Who Can Replace Modiji?

Indian elections are due next year. Modiji has certainly delivered results in a few areas but the performance is neither balanced nor in the line of the hope created by the hype around the brand Modi. It is certainly not good enough to regain power on their own. A damage has been created in setting up some priorities. Certain factions of voters were antagonised due to a few major steps like GST, demonetisation etc. BJP's alliance partners, NDA members, are not in the mood to support Modiji for the second term. Next elections would give fractured verdict. Votes of farmers, GST affected traders, victims of demonetisation, Southern states & the youth who elected Modiji last time would decide his fate in the forthcoming elections. BJP will have to convince its allies for the support. But that looks difficult. Modi-Shah duo has antagonised most of the valuable coalition partners. They may not be successful in the damage control because of the deep wounds inflicted in an attempt to project Modiji as the sole leader. In this scenario who would emerge as a consensuses candidate? Will it be Sharad Pawar? or Chandrabau? or Nitish Kumar? Congress doesn't deserve a chance. Thanks to their leadership. They will be forced to support the alternative government. I strongly feel that the regional parties will regain the ground. They will decide the next Prime Minister of India. A leader who can run a coalition government will be the winner.

Prime Minister Modi's tenure was marked by certain major achievements for which he shall be credited in the history. He has upheld high moral values & character like most of the RSS leaders. But he also has his share of failures. We can't personalise all of the failures of his government & blame him squarely. Though he had a clear majority, he was under pressure groups. RSS, Pro-BJP businessmen, Amit Shah were a few examples. Every prime minister would be subjected to such pressure groups hence the failures of their governments can't be discounted. They can't get off scott-free by giving an excuse.

'Experiment Modi' taught India that a strong leader is necessary but he has to build a strong team & do delegation

India is too big a country to be ruled by a single leader who is possessive & wants to hold power close to his chest. Modiji's challenge was building a strong team. A team with members having divergent skill sets & who can create synergy. Modiji was not seen inducting a talent in his ministry baring a few exceptions like Suresh Prabhu & Mr Piyush Goyal. Atalji made talented people like Pramod Mahajan, L K Advani, Ram Jethmalani etc work for him. Atalji groomed many leaders. India was not convinced about Modiji's choice of Smriti Irani or even Amit Shah. Unfortunately for Mr Amit Shah, he has to do all the required dirty work for BJP. Talented people like Nitin Gadkari were kept away from the limelight. In 1980s Sitaram Kesari & Narsimha Rao undermined all leaders of Congress in order to maintain their supremacy. But the Congress party became too weak to fight against opposition. Modiji should not be seen making the same mistake for BJP.

India is too democratic now to be ruled by 1970s 'Indira model of governance' where everybody followed the supreme leader.

Modiji's fans have taken up huge unofficial campaign on the social media, particularly on Whats App. They are blaming the congress regime, all earlier national leaders to project Mr Modi's image on the relative scale.They are projecting Modiji as the only Indian leader with vision & wisdom & justifying certain in-actions & strong actions of the Modi govt. These Modi fans must realise that it is not going to serve Modiji's purpose. People were not happy with the Congress govt hence they rejected Congress in the election. Where is the question of comparing Modiji with the Congress leaders? He can be compared with a tall personality from his own party, the first BJP Prime Minister, Atalji.

The political wisdom of Atalji was unparalleled. He ran a coalition government successfully by keeping allies happy. He didn't make any value compromise but kept healthy relations with business houses & other political parties. He managed RSS & Hindutva better. As a leader he could teach lessons of delegation & team building. He understood other pillars of democracy well & accepted their role. He tried hard to maintain better relationships with neighbours. He went to Lahore by bus. He was fearless. He managed nuclear test despite the threat of sanctions & also managed sanctions tactfully. His management of economy was superior. Dollar, share market were stable & 'India was shining'. He also managed his political rivals well. He made Chandra Babu Naidu conveyor of NDA & used his administrative & political skills well. There are a lot of lessons Atalji offers for Modiji & his team.

Prime Minister Modi's loss:coalition partners, Southern states, GST victims & certain sections of farmers.

