Three months into his third term as Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has virtually declared his intention to serve a fourth term—and possibly beyond. At the fifth Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai on Friday, he said, “Yeh aapka panchwa samaroh hai na…toh daswen me mein aaunga. Aur tab aapne bhi kalpana nahin ki hogi, wahan par aap bhi pahunche honge doston” (It’s your fifth edition of the fest, isn’t it? I will come for the 10th then. And even you might not have imagined that you would also have reached there, friends).
Just before that, he had spoken about his faith in the talent of India’s youth and his belief that “our best is yet to come”. He seemed to have the same conviction about himself as he suddenly switched to telling the audience that he would be attending the 2029 GFF, usually held in September.
In July 2023, when PM Modi had made a commitment that India would become one of the top three economies in the world during his third term, his party colleagues immediately got the larger message. I analysed this in a #PoliticallyCorrect column titled “What Modi’s guarantee to make India third largest economy means for PM probables Modi, Shah”.
Well, the wait for prime ministerial contenders and pretenders within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seems to have become a little longer. Not that they didn’t have an inkling. Modi’s constant refrain about Amrit Kaal and his undertaking to making India a developed country by 2047 say enough about his retirement plans. Age is, after all, just a state of mind.
So, why has PM Modi chosen to send this message about his fourth term so early in his third term. That he is confident of the coalition government’s ability to complete its term has been evident from the government’s frequent U-turns and the way it starts crawling when BJP allies merely want it to bend. It can’t get any better for Chandrababu Naidu, Nitish Kumar, or Chirag Paswan in any other government. Modi, therefore, wants sceptics to shut up because he knows how to keep allies happy.
Also read: Modi government’s U-turns expose a well-known secret—BJP is facing a crisis of conviction
From BJP to RSS
Modi’s message is rather meant for insiders, especially PM hopefuls and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). He knows how personal ambitions of leaders in key positions and their rivalries influenced ticket distribution, campaigning, and organisational cohesion during the 2024 Lok Sabha election. It wasn’t a planned sabotage. The leaders’ haste to position themselves for 2029 and their conflicting ambitions created a sabotage-like impact on the results. Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath may be the most talked about prime ministerial contenders, but there are many others—like Union Minister Nitin Gadkari—waiting in the wings. Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is preparing to start a monthly radio programme, ‘Kisan Se Baat’, in what is apparently inspired by the PM’s ‘Mann Ki Baat’.
Modi will be listening to Chouhan’s conversation very carefully and attentively. He may also be mindful of others on the horizon—those who see an opportunity in any political stalemate. After all, who would have thought of Narasimha Rao, HD Deve Gowda, Inder Kumar Gujral, or even Manmohan Singh becoming the prime minister? Politics is all about seizing opportunities and luck. For one, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has gone into overdrive to position himself as a new hardline Hindutva icon from the Northeast. He is unmindful of the fact that his constant diatribe against ‘Miya’ Muslims—to describe Bangladeshi immigrants—may not be in national interest, given the delicate stage of India-Bangladesh relations.
PM Modi must know how many and who all in the BJP are anxiously looking for signs of his retirement plan. This has begun to hurt the party, as was evident in the Lok Sabha election, and could only worsen in coming months and years, especially after Modi turns 75 next September. That’s why PM Modi has chosen to send a strong message through his GFF speech. If I take the liberty to translate it in my words, Modi’s statement would read: ‘Just chill! I have no plans to retire—neither during this term nor after.’
His message came a day before the RSS started its three-day coordination meeting in Kerala. The BJP’s ideological patron must have received the message from its former pracharak loud and clear. The timing is significant, given the umbilical cord binding the BJP and the RSS showing signs of severe strain. It had started with party president JP Nadda’s don’t-need-you-any more message to the Sangh ahead of the election.
RSS swayamsevaks staying away from campaigns had cost the BJP dearly in elections, and top RSS functionaries, including Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat, have made comments that raised eyebrows in the BJP. Weeks after the election results, Bhagwat remarked that a sevak must take pride in his work and not have arrogance.
Shortly after, Bhagwat commented about a human desiring superhuman-like extraordinary powers to become a Dev and Bhagwan. The opposition parties had a field day, claiming all these remarks from the RSS chief were targeted at the ‘non-biological PM’.
Of late, there have been renewed efforts to mend the ties between the ideological protégé and patron. The RSS and BJP have started holding coordination meetings for upcoming assembly polls. Senior RSS functionary Ram Madhav, whose falling out with Modi and Shah had led to his removal as BJP general secretary in 2020, is back at the helm as one of the in-charges of J&K elections.
JP Nadda went to Kerala to attend the RSS coordination meeting.
Also read: Why Modi-Shah can’t do to Yogi in 2024 what Vajpayee did to Kalyan Singh in 1999
Modi in total command
Amid all these, what has taken even BJP leaders by surprise is the PM’s silence. He kept silent when Nadda’s remark triggered massive unease in the Sangh. The PM could have simply praised the RSS or cited his RSS roots in any of his public speeches and it would have reassured the Sangh functionaries and volunteers. Modi chose not to. The fact is that PM Modi has not referred to the Sangh in any of his speeches for months, leading to speculation in the ruling party circles about the celebrated ex-pracharak’s equations with the current Sangh leadership.
PM Modi’s GFF speech about the fourth term can be seen in this context and backdrop. It’s a message to the RSS that Modi is self-built and in total control. Those who consider him weakened after LS polls and are looking at options beyond him must back off. Since the 2014 Lok Sabha election, he has remained clear that the mandate was always for him as an individual, not for any party. The people saw Modi as “the only hope”.
He is not LK Advani, whom he dethroned with the RSS’ help to become the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate in 2014. Advani had lost the 2009 election and was looking like a spent force. BJP cadres and leaders and RSS volunteers, therefore, wanted to move on, with Modi giving them big hope.
As it is, even today, the BJP doesn’t have any leader who comes anywhere close to Modi in term of popularity. As per the August edition of India Today’s Mood of the Nation survey, Modi is the most popular PM in India’s history with a rating of 51 per cent. To a question as to who is best suited to be the PM, 49.1 per cent respondents opted for Modi and 22.4 per cent for Rahul Gandhi. The catch, however, was that Modi’s rating came down by five percentage points since February this year while Rahul’s went up by 8.6 percentage points during this period.
So, yes, Modi’s critics and detractors in the Sangh Parivar are right about his popularity declining. But Modi would look at it differently. He is still the most popular leader in the country. Gandhi’s rating may be improving but it’s still not even half of Modi’s as of today.
Therefore, as long as people are voting for Modi, more than anyone else in the BJP or outside, there is no question of him stepping away—not in 2029, or 2034, or any time during his Amrit Kaal. The Sangh and the BJP’s prime ministerial aspirants must get Modi’s message from the GFF straight.
DK Singh is Political Editor at ThePrint. He tweets @dksingh73. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)
When Modi was convinced that he doesn’t feel himself biological and that God wants his wishes fulfilled through hom, then where is the question of him stepping down? How come mere mortals like Amit Shah or any other leader of BJP or any person from RSS think of replacing Modi? Such a self-declared egoist like Modi do not bend, he gets broken by external forces.