Both the political and ideological opponents of PM Modi failed to understand the mood of the nation completely. This lack of understanding about the ground reality alone seems to have contributed to their failure more than anything else. Here are a list of propaganda and false narratives that opponents of PM Narendra Modi tried hard to push against him, but which did not work in their favour.
1. Neo-Left’s flop show.
There was this group of neo-leftists, including Kanhaiya Kumar, who repeatedly pleaded the voters to ‘vote for the best MP from your constituency and not for Modi’. This message did not strike a chord in people’s heart at all. Because it was asking people to put their local self-interest above their National interests. But people vote as a nation when it comes to General Elections in India and this is what the neo-leftists failed to recognize. The Left perhaps did not expect Indians to come together as a nation and vote for national security.
2. Denying the success of Modi Sarkar’s schemes.
The opposition parties completely dismissed, and still do, the success of grass-root level schemes of Modi Sarkar. Schemes like Jan Dhan, Ujjwala, Gram Jyoti, MUDRA, Atal Pension, were not merely lip services like “gareebi hatao”. They actually benefitted the poorest of the poor through direct transfers into bank accounts. But you can find scores of scholarly articles on the internet written in the last 5 years by the well known anti-Modi media houses about the supposed failure of these schemes. If that were true, there was no way that BJP could have increased its vote share in any which way in these elections. In fact, it is beginning to appear that more poor have voted for Modi this time than the urban middle class or the rich.
3. Scaremongering with slogans like “Democracy is in Danger”.
Another big failure. Ground reality was completely different than what these eco-systems were trying to portray. The “freedom of expression is being suppressed” narrative was being spread vocally and openly by PM Modi’s haters, which in itself was a big irony. People like Arvind Kejriwal went so far as to say that “This would be the last election if Modi comes back to power”. Such statements show that either the opposition parties consider voters of India too naive or that they have Modi-phobia. It is unsurprising as to why the voters did not buy any of these narratives.
4. The overly hyped up “minorities are in danger” narrative.
Clear cut one-sided and biased reporting about communal incidents and attempting to paint India as an intolerant society under Modi Sarkar also failed big time. Fake reports on Church attacks and attempts to brand the larger Hindu community as ‘intolerant’ did not go well with people. The narrative that if you vote for BJP then you are a fascist was also pushed very vigorously by university intellectuals. It hardly persuaded the voters to vote against Modi Sarkar, since the situation on the ground wasn’t really as bad as these outlets were trying to make it appear.
PM Modi has been communicating directly and extensively with people on the ground, on social media and through radio broadcasts like ‘Man ki Bat’ which was heard by crores of people every month. His opponents criticized him for not holding a single press conference. But in reality, he left no stone unturned to answer people of this country directly and to assure them that he is working for them continuously. One thing is clear, that the people don’t anymore buy the propaganda of eco-system media outlets and university intellectuals. They observe the results. They prefer actions over talks. Basically, they prefer reality over opinions. In short, “Ye Public hai, ye sab jaanti hai.”
