‘Abki baar 400 paar’ brings truck-load weight on BJP

BJP poll slogan now top Opposition weapon against Modi

By Manish Anand

New Delhi, April 26: A number of ‘internal assessments’ of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are floating around in the national capital. While authenticity cannot be established, the consensus direction doesn’t endorse the BJP slogan of ‘abki baar 400 paar’.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is bloating the Congress as a political foe. Modi’s central pitch in his speeches is the Congress.

The Congress manifesto emerged as a convenient ammunition for the BJP to bloat the ghost of the minority appeasement. Modi is leading the assault on the Congress on the alleged Muslim appeasement by the main Opposition party.

Now that the polling for the second phase of the Lok Sabha elections is being held, there are cues emerging from within the saffron camp that the BJP’s allies are struggling in the popularity test. The BJP’s allies in Bihar and Maharashtra are sweating out to get the people on the sides of their candidates, according to ground reports of the media.

Also read: Inheritance Tax: Rahul pokes Robin Hood stick into BJP belly 

‘Abki baar 400 paar’, arguably, has created a monster of the challenge for the BJP. The BJP top guns now are swearing that the party-led government will not change the Constitution.

Scores of videos of the BJP candidates in the Lok Sabha elections went viral. The likes of Arun Govil reasoned that two-third majority is conditional for “big changes” in the country.

Modi and his sherpas are vowing that “nobody can change the Constitution”. Union Minister for Defence Rajnath Singh in an interview to The Hindu said that his government will never change the basic structure of the Constitution.

The Opposition found the slogan of the ‘abki baar, 400 paar’ to revive the identity politics. The Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and former deputy chief minister of Bihar Tejashwi Yadav found wind in their sails with the BJP slogan to raise ‘aarakshan khatre me (reservation in danger)’ slogan during the electioneering.

Also read: US faces ‘Gaza Spring’ in varsity campuses ahead of Prez poll 

The political observers are now recalling the 2015 Bihar Assembly elections. The interview of the Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS) supremo, Mohan Bhagwat, to Panchjanya had purported reference to reservation.

Prashant Kishor, an election strategist to the Janata Dal (United), is said to have got millions of copies of the interview photo-copied and distributed in Bihar. The mahagathbandhan consisting of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the JD (U) handed over a crushing defeat to the BJP.

“A revival of the identity politics is a major risk to the fulfilment of the aim of the slogan,” said a senior BJP functionary. One of the purported internal surveys even claims that the BJP would be losing two Lok Sabha seats from Delhi.

Share on Facebook

Tweet

Follow us

Save

About The Author

Manish Anand

Manish Anand is a senior journalist with about two decades of hardcore reporting experience on beats such as Prime Minister’s Office, Parliament, BJP, Congress, Planning Commission, NITI Aayog, and scores of Union Ministries.

His past has been with The New Indian Express, The Asian Age/Deccan Chronicle, The Statesman.

For the past 15 years, Manish has been a regular commentator on AIR on foreign affairs, besides being an author and a blogger.

See author's posts