How 'ignore and carry-on' mode may cost PM Modi heavily in third term?

New Delhi: Ever since his swearing-in as Prime Modi for the third successive term, Narendra Modi appears to be operating in the "ignore and carry-on" mode. 

The National Democratic Alliance government, despite coming back to power with a massively curtailed mandate, is trying to give out a message to the opposition and the masses that nothing negative has happened to the Modi-led government.

The Bharatiya Janata Party and its top leadership seem to be hell-bent on attempting to give out a sense that nothing has changed after the verdict of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

However, the attempt at creating a positive narrative, without addressing the core issue of why the saffron front wasn’t able to live up to the “Ab Ki Baar 400 Paar” expectations, is "not" being taken kindly by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh as well as saffron cadres and supporters.

There is a feeling that the complacent attitude of the BJP’s top leadership, including PM Modi, Union Minister Amit Shah and party chief JP Nadda, may end up hurting the party in the forthcoming polls. 

“This attitude will backfire even worse than 240 seats that the BJP secured in the recent general elections,” said a senior party leader.

It was pointed out that by the end of the ongoing term, the Modi-led BJP would have ruled with a clear majority for 15 years. 

Blaming Congress for the pathetic state of affairs is not going to work. “Instead, the party needs to focus on finding issues to seek new votes and also to win back the voters who have turned away from saffron candidates,” sources added.

Aggressive Congress creates trouble

For the BJP, it is surely time to make drastic changes to the governance method and political strategy that it has been following over the past few months. 

It is felt within the BJP that the ignore and carry-on mode won’t work as the opposition Congress has decided to take an aggressive stance towards all future issues that crop up under the present government.

A rejuvenated Congress has aggressively taken on the Modi government in the Parliament and outside it, as party leader Rahul Gandhi tries to reinvent himself by taking up issues like the NEET controversy, Agniveer recruitment, Manipur violence and repeated terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir, which find resonance amongst the masses. 

And the BJP-led government has so far been unable to give any concrete reply to the opposition on these issues.

“The ignore and carry-on mode strategy used to be employed in the first two terms of the Narendra Modi government where the government used to have a dismissive attitude towards the opposition and issues taken up by them. However, this way of thinking needs to be dropped by the BJP immediately as this strategy is now seemingly benefitting the Congress,” sources added.  

There is a widespread feeling within the saffron cadre that PM Modi needs to break away from his echo chamber and reform BJP from top to bottom and resolve its differences with the ideological parent, the RSS, to ensure that the party isn’t routed in the next general elections.

“If after 10 years of governance, BJP is still blaming Congress for the failure of critical infrastructures like Airports, we should stop dreaming of becoming a world leader. Countries like China, Japan, and Germany didn't become great by such cribbing and excuses,” another senior leader added.

The need to promote and discuss issues that find resonance with the young voters should be a priority for the saffron outfit and its top leadership if it wants to reclaim power for an unprecedented fourth time at the Centre. The BJP needs to get out of its self-inflicted slumber and delusion of the continuous third term in office, or it will be all downhill from here.