'The Election Commission's involvement in the avoidable SIR controversy has carried a message down to the last voter -- who just does not like it,' observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Despite delivering the longest Independence Day speech and also for the highest number of times compared to all his predecessors, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, this time round, failed to impress his 'bhakts' of the past decade and inspire the nation as his call for banging plates to drive away Covid did even a few years back.
If someone is talking about his I-Day speech this time, it is not about the series of governmental announcements the prime minister made.
Instead, it related to the forced reference to his ruling BJP's ideological RSS parent in the context of the nation's freedom.
If the political opposition was vocal, there were many others among the silent middle-class that was supportive of him, but who seem suspicious of Modi and his ongoing/upcoming Project.
There is an underlying fear now even among his ardent supporters as different from committed cadres that the Election Commission's 'SIR Project' was not a standalone affair, but was aimed at paving the way for pushing through an ideological agenda faster than what the nation may be prepared for, if at all.
The Modi message this time was as much to the RSS parent and its guardians in Nagpur as to the nation -- if the latter was still the case.
Despite both sides maintaining a stoic silence, there are increasing indications that Team Modi may have yielded, or has to yield ground, to the RSS for the first time from before his prime ministerial nomination for the successful Elections-2014.
The RSS understands that it still needs Modi's face for the BJP to retain power.
More importantly, after he had truncated the multiple lines of succession down the line with the single elimination of those above him, starting with his one-time godfather L K Advani, if the BJP were to weaken itself owing to intra-group rivalries, it may take decades, if at all, for them to come back to power.
In the interim, the 'secularist successors' of any BJP government at the Centre in the next five or ten years, could undo and re-do what all the Modi dispensation has 'achieved' for the ideology.
It is not that the 'Modi magic' is fading but Team Modi is also failing the leader and his cause -- mainly owing to over-exposure, over-use and structured thinking with little left outside the box to think and act afresh.
In this overall background, going by the looks of it since Elections 2024, Modi's spin doctors may have to think afresh, given the predictability of their lines and packaging for their master and his minions to mouth before the public, on issues of concern both to the nation and to the ruling BJP, not necessarily in that order.
In short, Modi's 'Mr India' image is fading, and fading faster than his spin doctors and image-builders are ready to accept.
The involvement of the independent Election Commission in the avoidable SIR controversy, beginning with poll-bound Bihar, has carried a message down to the last voter -- who just does not like it.
True, Modi's line that he was 'ready to pay the price for protecting our farmer's interest' in the context of US President Donald Trump's tariff war and insistence on India opening up the agriculture sector for American imports, did the trick, yes, but the emotional quotient was much less than anytime in the past.
But it did not take all the blemish attaching to Bihar-SIR and Rahul Gandhi's 'vote-theft charge', unlike on more serious charges in the decade gone by.
But neither Team Modi nor his experienced spin doctors, nor the RSS cadres who have been doing all the spade work, more for the cause than maybe for the leader, seems aware of the impossibility of the emerging situation.
Maybe they are aware but are unable to accept and acknowledge it, and act accordingly, in the absence of an alternative tactic, narrative or both.
First and foremost, people are getting wiser. Yes, even now, the voter may not be able to predict what was to come next from the Modi armour, but once it is delivered, a sense of deja vu tends to overtake the recipient of the message.
It is an 'I-thought-so' moment, only that 'I did not spare enough time, or did not have enough time, to think it out and vocalise the hidden sentiment and conclusion.'
It is not good for the 'Modi magic' that was assiduously built since before Elections 2014.
At the time, the nation did not know who the man was, or what his 'Gujarat Development Model' was all about, yet, his spin doctors and propagandists together convinced voters at the national level they had known them both for long, and benefited from such knowledge.
Such a sense was over and above what the BJP had done to destroy the UPA-II's image, through over-playing the 2G scam, which divided the Congress-led ruling combine at the Centre than uniting it.
Nowhere was it more visible in southern Tamil Nadu, where the DMK ally of the Congress leader of the UPA-II at the Centre lost the 2011 assembly elections earlier because the latter would not defend the former, when nothing much had been lost.
By the time the middle class voter across the nation was ready to acknowledge that the CAG's bloated figure of Rs 1.78 lakh crore in the 2G scam was purposefully floated, Elections 2014 were over and Modi had become prime minister.
What the nation has seen since is only a repeat of the same or similar strategy, only with facts and names replaced in each one of them, from the previous one.
It is thus for the upcoming assembly elections in Bihar, the BJP has taken up the construction of a massive Sita temple, like the Ayodhya temple for Ram.
The party has forgotten the 2024 results, when the BJP, despite being the powerful ruling party in Uttar Pradesh, won only 37 of 80 Lok Sabha seats.
