, will manage the ambitions and the conflicts. At 210 seats, the position of the PM will be like that of Manmohan Singh. He was wrongly seen as weak, rather than the position of a man whose allies have a veto on his actions. There is no defence against such allies except for martyrdom. One can sacrifice the government, or one’s position, and move on. But if one wants to lead in a government where the majority is missing, then allies will have to be accommodated. This is something which Modi never did. Running a minority government requires flexibility and the ability to swallow humiliation. Allies will make sure that their hold is made public and this will mean getting the government to bend a few times. It will be fascinating to see how Modi manages this, particularly for those who have observed the meteoric trajectory of his career. Minority governments and khichdi coalitions has not hampered India’s economic and social growth. Those who fear a minority government or a hamstrung BJP should not despair. Coalitions are not evil. What will be instructive will be to see how Modi manages one.

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Modi & Amit Shah duo would like to sit in opposition and allow a 'kichdi' coalition take charge and collapse with its own contradictions in an year or two and win back in mid term polls emulating fall of Janata Party and return of Indira Gandhi in 1980. Although not easier, RSS have given clear direction that it would like Modi to pave way to more acceptable person like Nitin Gadkari to lead BJP lead NDA government. Easing out Modi & Shah is a big challenge for RSS and softliners. 

Nitish Kumar ... No where to go

Nitish Kumar is a nowhere man now and he will do another somersault because the BJP and Shah are cannibalising him and without an ally he is negligible. He will still prefer to walk out, go it alone and become a martyr allying with the winner of 2019 ... says a senior JDU leader.

• Nitish Kumar has a soul which troubles him only when he has political power at stake. From being a contender for the PM's office to now being reduced to Shah’s collateral damage it has been a sharp and steep fall for Nitish Kumar.
• Yesterday’s loss of the Jokihat seat to the ally RJD, he betrayed was the latest in the series of reverses Nitish Kumar has faced after he joined hands with erstwhile bête noire Narendra Modi. 
• The latest in the serial snubs is Union Minister, Nitin Gadkari publicly turning down his demand for special status for Bihar, Nitish Kumar has had to repeatedly swallow his pride.
• Nitish Kumar’s humiliation at the hands of the Modi and Shah duo has a larger lesson to all the NDA allies of BJP. AP Chief Minister, Chandrababu Naidu reportedly told senior Congress leaders that he does not want to become Nitish Kumar in the hands of the BJP.
• Even Uddhav Thackeray, Shiv Sena supremo who ended the longest running alliance of the BJP breaking ties has privately mocked Nitish Kumar’s plight. 
• The biggest lesson is how dangerous the BJP under Shah and Modi has become to its partners, that the Akali Dal lost its traditional seat it had retained for 20 years to the Congress in the by-polls yesterday, must be realizing. 
• Shah’s arrogant treatment of Nitish Kumar, his repeated insults, his gobbling up of the JDU’s political space and the recent warning that the BJP will not make any concessions in seat sharing have all been observed by the fence-sitting opposition leaders. Amit Shah's plans to cut Nitish Kumar and JDU down to size and grab more Lok Sabha seats is an open secret in Bihar. So much so that Nitish Kumar who had used Rahul Gandhi as a scapegoat to walk out of the alliance is now sending feelers to the Congress to bail him out.
• Nitish Kumar has also reached out to “friend” West Bengal CM Mamta Banerjee, who was his colleague in the Atal Behari Vajpayee government. Much to his consternation Banerjee bluntly told him “Modi is no Vajpayee. He will eat you up alive”.
• Left with no options, Nitish Kumar might break all alliances and is likely to go "Solo" in 2019 General elections, like Uddhav Thackeray, Shiv Sena supremo. Amit Shah is likely to eat humble pie in front of Thackeray as Maharashtra accounts for the second largest number of Lok Sabha seats (48), but Nitish Kumar will be given no quarter. But it is unlikely that Thackeray will give in to Shah’s sweet talk but Nitish Kumar is desperate for any BJP deal.
• Navin Patnaik, Odisha CM has now reached out to the leaders of the united opposition after seeing how the BJP treats allies. Patnaik already had a quiet meeting with Sonia Gandhi. Naveen Patnaik is likely to make some joint moves with the united opposition as Rahul Gandhi is in touch with him. Patnaik realises the writing on the wall that the Modi wave is over and hence sitting on the fence is no longer a feasible option.
• Shah is facing allies bleed away from him due to his shortsighted pursuit of winning every electoral battle that has compelled divided opposition to get united for survival. 
• Rahul Gandhi, on the other hand, is acting as a catalyst of opposition unity having brought together opposite community leaders Jignesh Mevani and Hardik Patel in Gujarat and giving BJP a fight and fright.
• The Congress's new MPCC chief Kamalnath is negotiating with Mayawati for an alliance in MP which would add at least another 4-6% Dalit votes. The Congress is committed to reaching out and creating a rainbow opposition coalition across the country. And uneasy Shah has put in CBI on the job of breaking the BSP away.
• But as the Air Asia case registered against Ajit Singh on the eve of the Kairana result showed that vendetta politics of Modi and Shah have diminishing returns. The leaders being targeted are more determined to band together. Sharad Pawar of the NCP, who Modi hailed as his political guru, has also ended his tacit understanding with Modi and is now a prime mover of the united opposition.

