PM Modi's Win 'Most Plausible Outcome': UK Daily's Column Explores Hopes And Fears For 2024 LS Polls

The BJP's return to power for a third consecutive term at the Centre in the 2024 Lok Sabha election is "almost an inevitability", said a column published in the renowned UK-based daily, The Guardian. The columnist, Hannah Ellis-Peterson, attributed the predicted outcome to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "popularity as a political strongman" and the ruling BJP's "Hindu nationalist agenda".

Apart from the aforementioned reasons, the column said that the BJP's recent victory in Assembly polls in three states -- Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan -- and emotive issues such as the Ram Temple inauguration in Ayodhya have solidified the party's chances of getting a third straight term to govern India.

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After assembly wins in three states, PM Modi himself didn't hold back from predicting that "this hat-trick has guaranteed the 2024 victory", the column noted. In India's current political landscape, the consensus among political analysts is that a win for Modi and the BJP is the "most plausible outcome", Ellis-Peterson added in her piece.

"The prime minister's popularity as a political strongman, alongside the BJP's Hindu nationalist agenda, continues to appeal to the large Hindu majority of the country, particularly in the populous Hindi belt of the north", the column read, adding, "At the state and national level, the apparatus of the country has been skewed heavily towards the BJP since Modi was elected (PM) in 2014".

The column noted further that while the regional opposition to the BJP was strong in pockets of south and east India, nationally it is seen as 'fragmented and weak'. "The main opposition -- Indian National Congress -- won the state election in Telangana this month but is in power in only three states overall and is perceived as "hierarchical and riddled with infighting", The Guardian reported.

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"The recently formed coalition of all major opposition parties -- which goes by the acronym INDIA -- is yet to unite on crucial issues, though it has vowed to fight the BJP collectively," the piece read further, adding, "The general sense is that a BJP win is almost an inevitability at this stage," said Neelanjan Sircar, a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research. "The question is more: what factors will shape the scale of the victory?"

Pointing to the BJP's 'nationwide pre-election push' -- 'Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra', the column stated that it features the deployment of 'thousands of government officers' to towns and villages across the country over the next two months, "tasked with speaking about the BJP's successes over the past nine years".

(With inputs from ANI)