During the last election many young, first time voters thronged polling booth because of the 'hope' created by Modiji's aura & slogan "Acche Din Aane wale hai" (Good days are coming). Those youngsters are still waiting for the good days. BJP's challenge will be how to bring back those demoralised youth to polling booth & make them vote for Modiji. I suspect less voter turn out for the coming elections. The BJP campaign team has to manage pre-election alliances well. It would be difficult to woe partners like Shiv Sena, TDP, Akali & Nitish Kumar. Failure to take them along will prove very costly for BJP. I can clearly see a strong trend in favour of the third alliance in South & East where regional parties dominate the show. Large turn out of farmers & traders would go against BJP. If I were a BJP man I would have been worried.

The coalition era is going to come back in the Indian politics. The regional parties will decide the Prime Minister.

How should be our leader? Voters' decision making parameters. Indian voters are now looking for the leader who can work well with other leaders. Who will create young leaders. Who will be comfortable with coilation & collabration. They want a visionary leader who has demonstrated leadership at least at the state level. Voters want a leader of masses who can also appeal to classes. We want pro-development leader who will drive economy & generate jobs & ease of doing business. Our leader has to be secular & not biased towards particular community or state. We don't want to see him doing a minority politics just to garner votes. He should be genuinely concerned about the welfare of minorities. We want leader who can balance South & North. We want our leader who knows farming well but can shake hands with businessmen & teach them a couple of lessons of the developmental economics. Who can speak Hindi even if it is not his mother tongue. We want a leader who had suffered a wrath of the God. Realised his own limitations & importance of team & bright team members. We want a leader who did mistakes but learnt life lessons from them. Who can be the choice? People of India have not yet made up their mind. They are at crossroads. 'Rafale controversy' has added to their confusion. They are unable to interpret the leader's silence. Though people discount Rahul's tall claims they want to know the role played by Anil Ambani. They liked majors like RERA but thinking whether the demonetisation was a blunder. They know, even if initiatives like Aadhar, GST were initiated by Manmohan govt., Modiji pushed them hard. His efforts to attract foreign investment & improving ties with America were also appreciated. There is a general impression that he has not delivered to the level of expectations but they also feel he needs more time. Modiji has successfully maintained his moral image high but Manmohan Singhji got defeated in spite of the personal image of the 'political saint'. People want Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi back. BJP blamed others for Lalit Modi & Daud but even today they are at large. Such pluses & minuses are nullifying each other & people are thinking should they really go to polling booth & stand in long queues. The sense of responsibility, as a citizen of the world's largest democracy, will finally push them there hence they are thinking hard. Voters are still in the evaluative stage & not made-up their mind. There is nobody ideally suitable but people might consider a few options. There are following options:

Sharad Pawar Logically he can be the strongest contender among all the aspirants. He has played his cards well & kept congress & BJP in good humour. Though he always denies a chance of supporting BJP, political observers always believed that he wouldn't hesitate to take their support. He can also manage support from congress in case of crisis.

Sharad Pawar always knows which side of the bread is butter

He is nearing his retirement & will apply full throttle to be the next prime minister, the dream which he has been cuddling for a couple of decades. He has good equations with national leaders. His major challenge was reliability. But he has worked hard on it. He has been with UPA alliance for over a decade & half. He did not switch sides. He avoided to go with BJP even at the cost of gaining power in Maharashtra assembly. He will make efforts to get candidature from UPA rather than NDA. In such a case Soniaji's opinion will decide his chances.

Sharad Pawar's problem is that congress don't consider him congressman but RSS considers him hard core congressman.

This fact disqualifies him from getting a support from both major parties Congress & BJP. His chances are higher because of his seniority, political acumen, ability to stay away from scam or controversy & lack of successor at the national level. But he would be too strong to be controlled by Gandhi family and hence difficult to be accepted by them as the leader. They would try to satisfy him with the deputy's post. In the past they did it successfully. Congress might even offer him Presidency if he supports formation of the congress led government. Mr Sharad Pawar would become Prime Minister only if the Congress party becomes too weak to demand leadership. Rahul is trying to help his cause. If elected, Mr Pawar has skills to retain power for full term. He can maintain power equation in favour of regional parties hence should be the natural choice of the non-congress, regional parties. He can run administration well but it is difficult to expect value based politics from him. Modiji, Nitish & Chandrababu certainly score over him on this parameter.

Sharad Pawar's leadership doesn't appeal to the North & to the South. But this might help him to be a consensus candidate.