However hard Amit Shah tries, it seems that he is unable to split and divide the opposition. The BJP’s  unprincipled power grabs are now working against it. Sources close to Nitish Kumar says that he thought Modi was here to stay. The same Nitish Kumar now privately says that Modi was an accidental PM. A bubble on a wave which will burst in the big fight of 2019. 

Nitish Kumar’s somersault has now become a statutory warning to the united opposition - ally with the BJP at your risk.

Naveen Patnaik, Mr.Clean

Naveen Patnaik,
Chief Minister of Odisha since 2000

• Naveen Patnaik was born on Oct 16, 1946 in Cuttack from Biju Patnaik, former Chief Minister of Odisha. He was classmate of Sanjay Gandhi at Doon School, Dehradun. He lived in USA until 1997, away from politics. Patnaik's interest in art and culture drew him into the charmed circle of the rich and famous including Jacqueline Kennedy Onasis.
• When his father passed away in 1997, the mantle of continuing his political legacy fell on Naveen Patnaik, then 50 years old. He formed the BJD and was elected an MP from his father's constituency in Aska. He said, "I had inherited my father's responsibilities, not privileges. One of the members of his family had to continue his legacy of social responsibility." 
• In the 2000 Odisha assembly elections, the BJD trounced the ruling Congress and won 68 of the 147 seats, just five short of the majority. Patnaik resigned from the Union Ministry, formed an alliance with the BJP in Odisha and took over as Chief Minister. 
• He moved into Naveen Niwas that his father built near the Odisha airport occupying the servant quarters instead of the main building which he converted into his residential office. He is a bachelor. He lives life of austerity wearing only simple white kurta-pyjamas.
• He decided to break the alliance with the BJP in 2009, over Kandhamal communal riots 2008. The BJD contested the elections without any seat sharing arrangements and won a clear majority.
• Now into his fourth consecutive term, Naveen Patnaik has completed 17 years in the saddle and has joined the list of the longest serving chief ministers of the country (The late Jyoti Basu holds the record of being 23 years at the helm in West Bengal).
• In 2014, at the height of the Narendra Modi wave, the BJD won a whopping 117 of the 147 Assembly seats and made a clean sweep of the Lok Sabha seats winning 20 of the 21 seats.
• He is the only chief minister of India who does not speak the regional language of the state. However, he possesses great mastery over the Hindi, French and English. At rallies, he delivers Odia speeches written in Roman alphabet.
• When Patnaik took over in 2000, Odisha had the country's highest poverty level at 59%. By 2012, the poverty level was down to almost half - 32.5% - the highest reduction in poverty among all Indian states during that period.  Under him Odisha's GDP grew an average of 6.66% annually. Per capita income has grown six fold and touched Rs 66,890 last year. Odisha imported rice from Punjab and Haryana in 2000. It now produces surplus rice. Its anti-poverty programmes and welfare schemes for women have been emulated by the rest of India.
• He uses a compact no frills Suzuki SX4 bought by the state government six years ago. He refused to have his office chair refurbished though the leather seat is fraying at the edges. Nor has he changed the floor tiling saying the money is better spent on development works for the people of the state. 
• He bluntly tells his officers to observe 3T's: Team spirit, Transparency, effectively use Technology and put end to PC (percentage commission) culture.  He gave bureaucracy a free hand and encouraged them to come up with innovative solutions.
