Modi’s coalition remains solid as allies stay silent

More than two months later, it is quite clear that Modi has the upper hand and the allies have surrendered. Neither Naidu nor Nitish insisted on a top cabinet berth for their MPs. Or if they did, the BJP simply brushed it aside. So the top rung of Modi’s council of ministers remains the same and firmly in the grip of the BJP.

Then there was speculation that the allies would insist on the Lok Sabha Speaker’s post, a post that becomes crucial at a time when the BJP has become infamous for engineering splits in political parties. Yet, that did not happen and Om Birla was back in the Speaker’s chair.

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Modi 3.0 has been besieged with a number of controversies since coming to power. Among the biggest has been the leak of papers for crucial exams including a national medical entrance test. The issue has gone all the way up to the Supreme Court and forced the BJP on the back foot.

However, the JDU and the TDP remained silent. There wasn’t even a token whimper about the difficulties students were facing. By now it was quite clear that Nitish and Naidu were willing to settle for whatever the BJP offered them.

The most stark example of that has been the government’s rejection of special status for Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. This has been a key demand of the JDU and the TDP and regional parties in their respective states. Instead, both states got a generous helping hand in the annual budget that was presented by Nirmala Sitharaman last week.

The finance minister announced Rs15,000 crore for developing Amaravati, Naidu’s dream project for a new capital in his state. While Bihar got plans for new airports and colleges along with Rs26,000 crores for new highways. So no special status but both allies said they were delighted with the sops they were offered. Naidu even said “happy days are here again”.

Apart from some allies like the RLD making noises in UP about the controversy over a religious yatra and a government directive for minority shop owners to display their names, the BJP’s allies have clearly decided to settle for what they can get.

It’s all the more stark because both Naidu and Nitish have been tough allies for the BJP in the past. Both walked out of the NDA when they felt slighted at how they were treated and yet both are back, happy to forget the past and embrace Narendra Modi again.

All of that is fine, after all politics is never static and is always evolving. But this time, both men have been uncharacteristically quiet on key issues.

That may partly be due to the new realities that Naidu and Nitish face politically. Nitish Kumar has been unwell and publicly lost his cool more than once in recent weeks. The JDU is a shadow of what it once was in Bihar.

Crucial months ahead

Meanwhile, Naidu also isn’t quite as powerful in Andhra Pradesh as he once was as other parties have emerged as important players in the state.

All eyes are now on crucial state elections due in the next couple of months. Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir will see assembly elections by October, and the BJP is currently not in a strong position in any of these states.

If the opposition does well, it will add more momentum to the INDIA alliance which not only did better in the Lok Sabha polls, but also swept assembly by polls held across several states a few weeks ago.

A poor performance for the BJP could create some rumblings in the NDA down the line if the allies sense any weakness in the BJP and make more demands. Of course, all of this reverses if the BJP does well. The next few months will be important in determining the trajectory of this Modi government.