Keeping congress in good humour will be his major challenge though he can prove to be the Narsinha Rao in making & has an ability to marginalise Gandhis. Strong support of the business community can be his asset. Nobody else has a better chance than him to be the consensus candidate from UPA if they overpower NDA in the number game. But that would be a thin possibility.

If the Congress party refuses to accept him then he can threaten them to join NDA. If Soniaji would be bent upon making Rahul the Prime Minister then she wouldn't budge & Mr Pawar would be left with no option but to float a third front rather than joining NDA. RSS, Jetley & Sushma wouldn't accept Mr Sharad Pawar as the leader of NDA in any case.

I feel that BJP would emerge as the single largest party. Thanks to the work done by Modi government. Stronger BJP will increase Shard Pawar's chances. In that case BJP would prefer to stay out of power rather than supporting a non-BJP candidate. Other parties would polarise as third front & seek support from Congress. They wouldn't support Rahul led congress government

BJP will have a strong presence in parliament. Managing their support on the critical national issues will be the key challenge of the next Prime Minister. 

Modi-Shah group would love to wait for the right opportunity rather than supporting Jetley, Sushma, Chandra Babu Naidu or Nitish Kumar. Ambitious non BJP leaders in NDA should realise that they have no future as the leader, in Modi- Shah era. The duo has weakened NDA to undermine the high potential leaders like Chnadra Babu Naidu & Nitish Kumar. They also made long time friend, Shiv Sena, unhappy.

Chandra Babu Naidu Can be the next powerful leader. His southern origin & comfort with Hindi should prove to be an advantage. Like Mr Pawar, Modiji & Nitish Kumar he is very successful Chief Minister of the critical state like Andhra Pradesh & also support from Telangana when it would come to a Telugu man becoming the prime minister. He also has a friend circle in business community who can push forward his claim. His pro-development image is as bright as Modiji's image. He will prove to be excellent choice for leadership. But his challenge comes from his own state and from Telangana. Secondly, Chandra Babu is a busy man in Andhra. He is manufacturing his state from the scratch. He needs to spend next 5 years in constructing Andhra Pradesh. He can go to centre in 2024. But he is not able to identify his successor as yet who can continue his good work in Andhra. People look at his dynamic daughter-in-law, Brahmini, to continue his 40 year legacy in assembly. But she has not yet entered the politics & busy in expanding her business under the brand Heritage. In 2019 Chandra Babu's need will be a friendly government in centre which will support him in Andhra by funds & schemes. With the bitter experience of NDA he might consider supporting a third front.

There could be other leaders from the North India like Nitish Kumar, Mulayam Singh, Mayawati but they will have a strong opposition from their own North region. Nitish Kumar started good work in Bihar but has along way to go.

In a Nutshell, Voters are at cross roads. They are unable to make up their mind whether to give one more chance to Modiji. He would be in a position to cross the 'magic number' only with the strong support of the NDA allies. Modiji will have to get involved personally to pacify the aggrieved friends and develop strong pre-poll alliances in all the states. I would bate on Sharad Pawar in case BJP fails to make pre-poll alliance with traditional NDA allies. I would expect leaders like Chandra Babu, Nitish Kumar, Mulayam Singh, Navin Patnaik, Mamata to support Mr Pawar by negotiating their pound of flesh. Sharadrao is extremely good at managing expectations & would come out as a winner. In 2024 Chandra Babu should pitch himself as Sharad Pawar's successor. He should grab the position of the third front convener in the forthcoming elections. Modiji, he is a good leader but needs to learn many lessons to lead secular India in the dynamic economy. He can benchmark Atalji. Indira was a better Prime Minister after a break. She did many policy changes in 1980s after raising to power from the defeat. I am sure Modiji will spend next 5 years for the leadership development & also team development. But the question is with the power or without it. If that happens then India will have tough choice in 2024 with Modiji, Chandra Babu & Nitish competing fiercely. Anybody can lift the leadership cup provided they do their 'net practice'.

About the Author: Prof Dr Ajit Patil is awarded 'Top Voice on LinkedIn - 2017'. He is a Management Writer; Marketing, Business Development & Retailing Consultant. He conducts Management Development Programmes; trains & coaches Sales & Marketing teams. He has been teaching MBA students in India & overseas for over 18 years. He can be reached at ajitpatilmumbai@yahoo.co.in

Prof Dr Ajit Patil with his daughter Supriya.