How BJP is using 2024 Lok Sabha election to lay groundwork for post-Modi succession plan

The BJP is bringing up a whole new set of MPs, CMs, ministers, MLAs, who will pay a crucial role if and when PM Modi hangs up his boots and there is a battle for succession.

PM Modi kickstarted the BJP poll campaign in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut with a mega rally | Photo Suraj Singh Bisht, ThePrint

Guess who might have written this: “What was my crime after all? Was I not honest? Was I not hardworking? Was I tainted? Did I leave any deficiency in getting work done? I was ahead of all in the implementation of the Prime Minister’s schemes. What else was desired?”

Sounds like a doleful cry of a betrayed person who didn’t know what hit him and why. Well, that’s Rahul Kaswan, Member of Parliament from Churu in Rajasthan. The two-term MP posted those questions on X after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) denied him ticket in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. He had defeated the Congress candidate by 3.34 lakh votes in 2019 and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate by 2.94 lakh votes in 2014. His father, Ram Singh Kaswan, had won the Churu seat for the BJP four times — 1991, 1999, 2004, and 2009.

Now see what another BJP MP had to tell ThePrint after the BJP denied him the ticket: “I spoke to the state president of the party and national leaders. They said that in the survey conducted by the party…my feedback was not found to be good. When I told them that I had got more than six lakh votes in the last election, they said the votes you got were not because of you, but because of ‘upar wale log’ (read PM Modi). Self-respect is everything for me.”

That was Ajay Nishad, 57, two-term MP from Muzaffarpur in Bihar. In 2019, he had defeated Vikassheel Insaan Party candidate Raj Bhushan Choudhury by 4.10 lakh votes—almost doubling his victory margin from the 2014 tally of 2.23 lakh votes. His father, Jai Narain Nishad, was a four-term Lok Sabha MP from Muzaffarpur.

Winnability not the only reason

Kaswan and Nishad are not isolated cases. There are over 100 other BJP MPs—over a third of the total contingent of 303—who have been denied ticket this time. In my PoliticallyCorrect column dated 4 March 2024, I had cited some instances of denial of tickets and argued that winnability wasn’t the only reason the BJP was pushing fresh faces. I had also cited studies and random samples from the last Karnataka assembly election to argue that replacing sitting MLAs to beat anti-incumbency against them isn’t a foolproof strategy. In the five weeks after I wrote that, my interactions and discussions with leaders about the dropped MPs added a new dimension. The BJP’s spin doctors cite winnability, need to promote fresh talent, and many other noble and grand objectives to justify dropping sitting MPs. Are these good enough reasons?

Let’s go back to Rahul Kaswan’s questions and Ajay Nishad’s ‘self-respect’ remark. Dropping them was never about winnability. Look at their victory margins in the past two elections. In Muzaffarpur, the VIP leader Nishad defeated his opponent by over four lakh votes in 2019; Raj Bhushan Choudhary is the BJP candidate in 2024. Any survey that says that the VIP candidate of 2019 has a better chance as a BJP candidate in 2024 has to be fairly imaginative. I am not suggesting that Choudhary will lose in 2024. Given Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s abiding popularity, even a statue can win on BJP ticket today. I am sure top BJP leaders don’t doubt Modi’s popularity. The question is that if he remains as popular today as he was in 2019, how can a BJP MP, who won by a margin of three or four lakh votes in 2019, potentially lose after five years? It’s difficult to answer unless the BJP’s survey agencies act like central investigation agencies probing opposition leaders.

“The party has changed a lot…. Everyone knows how these surveys work. I have nothing more to say,” former Himachal Pradesh BJP president Maheshwar Singh, who wants the party to review its decision to field actor Kangana Ranaut in Mandi, told a colleague on Saturday.

Let me cite another example. In the Dhanbad Lok Sabha constituency, sitting MP Pashupati Nath Singh won the last three elections with his victory margin improving every time—from 58,000 votes in 2009 to close to 5 lakhs in 2019. The BJP has dropped Singh and replaced him with Dulu Mahato, an MLA who won his last assembly election by 824 votes. Besides, as former BJP leader Saryu Roy pointed out in a letter to his former party, Mahato has been convicted in four cases.

Winnability can’t be the reason for change in Dhanbad either. Compare the BJP’s dropped MPs records with their replacements. It’s not about winnability in most cases; it’s not even about nurturing younger leaders. Kaswan is 47 and Nishad 57. So, what’s going on in the BJP? It has already gifted three MPs to the Congress—Kaswan, Nishad and Hisar MP Brijendra Singh, quite a windfall for the opposition party. The BJP is obviously sure that no matter how badly it bungles ticket distribution and how much resentment party cadres might have, 2024 is a done deal. Party managers are testing PM Modi’s popularity big time.

Look at the broader story

To understand what’s actually happening in the BJP, one has to look at ticket distribution in the context of other developments. Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath is saddled with several ministers who were critical of him—veteran turncoat Dara Singh Chouhan being the latest. A CM, even in his second term, can resist high command’s pressure only up to a point.

After Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar’s removal, some leaders are floating a new theory in informal interactions with reporters—that the high command wants to have a two-term limit to party CMs to promote new leadership. But nobody in the BJP is saying it officially—just like there was nothing official about the unwritten upper age limit of 75 years for holding offices and contesting elections. People learnt it by word of mouth. The 75-year ceiling (that officially never was) turned out to be a convenient excuse to get rid of inconvenient leaders. For all we know, the latest talk about a two-term limit for CMs may also become an unofficial rule of convenience. You don’t want the emergence of another Shivraj Chouhan who was seen as a potential PM for long—until the party high command put him in place recently. A multi-term CM with a good governance record is always a prime ministerial contender. And if they are half as smart and popular as Narendra Modi, there is no stopping them.

Maharashtra’s Devendra Fadnavis was talked about as a potential PM candidate in his very first term as CM. Blame it on such talks, he didn’t get a second term even when the opportunity came. Demoted to the deputy CM’s post, he is witnessing a gradual erosion in his authority and political base. His detractor, Vinod Tawde, is now a powerful national general secretary of the BJP. Another detractor, Eknath Khadse, who quit the BJP in 2020 “because of Fadnavis” is negotiating his return to the parent party.

Fadnavis is not involved in these negotiations.

How do these developments relate to the BJP’s ticket distribution? Well, what the candidates’ list shows is an attempt to use PM Modi’s popularity to promote new faces or loyal MPs who would owe their position entirely to whoever got them the party tickets. The BJP is bringing up a whole new set of MPs, CMs, ministers, MLAs, and office-bearers of the organisation at the Centre and in states. They will pay a crucial role if and when PM Modi hangs up his boots and there is a battle for succession. Whoever commands their loyalty is likely to have an edge if Modi decides to remain neutral. That should explain this thrust on promoting new faces at every level. You must be curious about the brain behind these changes, someone with the ability and clout to carry them out. All I can say is that it can’t be JP Nadda.

DK Singh is Political Editor at ThePrint. He tweets @dksingh73. Views are personal.

(Edited by Humra Laeeq)