What could make the BJP lose the 2024 election or even its majority?

Many people are wondering why the BJP is insisting on an apology from Rahul Gandhi for saying all that he said in the UK earlier this month. Surely the BJP knows it’s not going to get that apology. So why go on insisting on it?

The most obvious answer of course is that it wants to divert attention away from the Adani affair. But while that may have been true in February, it’s not any longer. Adani is now history.

A second explanation is that it wants to exploit this in the forthcoming assembly elections. But even that doesn’t quite wash because, just as Mr Gandhi’s averments won’t get him any votes, insisting on an apology also won’t. How many voters care about what he said?

A third explanation is that this strategy seeks to make Mr Gandhi the replacement for Mr Kejriwal who has been trying to be “the man who defeated Narendra Modi”. That suggests the BJP sees Kejriwal as a bigger threat than the former. He has been helping himself to Congress votes.

A fourth reason could be that the BJP is genuinely furious that it is being portrayed as a destroyer of India’s democracy. That Mr Gandhi chose to make this allegation abroad has made it incandescent. This is the weakest explanation.

The fifth explanation, which is the most likely one, is that the BJP policy is a combination of the first four. Taking them all together the BJP has gone to town over Mr Gandhi’s views. The dominant impulse, however, is the third one, namely, it suits the BJP to have Mr Gandhi as its main rival and paint him as a pathetic fool.

That’s as far as the BJP is concerned. What about Mr Gandhi, then? Does he really think democracy and democratic institutions in India are about to be extinguished? If so, who is coaching him? Or are these his original thoughts?

These questions would not have been necessary if Mr Gandhi had been the sharpest tool in the Congress box or if he could show some fully convincing evidence, and not just some shoot and scoot stuff. The problem is that neither his intellect, nor his evidence bears scrutiny.

That’s not the only problem. The Congress seems totally unaware that politics is a serious game. The party sounds either frivolous or lost. The BJP ridiculing Mr Gandhi can't be countered by upper class jokes and ridicule in English by the Congress.

This is a great pity because the Congress has always had excellent talent which can rebuild the party at the ground level, but which the family led by Sonia Gandhi has never allowed. They all also seem unaware that the world has changed.

Be that as it may, the current political situation reminds me of 2003. Recall that the BJP was flying high then also, so high indeed that it decided to call for early elections — and lost. It had failed to read the public mood, as had its allies in the NDA, the AIADMK and the TDP. Both got decimated.

So one must reluctantly ask the absurd question: what could make the BJP lose the 2024 election, or at least its majority? Is the BJP gauging the sullenness of the voter over high prices and low — or no — incomes accurately? Can infrastructure plus hindutva compensate for the economic decline of families?

The forthcoming assembly elections in the larger states will tell us. It’s not just AAP that’s taking the Congress vote. Others are, too. So remember that in elections and in cricket it’s never over till it’s over. The oddest combinations of factors can make bookmakers look foolish.

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the writer. They do not reflect the views of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper