A court ruling allowing the Income Tax Department to investigate Rahul and Sonia Gandhi in the National Herald case, exposes on Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav’s family, and more corruption allegations against Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Mayawati and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) set the stage for the ruling BJP’s response to the Opposition’s efforts to frame a Grand Alliance for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad was fielded by the BJP brass to fire the first salvo against the “Grand Leaders of the Grand Alliance” and brand this political initiative as a clamour to protect the corrupt. The Opposition has naturally termed the BJP’s response as typical of the “authoritarian and vindictive” politics practised by Modi.

The Law Minister spoke to BusinessLine about the Opposition’s inability to grasp a paradigm shift in the way India is now practising politics, the reason the voter still has faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and why the BJP represents future hope while others are relics of a tainted past. Excerpts from the interview:

What do you say to the Opposition’s claim that the BJP is using state power to target political opponents and crush dissent?

It is an absurd position. How is the BJP responsible for the corruption of Lalu’s sons and daughter? In several cases, it is the court that is ordering investigations. But without going into the absurdities of these claims, what I am surprised about is the Opposition’s inability to grasp the fact that the ground has shifted under their feet. They are still using the jargon of the 1950s and the 60s to tarnish the BJP and the Prime Minister Narendra Modi as communal etc. What seems to have passed them by is the political reality that in India, we have a seasoned, mature voter. He knows who has the capacity to deliver and is ready to experiment with those who promise hope. The PM is the biggest symbol of the new politics against this congregation of corruption, which is the so called Grand Alliance.

Just an interruption; isn’t Arvind Kejriwal another symbol of this hope as were Nitish Kumar and Akhilesh Yadav in 2012 elections?

I don’t disagree. The voter experimented with new faces and new ideas at different times. But look at the way all these people have violated the people’s faith. Delhi has already rejected Kejriwal in the municipal elections only two years after such an astounding victory in the assembly elections. The only constant deliverer and performer in contemporary politics has been our PM from his Gujarat tenure to the three years at the Centre. But I don’t even need to underline these comparisons, the voter has understood and he is articulating it more forcefully than politicians in successive elections — from Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand to the municipal elections in Delhi.

What I present to you is the understanding about why this is happening and how the BJP has evolved through different phases in Indian politics in comparison with other parties. In my view there are different phases of the practice of politics and ideology in India. As a political observer and participant, I analyse these phases as distinct periods of evolution of the Indian state and society. From the ‘mai-baap sarkar’ phase, where licence-quota-permit Raj prevailed, India graduated to identity politics where regional, linguistic, caste and religious identities became the basis for partisan support of different political formations. Now is the phase of politics of hope and there can be no doubt that our PM is the biggest symbol of change and hope for the future.

What the Opposition parties have failed to grasp is that the days of pure identity politics, caste/Mandal or practising politics of want are over. It is now a combination of aspirations for social justice, and state as an instrument of upward mobility. But most importantly, people now will not be fooled by the promise of social justice and Mandal while all that the biggest practitioners of such politics — Mayawati, Lalu, Mulayam Singh Yadav — do is to promote naked corruption and family rule.

Why do you think the BJP has been able to successfully appropriate the social justice platform and attract the OBCs, the Scheduled Caste communities and others? It is because we have promoted social justice with people like Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Keshav Prasad Maurya symbolising such politics without the corruption of Lalu or Mulayam. Our PM leads from the front without a hint of a blemish on his decades-long career in politics. People have faith in him because he is a combination of governance, delivery, social justice and empowerment without the baggage that all the others carry. He represents Mandal and Kamandal, he combines the politics of Gandhi, Ram Manohar Lohia and Deen Dayal Upadhyay. He is the epitome of the politics of hope.

You’re saying caste politics is over although the BJP’s strategy in UP was very much informed and propelled by the caste logic. You’re saying communal politics is over although Hindutva is central to the discourse being propelled in the name of triple talaq and the clamour for a Ram Mandir. And you were defeated by Nitish Kumar and Lalu in Bihar who had the caste arithmetic in their favour...

There is a nuance that you are missing. What I said was that pure Mandal and pure Kamandal does not work. Of course caste is a reality in India. But the voter behaviour is not influenced only by that and he will not blindly support symbols of such politics. In my view, the biggest weakness of the Opposition and the flaw in their strategy towards forging a Grand Alliance is that they still analyse the BJP and the PM through a simple binary of communalism-versus-secularism. The world has moved and politics has changed. Voters want a better future and support those who combine a track record in governance with a mass appeal. Simply being anti-BJP or anti-Modi is not going to help them win elections.

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