Even though the election fever has gripped four states, the BJP has given up hopes in Tamilnadu and Kerala as impossible mission. It assumed its return to power in Assam. It aimed guns only in Bengal.
For the Sangh dominated faction, victory in Bengal assumed importance after clear indication that the Prime Minister will not accept the Sangh nominee to be his successor in the election in 2024. His gesture during the Bihar state assembly poll in December 2020 was too obvious for any political mind to miss it. He had repeated it six times.

Relations between the Prime Minister NaMo and the Sangh were under tension after NaMo indicated his preference for the Gandhian path. The historical evidence tells in no uncertain terms that tide of religious influence begins to ebb with economic growth. Only uneducated depend on and seek the divine interventions to extricate them from abyss of socio economic poverty. The Sangh would not allow NaMo to deliver on his promise of rapid economic growth though allowed him the fundamental switch from old points to bring economy as the focal issue in the agenda for the campaign.

He may have been allowed to experiment with new slogans in view of continued failures of the religion based agenda or under pressure of time limits for a change and due to unavailability of alternate leader. His success surprised all. The Sangh Parivar gave him free hand in formation of the government but within six months sought to bring him back to the old party agenda as if rapid growth promise was merely an election ploy and not a reality to be achieved. Inaction by and silence of NaMo must have been infuriating to induce the Sangh to manipulate his defeat in the Bihar assembly polls in 2015.

He not only gave up his public expounding for acceleration of growth but put the drive in reverse gear. Public sector banks cried of bad economies for the first time in four decades as they had to bear burden of maintaining 370 million accounts under the Jan Dhan yojana. Instead of finding the solution to enable banks to generate incomes to sustain new burden, they were directed to recover all credits extended. Recovery meant end of their earnings through interests on their extended credits. The NaMo regime put banks on a downward slide. The demonetization on pretext of three objectives resulted in shut down o f a large number of small scale units.

Even before Indians would recover from adverse impact of demonetization they were loaded with GST. It was conceived to be simplification of a plethora of taxes at the origin, the government used it to empower the centre to collect sales tax and states were enabled to charge for services. Neither removed original levies. The new tax burden was not painful as customers paid it. The compulsion of filing returns was painful as most retailers were not highly educated and the past experience of filing the sales tax returns was highly painful. They had to fork out large bribe amounts in face of threats of imprisonment.. The middle class mostly voters of the ruling party had to bear the brunt. Most politicians and observers had come to believe NaMO underwrote end of his era with both economic measures. He surprised them with his two victories first in Uttar Pradesh state polls in 2017 and the Lok Sabha in 2019.

Resentment of the middle class for the Congress and other parties was strong enough to make them remain with the BJP despite inconvenient economic difficulties. They strongly resent others for using state funds earned by taxing them to put free food in ever yawning mouths of hungry poor to earn their votes instead of making them to earn their bread. The tax money should be used to develop and expand the infrastructure to provide opportunities to affluent class. They believe increase in their affluence is national growth.

An American author claimed in her research work that India with wide variety of linguistic and provincial cultures was one land bound by same religion. It became a political entity only after 1947. A provocative thought is what India would have been today without her partition on religion basis in 1947? Would it have enabled the Sangh to be aa prominent institution?

Adolph Hitler of Germany had caused hatred for Jews for consolidation of his rule. Similarly the Sangh has been attempting to consolidate its support base without transforming India to have social equality among all from its vocations based compartmental structure. After nursing a thought for years, the impossibility of eliminating huge numbers of Muslims from India by their deportation or drowning in Arabian Sea, a new proposal was to deprive them of citizen’s rights. Experience as the Gujarat chief minister convinced NaMo of inherent pitfalls in the proposal as in eight hundred years they had become integral part of the social mechanism, sensitive enough to come to a complete stoppage by even a single malfunctioning screw among all.

He adopted the Gandhian philosophy for his regime even before he took overand though he was for two decades a Sangh disciple. It was not to clarify his position but his genuine belief was proved on several occasions, but more convincingly with his repudiation of his home minister. He denied at public rally of any proposal for fresh registration of Indian citizens as stated by the home minister. It was inevitable invitation to the Sangh wrath.

Within fifteen days the Sangh chief declared at the public rally his disassociation with the Prime Minister, his party and even with part of the BJP standing in support of Narendra Modi. Modi left no one in doubt of his reverence for Mahatma Gandhi by pending in bow at the rail station in South Africa where Gandhiji was thrown out of train more than a century ago. He established his credential as the Indian leader without coloured glasses over his thinking faculties.