Frontrunner & elusive poll theme

Excitement is often highest in 'wave' elections. There is a sense of anticipation, a better future, even vengeance. For these reasons, 2024 is turning out to be an unexpectedly themeless election

We are now at about the halfway point in the Lok Sabha election campaign and what stands out is ― and I say so with some trepidation—how little stands out. Trepidation because the nutgraf of the argument is the frontrunner's inability to define this campaign so far.

Since Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) first rose, say from 2012 onwards, they have defined the terms of competitive politics in India. In 2014, it was the call for achchhe din (better times) for all and a "56-inch chest" and laal aankh (angry red eyes) for enemies, namely, Pakistan and China.

In 2019, it was a clarion call on national security, and a changed approach to it, defined as "ghus ke maarenge (will kill the terrorists/enemies inside their homes)".

For 2024, though we are now headed for the third of the seven phases, a theme has yet to emerge for the BJP. China is totally missing, and Pakistan mostly so.

None of this distracts from the theme that the party remains the frontrunner by some distance.

That is why its diffidence in settling some consistent and durable terms of engagement in this contest is intriguing.

This might indeed be the reason why voting percentages have been lower this time. And the summer hasn't even fully begun yet.

Or could it be that they see the lack of a contest, which makes it unexciting, like the anticipation of a one-sided cricket match between two vastly unequal rivals? When the result is so easy and safe to anticipate, why bother going out to vote? If you speak with people from the BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and Modi government supporters in general, as I did over some travels in Bengaluru and around last week, this apprehension is widely expressed.