The ruling party often benefits while dealing with a war like situation because there is a surcharged atmosphere in the country. A muscular policy is what they want. This happened in 1971 Bangladesh war when Indira Gandhi won kudos all around. The planning for the coup took almost from April to December 1971. It was such a closely kept secret that even US Secretary of State Kissinger did not get the scent of it when he met Indira Gandhi in July 1971. US President Nixon was so upset that he called Indira Gandhi ‘a witch and a bitch’.

Atal Behari Vajpayee too got support from the entire nation during the Kargil war and his party the BJP won the Lok Sabha polls in 1999 although it did not increase the seat tally. The BJP went all out to propagate the Kargil victory though it was known that the de-escalation came only after the intervention of the then US President Bill Clinton who was keen to avert a war between the two nuclear powers.

Now it is the turn of the Prime Minister Modi to claim victory although it is clear that both the countries have climbed down after the pressure from the US and other international powers to avert escalation. The BJP believes that Modi’s chances of return are much better after the Balakot airstrikes, as he has been able to send an effective signal to the country that he is a strong leader.

Prior to Pulwama, Modi was in a vulnerable position politically, particularly after the loss of three important states in the Hindi heartland- Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in December. People were slowly getting disenchanted with the Modi government for not fulfilling his tall promises on the job and agrarian fronts. The anti incumbency needed to be countered.

However, all these have changed after Pulwama. Earlier, the BJP was thinking of making the building of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya as a main poll issue. The RSS, which had been banking on ‘temple plus cow ‘narrative to lure the voters, has changed its focus now to prioritise on terrorism. On February 22, at an RSS internal meeting, it redesigned the campaign to focus on the need for a stable government to deal with terror.

Secondly, the BJP is attempting to invoke nationalism after the attack, making use of the anger in the country against Pakistan. With the Balakot air strikes Modi has locked his political script for polls. He had used the ‘Mia Musharraf’ narrative even in his 2002 Gujarat campaign successfully to polarise the electorate. The party is propagating the achievements of the strong prime minister and his muscular policy.

Thirdly, though the opposition including the Congress supported the government soon after the Pulwama attack, they began to criticize Modi within days. Now there is a competition between the BJP and the opposition accusing each other of politicising the Pulwama issue for elections. 21 opposition parties last week issued a statement after a meeting that “National security must transcend narrow political considerations.”

The opposition has been stumped by the BJP’s security narrative and has planned its own narrative to counter it. The Congress insiders claim that the opposition has more ammunition to fire, most of them created by the BJP itself. The first step is to raise doubts about the airstrike claims. The congress narrative is to shred Modi’s claims into pieces and question the intelligence failure acknowledged by the Kashmir governor Satpal Malik. Already multiple voices have begun to question Modi’s security strategy. West Bengal chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has questioned the timing of the Pulwama terror attack, asking whether the government wanted to go to war when Lok Sabha elections were round the corner. Other opposition leaders have also joined the chorus.

The opposition believes that it would be difficult for Modi to sustain the momentum for the next two months and the Opposition will have enough time to hit out. Therefore, the other issues like Rafael could come to the forefront sooner than later. But it is a challenge how to change the national security narrative so soon and bring back the local and domestic issues and failures of Modi government. The point is questioning the BJP’s national security narrative would be risky. It has to find other ways of restoring the primacy of the other issues like jobs. Whose narrative works will be known when ballot boxes are opened but the opposition has a challenge in countering the communicative strategy of the BJP. (IPA Service)