Why this was the angriest Lok Sabha election in memory

The last ballot in the 2024 general election will be cast on the evening of June 1, bringing to an end the 44-day, seven-phase polls, one of the longest, angriest parliamentary elections in Indian electoral history.Invective and taunts have been hurled by politicians across parties.Exhibit 1: Addressing a campaign rally in Patna on May 25, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “If the INDI alliance wants to perform a mujra for its vote bank, it hardly bothers me (sic). I will continue fighting for the quota of OBCs, SCs and STs.”Exhibit 2: Speaking at a rally in Madhya Pradesh on May 14, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi mocked Modi over the Balakot air raid inside Pakistan following the Pulwama terror attack: “Modi says air force officials said the weather was bad to carry out the air strike in Balakot. Modiji told the officers that the weather was favourable as clouds would not allow the (Pakistani) radar to spot our planes. Modiji, please tell us, when there is rain and storm in India, do all the planes go out of the radar screen?”Watch: Congress and BJP spar over 'infiltrators' remark medium nocaption109541469Exhibit 3: At a rally in Rajasthan on April 21, Modi told the teeming crowd that if the Congress came to power, it would distribute the country’s wealth among “those who have more children”. The Opposition claimed this was directed against Muslims. Modi later clarified that he meant poor people, Muslims and Hindus, who generally have more children.Exhibit 4: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge at a rally in Karnataka on May 24 asked: “Modi has prepared plans for 2047 — will he even be there till 2047?”Virtually every political leader has been guilty of using vitriolic language to polarise voters. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) targeted minorities and taunted the Opposition’s dynastic electoral baggage. Modi mocked Rahul for “running away” from Amethi where he feared losing again to Smriti Irani.At a rally in West Bengal on May 4, shortly after Rahul had confirmed he would contest not from Amethi but from mother Sonia’s Rae Bareli seat, Modi said: “Today I want to tell him (Rahul), daro mat, bhago mat.”Hitting back at a rally in Kanpur, Rahul declared: “Modiji will not come back as prime minister in 2024. Tata-Bye.”Rahul was alluding to his charge that Modi was “in the pocket of Adani and Ambani”. The Tata reference though was new.Feeling the heatThrough the campaign, taunts, many defamatory, some merely in poor taste, have flowed thick and fast between the BJP and the Opposition alliance.Campaigning ends on May 30. The seventh and final phase of voting is on June 1. Why has the 2024 election been the most vituperative in memory?Was it the brutal summer heat that raised tempers to boiling point? Unlikely. The last two Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and 2019 were also held in April-May. This summer has been especially brutal but it does not explain the electoral invective that has defaced the campaign.The real reason is that the stakes in this election are higher than ever before. For the Congress-led Opposition, defeat in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls could be explained away as a one-off, a reaction to the policy paralysis of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, along with Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption campaign and 10-year anti-incumbency.The defeat in 2019 could be attributed to the wave of nationalism that swept India following the air strike on Balakot, deep inside Pakistan after the Pulwama terror attack. medium110537699The Balakot air strike on February 26-27 came just six weeks before the first phase of voting in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls on April 11. It transformed both the arithmetic and chemistry of the election.The Opposition believes that 2024 is different. There is no Balakot. The Ram Mandir euphoria faded four months ago. There is 10-year anti-incumbency against Modi. The Opposition is fighting the election with 25 parties sharing seats across states.Surely, this is the best opportunity in 10 years to unseat Modi?Jobs are scarce, prices are high. While federal infrastructure is being built at great speed with highways, bridges, tunnels, metros, airports and sea terminals, civic infrastructure in cities, towns and villages hasn’t kept pace.Modi’s Viksit Bharat 2047 is still 23 years away. A new generation of voters are impatient for change here and now.This thinking has led the Opposition brainstrust to conclude that 2024 represents the best chance to bring down the Modi government.All guns blazingCongress leaders attribute Modi’s unusually intemperate language during campaigning (“mangalsutras”, “infiltrators”) to nervousness on receiving negative feedback from ground reports, especially after the first few phases.The Opposition saw an opening and doubled down in attack mode. From Tejashwi Yadav in Bihar to Akhilesh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh, MK Stalin in Tamil Nadu to Uddhav Thackeray in Maharashtra, all guns were trained on Modi through the long drawn-out election.With the Opposition rhetoric getting sharper, Modi too went on the offensive. The 2024 election is crucial to his political agenda. In his first 2014-19 term, Modi spent much of his time repairing the broken economy he inherited from UPA-2.Watch: 'Political narrative has fallen to unfathomable levels' medium nocaption110126868In 2019-24, he spent two years fire-fighting the Covid pandemic and another year tackling trade disruptions and sanctions amid the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars.Modi’s third 2024-29 term represents the first clear runway to push through pending reforms on labour, land and tax as well as getting India ready for the artificial intelligence (AI) era.During 2024-29, India will emerge as the world’s third largest economy. It is already among the two largest markets globally in consumer goods, the internet, mobile phones, digital payments and software services.The Opposition knows it cannot blame a potential third defeat against Modi in 2024 to UPA-2 anti-incumbency as it did in 2014 or to Balakot as it did in 2019.Losing in 2024, after building a 25-party Opposition alliance against, in effect, one leader would be an existential defeat. It could end many political careers. The stakes couldn’t be higher.Read more from the author here.