It also lost the prestigious Faizabad constituency, where Ayodhya is located, only months after Modi had consecrated the Ram temple with pomp and splendour.
It is not only emotional issues such as this one that suffers from the Keynesian 'marginal utility' economic theory, so to say.
Even on security matters combined with emotional issues, there is an increasingly decreasing voter interest and support for the cause, when repeated.
The electoral outcomes of the Indira Gandhi assassination (1984), the Rajiv Gandhi assassination (1991) and the 'Coimbatore serial blasts' (1998) bear testimony.
There is a hidden or an open message now for the Modi's spin doctors, who are more loyalists than possibly professionals and may have a limited vision and openness to see changes where and when they occur and adapt to the emerging situation.
As may be recalled, the Indira Gandhi assassination impacted the entire nation as none else, the Rajiv assassination's electoral effect was felt only in Tamil Nadu, the scene of the crime, and a few places elsewhere in the country.
The electoral effect of the 'Coimbatore serial blasts' was minimal even in the state, despite the gruesomeness and the religious content of the event.
Today, in the era of social media outreach that has penetrated down to the last village and hamlet, and in a language and dialect that the locals understand, the BJP may have lost the initial advantage available to Team Modi in 2014.
Sure enough, the Congress-led Opposition is still old-fashioned, but unknowingly, but not unwittingly, they are stopping with creating doubts, suspicions and credibility-gaps in the voter's mind about the party and leader in mind.
In turn, this cannot be measured through cadre-approaches or even scientific voter-surveys. It has to be felt, and for it, Team Modi's eyes, ears and mind should be open and closer to the ground than they think they still are.
For when it hits them, it may become too late for applying correctives, owing also to the credibility gaps, not only in the party and the leader but also the grassroots-level messenger.
The Bihar-SIR issue and Rahul's 'vote-theft' charge have done precisely that. They have just kindled voter curiosity, not about what the BJP or even the RSS cadres may have done at the grassroots level.
Instead, the voter is concerned more about the Election Commission's role in all this, and how the Supreme Court is handling it all.
In their own small ways, and minimal understanding of democratic processes and legal consequences, they have begun recalling the era of T N Seshan at the Election Commission's helm, even in street-corner chit-chats.
This is not a good omen for the ruling party.
The more the grassroots-level voter discusses these things among themselves, greater are the chances that they flag it before the local teacher, lawyer and doctor, opinion-makers who have been unabashed 'Modi bhakts' across the country through the past decade and more.
Slowly but surely, the resoluteness of the latter class can wane, as had happened in the case of other parties and leaders.
Overnight, opinion-makers will become opinion-seekers, and unknown to them, an internal metamorphosis could be at work.
The BJP strategists and spin doctors have to remember only one thing from the near past.
From 2013 onwards, they had openly and through their social media handles ridiculed Rahul Gandhi as 'Pappu', childish or child-like, as you may want to interpret.
By denigrating him non-stop, the BJP campaigners hoped to break Rahul's morale and that of his party. They almost succeeded with the latter, but not the former.
All of a sudden, they stopped referring to Rahul as 'Pappu'. That was possibly after they had belatedly begun feeling the wind on their faces.
For instance, the run-up to Elections 2024 showed Rahul Gandhi drawing huge and curious crowds to his two-stage Bharat Jodo Yatra. Not only the Congress cadres but also their regional and sub-regional allies were enthused and re-energised.
Coupled with the inevitability of anti-incumbency hanging over the Modi dispensation at the end of a decade, the new-found INDIA combine at least could push the BJP's seat-share to the lowest figure of 240 in the 543-member Lok Sabha.
Today, the government is on the crutches provided by the Telugu Desam Party and the Janata Dal-United allies in Andhra Pradesh and Bihar.
Through all this, the BJP strategists would have understood -- or they should understand -- that more than the political rivals coming close to the BJP's seat tally with 234 seats, the BJP under Modi lost more seats than they could afford.
As alliances, the BJP-NDA could poll only 42.5 per cent votes against the INDIA combine's 40.6 per cent -- the lowest ever gap of 1.9 per cent.
It is here that Rahul's 'vote-theft' charge and the 'Bihar-SIR' issue assume greater significance for political parties and their cadres, especially for those in the INDIA combine.
Together, the two issues have questioned the Election Commission's credibility in the minds of the average voter who had voted for the BJP and had sworn by Modi until now.
For the Congress-led Opposition, it is half the battle won, whatever the Supreme Court's final directive in the matter.
The Election Commission's indicated defiance that it is not bound to submit details of the 65 lakh names struck off the Bihar electoral rolls has conveyed what neither the EC, not certainly the Modi government, had wanted to convey -- especially to the Indian voter.
N Sathiya Moorthy, veteran journalist and author, is a Chennai-based policy analyst and political commentator.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff