Front Page
It’s “NaMoMent’’ (Hindustan Times) all the way, today, across newspapers. The BJP’s stratospheric success not only just brushed aside the Opposition, but also all other news — a veritable clean sweep.
The stunning mandate also made the newspapers more weighty, literally: The Times of India is bursting at the seams with a 36-page edition. The Indian Express is 32 pages and HT is 30 pages — 28 of those on the verdict with the novelty of a double flap page 1 featuring Modi’s caricature.
Page after page, the newspapers dissect and analyse the BJP’s victory — region by region, state by state.
Questions will be asked of the Express for featuring Hollywood superstar Robert Downey Jr on Page 1 on this historic day rather than the winning Modi-Shah combo — even if it is in an advertisement for OnePlus 7 mobile phone model!
Back on page 1, banner headlines hail the hero of the hour — even The Telegraph graciously acknowledges the will of the people, albeit with a teaser. On Page 1, it announces, “He is back”, page 2 features Modi in a close-up, smiling with a clenched fist — “Modi leads saffron sweep” — and page 3 shows Modi-Shah’s ‘V for Victory’ sign with the headline — “Thunder of Majority”.
Then, comes the twist: “The gigantic Modi wave 2.0”, it writes, was “powered by five years of relentless propaganda centred on the Prime Minister’s persona, prowess and achievements”.
The picture of Modi walking into the BJP’s Delhi headquarters, flashing the ‘V’ sign, is popular across newspapers: Economic Times gives it a huge cut-out.
The headlines try to capture the euphoric moment: it’s “Chowkidar Chamatkaar” in TOI, “India keeps faith with Modi” in HT, “Modi 2.024 in Express (a pun on the length of Modi’s second term) while The Hindu says “India gives Modi a high five”.
TOI describes the victory as an ‘emphatic win’, The Hindu says he “cruised to victory…decimating the Opposition…”, while Express has him ‘riding a wave’’.
“Just like the “air strikes in Balakot that Modi invoked in his poll speeches, his campaign flattened opponents who had hoped allegations over the Rafale deal and the issues of unemployment and farm distress would unseat the Prime Minister”, adds TOI.
Express says Modi “swept aside a formidable Opposition alliance in Uttar Pradesh and breached a fortress in West Bengal” and in the process “the 68-year-old leader had become the first Prime Minister after Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi to win a second consecutive five-year term with a full majority”.
ET’s ‘Yes! Prime Minister’, recalling the popular British TV show, echoes editorial opinion across newspapers: “The BJP’s stunning win pointed to a fundamental shift in Indian politics, in which old caste loyalties from the post-Mandal era appear to be no longer relevant”.
HT writes, “it was, at the core, Modi’s appeal and the faith he evoked among voters that best explains the verdict.”
The Telegraph’s approach appears to have softened towards the BJP — “to view Thursday’s mandate as a triumph of Hindutva and communal polarisation would be a misreading of its complexity. While the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its innumerable affiliates have worked consistently over decades to fuse Hindutva majoritarianism with nationalism, Modi managed to weave a tapestry with multiple intricately interwoven strands”.
The Hindu feels, “The defeat could trigger a major churn in the Opposition ranks, particularly in the Congress.” Sadhvi Pragya Thakur’s win sends “a signal that any candidate anointed by Mr Modi could win”, it adds.
Opinion
Express: In ‘A remarkable victory, a great responsibility’, it hails Modi’s unprecedented victory on several counts: a second “unprecedented majority” in a national election fought around the PM’s ‘political persona’. Next, Modi has taken BJP to new places, adding to its Hindu and upper-class appeal with a success that cuts across caste, class and regional faultlines after breaches in the east – West Bengal — and the south. Third, the BJP has shown an ability to reinvent its message: from Hindu consolidation to muscular nationalism after Balakot and ‘burnishing India’s stature abroad’ to delivering schemes to the poor. Lastly, the Opposition offered a challenge based only on “anti-Modi slogans’’.
TOI: In ‘TsuNamo Again’, it argues that “anti-incumbency” shifted to “pro-incumbency”. It attributes the success to Balakot, welfare schemes and Modi’s personal charisma. The victory indicates possible “deep structural changes” in India’s polity with counter mobilisation against the old “secular”, caste political model. Modi projects a “different kind of backward caste identity” that is “fluid aspirational and upwardly mobile”.
However, with “great power comes great responsibility” — TOI urges Modi to urgently address economic issues and introduce transformative reforms, which it espoused in 2014 and then ignored in a surge of populist schemes.
HT: In ‘Elections 2019 show that 2014 wasn’t an outlier,’ it says the biggest factor in BJP’s victory is Modi: nothing else explains why stalwarts across parties and regions ‘`bit the dust’’ — BSP chief Mayawati, SP’s Akhilesh Yadav, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu all ceded ground to the BJP — and the Congress lost the three states it had won last December.
The only winners are DMK’s M.K. Stalin, YSRCP’s Jaganmohan Reddy and Punjab’s Congress Chief Minister Amarinder Singh. Politics appear to have moved into a post-Mandal epoch that will see a “new wave” of politics.
As for the Congress, the dilemma is that three Gandhis didn’t help it improve its tally appreciably — is it time to “look beyond the Gandhis”?
Hindu: In ‘For a rediscovery of India’, it says BJP’s victory establishes its “overarching hegemony” and endorses Modi’s leadership. It is also a ringing endorsement of “Hindu nationalism”. The old “idea of India” that defined the Republic during the freedom movement and its early days, which although inspired by civilisational values, espoused a “modern society with scientific temper and liberal values” is in “recess if not (in) irreversible decline”. This is a verdict for hyper-nationalism.
The Hindu congratulates Modi and hopes his second term will be more “inclusive” than the first, which was “marred by arrogant pride and hateful prejudice”.
With inputs from Shailaja Bajpai.