Activist-turned-election strategist who now leads the Jan Suraaj Abhiyan, Prashant Kishor discussed at a recent Express Adda in New Delhi how the next 2024 election would determine whether voters would support or oppose Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2024 Lok Sabha election and how the opposition was wasting its opportunities, particularly in terms of coming up with a counter-balance to Hindutva.

Kishor said he was aware that many individuals seated in Delhi were fixated with Hindutva. He said while there might be others who subscribe to the Hindutva doctrine of the BJP, there are also a lot of people who don’t. Now, Kishor said, while the BJP had everything — machinery, message, organization, and all — if all these factors were to be summed up, the vote share would not go beyond 38% of the electorate.

Kishor said whereas ‘mandir’ seemed to be a major issue, which will undoubtedly inspire BJP members, sympathizers and voters, and perhaps as a result, the voting percentage would rise, he did not come across many people who claimed that they were switching to the BJP because of the Ram Lalla consecration in Ayodhya.

To his amazement, Kishore said, he had observed that it was more due to the abrogation of Article 370 that the BJP gained a lot of incremental voters. Although the temple is undoubtedly a steroid, according to Kishor, it won’t increase the BJP’s vote share.

Kishor does not think there has been a seismic shift in Hindu society, that Indians are becoming more extreme as a people, that the Hindus have suddenly begun despising Muslims, or that they want a Hindu Rashtra. However, the calculative election strategist observes: “You need a minimum of 55% to 60% Hindus to be following and buying that idea because the moment you have 60% Hindus voting for the BJP, you are talking about a 48%-plus vote (share of the entire Indian electorate). But even though it seems that from 45 to 55 is only 10 percentage points, it could take 20 to 30 years.”

RSS hard-working, opposition silly: Prashant Kishor

It has taken the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh more than 50 years to achieve this degree of, in Kishor’s opinion, unity among Hindus around the concept of a Hindu worldview, rather than polarisation, and they have yet to reach the 50% mark.

The word “secular” is not hurting the opposition’s chances of winning, according to the strategist-activist. They are failing because they are incompetent and, he says, they have been lethargic. For whatever reason, nine months prior to the general election, the opposition formed the I.N.D.I.A. coalition. When the BJP lost the Bengal election two years ago, or even sooner, what stopped, he questioned, all these ‘intelligent’ men and women leading the opposition parties from doing it?

Kishor noted during the media event that there had not been a single public meeting since the I.N.D.I.A. alliance’s founding meeting in June 2023 beyond six sporadic days.

Kishor went on to brand Akhilesh Yadav, Aditya Thackeray, Chirag Paswan, KTR (KT Rama Rao), Jagan Reddy, Raghav Chadha, Omar Abdullah, Udhayanidhi Stalin and Abhishek Banerjee as “potted plants”, reposing no faith in their ability to rise higher.