• In his first meeting with ministers and bureaucrats of the state, he was repelled by their obsequious behavior, saying their only interest was to find out what was his price. He went about cleaning the Augean stables with political astuteness and ruthlessness that surprised all. He was a mild and incorruptible political leader, and his first tenure in office was marked by his attempts to establish a transparent and corruption-free administration. In the process, he had to act against a corrupt bureaucracy and also some senior leaders of the BJD. He focussed on appalling poverty that had beset the state. He would drop ministers even at the hint of a scandal not fearing political consequences.
• Naveen Patnaik was felicitated by the United Nations (UN) for an effort to evacuate nearly a million people ahead of tropical storm, Cyclone Phailin, that made a landfall on coastal Odisha in October 2013.
• Naveen Patnaik's attempts to bring in transparency in the system and his massive drive against corruption in high places, including his own BJD, has given him the epithet of "Mr Clean". An honest, clean and credible image has become more important than the record of economic performance as the key parameter in accounting for the popularity of chief ministers.
• In 2004, Naveen Patnaik, 57, has grabbed the top slot as the best chief minister.  His impeccable credentials: caring and clean image, credibility, accessibility, and leadership qualities are the things that made him most popular Chief Minister.
• Patnaik still remains by far the tallest leader of the state. He remains unwaveringly focussed on the development of the state and pursues it with relentless zeal. He has no ambitions to move to the centre. His frugal lifestyle ensures that he has a squeaky clean reputation though some of his ministers and MLAs are now dogged with charges of scandals and scams. 
• Patnaik remain unfazed by criticism. He says the lessons of the office have taught him to be "attentive to the requirements of the people, to always keep your ears open to their problems and try to deal with them as effectively as he can. If Patnaik follows his simple but effective mantra and sets his party in order, a fifth term should come his way.
• In the recent Panchayat elections, although the ruling BJD won two thirds of the seats, the BJP won a third of the seats saw its vote share shoot up from 16% to 32%. BJP displaced the Congress as the main Opposition party and can pose a threat to the BJD in the 2019 Assembly elections. 
• Today, after 17 year, despite signs of anti incumbency and BJP emerging as a credible alternative, Naveen is still by far the tallest leader of the state remaining unwaveringly focused for development of the state pursuing with relentless zeal. He has no ambitions to move to Delhi. Despite his clean image, there are concerns about autocratic behavior, his reclusiveness, overreliance on coterie and lacking second line of leadership etc had its impact. But he remains nonchalant. If Naveen sets his party in order, a fifth term could be well within his reach in 2019.

Some excerpts from his interview

One must beware of ministers who can do nothing without money, 

and those who want to do everything with money ... Indira Gandhi

Start where you are, with what you have. 

Make something of it and never be satisfied ... George Washington Carver

My View:
Naveen Patnaik inherited shattered economy of Odisha, from Congress in 2000. Without much help from Central Government, he made significant progress since then, even though much more is yet to be done. A media & publicity shy person he is, yet he made impact on the people of Odisha which is a very much better place than he founded it. His presence in social media is very minimum. Modi should learn lots of lessons from him, who has the habit of talking too much and bombards publicity from all corners with selective truths and blatant lies and highlighting even his failures as grand successes. One of the poorest & backward states, Odisha even today with per-capita income (ranks 27 of 33) is significantly lower than national average and is only better than MP, Jharkhand, Assam, Manipur, UP & Bihar. Modi hasn't given any special assistance to Odisha during his 3 years, despite requests from Naveen Patnaik.