Narendra Modi’s 76th birthday was celebrated with great fanfare this September. India’s 19th parliamentary election will take place sometime in May-June 2029. By September that year, Modi will be 79. This means that, at the age of 79, he will be called upon to run the government, the party and its political operations, along with all the accompanying counterplots.Modi himself has revealed that, due to official work, he barely gets five hours of sleep a day. Then there are his foreign visits. Is all this burden really possible unless he is indeed “non-biological” as he once claimed?There were already signs of change in the leadership of the ruling party. Since July 2026, when the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protests forced Modi to drop former education minister Dharmendra Pradhan from the Union cabinet, Pradhan has not been seen in any decision-making role. From all accounts, it was Union home minister Amit Shah who was running the show. At least, that has been the public perception.The Wire had earlier written about the rise of Shah in decision-making and the reasons behind it. Since then, things have moved rather fast. Media persons covering the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) aver that Shah has now emerged as the epicentre of the party’s decision-making.So far, he has been independently looking after affairs falling under his own ministries and departments. From July onwards, his sphere of activity expanded. He began to attend to matters not only on behalf of his own ministry, but also those concerning other ministries.He played a role in Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad’s (ABVP) victory in universities in Odisha, attended Odisha new year programme and rushed to the site of the Durga puja stampede in Kolkata – not Modi. Can all this be a coincidence? BJP correspondents, who cannot write all that they know in their newspapers, believe that perceptible changes in the effective leadership are already underway. Let us wait for more details.Modi suffered a big jolt when the CJP agitation in July forced him to sack Pradhan. That was something unthinkable under Modi even six months before. Since the July revolt, he has been active in a few image-building programmes.Also read: Is Amit Shah’s Meltdown a Work in Progress?These include celebrations marking his 25 years as chief minister and prime minister, month-long celebrations of his 76th birthday, the Union cabinet’s much-publicised ‘chintan baithaks’, and the inauguration and flagging off of new trains. But throughout this period, what was missing was his usual assertion of authority and power.Analysts interpret this as a sign of withdrawal. A commentator who once edited an English newspaper chain, and now runs a digital newsroom he founded, has cited a ‘battalion of sorrows’ at Modi’s doorstep. “A cascade of crises, a perfect storm is building up. They together present a picture of a country (or industry) in dramatic transformation,” he said in an article by The Print. The decline in Modi’s popularity had begun at the start of this decade. In August 2020, when India Today conducted a survey asking respondents whom they would choose as the next prime minister, as many as 66% named Modi. The number fell to 38% in January the following year and then hit 24% soon after.Such a steep fall would have been unthinkable for Modi during his earlier, more successful days. Modi suffers a big jolt, Shah on the riseAmit Shah has been a trusted adjutant to Modi ever since their Gujarat days. Modi has always depended on his trusted lieutenant’s counsel. But the two have distinctly different styles of functioning. Modi has always believed in a carefully scripted policy architecture, often prepared by his non-political experts and vetted by him to ensure infallibility. Elaborate planning and scrutiny, supported by equipment such as the teleprompter, make implementation smooth.The home minister, on the other hand, relies more on his own wisdom and judgement. For instance, the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) was widely seen as an attempt to curb the alleged ‘infiltration‘ in electoral and political arrangements that he had been speaking out against. A lot of uncertainty persists around the revision process. Shah also has a tendency to advocate for the imposition of the Hindu language on non-Hindi-speaking populations.Modi’s dream of ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’“Congress-mukt Bharat” has been Modi’s dream since 2014. He has hammered away at this theme repeatedly. Unfortunately for him, the Congress has now undisputedly emerged as the principal opposition party, with the BJP’s old ‘Pappu’ becoming Modi and Shah’s real challenge.Over the past few months, Rahul Gandhi has effectively proved that he can stand up to political adversity. He is familiar with every issue and can explain it to others without expert-written scripts, readymade answers or the support of teleprompters. One can see Rahul addressing students, effortlessly answering impromptu questions from the media or conversing with Ankita Bhandari’s parents.A dozen BJP spokespersons were deputed to find ‘bloopers’ in his addresses. Finally, Amit Shah himself came out to warn Gandhi that he faced a ‘crushing defeat’ in the forthcoming elections.Until a year ago, regional opposition parties had nursed hopes of positioning themselves to replace the Congress as the principal opposition party. The Trinamool Congress (TMC), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Bharat Rashtriya Samiti (BRS) had contested elections in faraway states such as Goa and set up central offices in Delhi to establish their credentials as ‘all-India’ parties.However, none of them could sustain the effort, and they subsequently shut their ‘all-India’ offices. The Congress, on the other hand, despite all its organisational weaknesses, has maintained a capable setup to respond to daily developments. It has a well-equipped research section that keeps digging up embarrassing details of the BJP government’s failures. It raises allegations of the regime’s misdeeds almost daily, many of which develop into national controversies.Also read: Day After INDIA Bloc Rally, Amit Shah Defends SIR, Calls Rahul Gandhi’s Protest a ‘Plan to Protect Infiltrators’Three aspects of the present popular upsurge need special emphasis.The first is the sheer size of the crowds at the protests. People turned up spontaneously, overcoming all kinds of hurdles: the closure of metro stations, disruptions to bus services, Uber and auto shutdowns, police entering trains to send Delhi-bound youths back and yellow barricades guarded everywhere by armed police. They raised slogans against the regime.Second, the police resorted to something new this time. They visited housing complexes to persuade residents to identify the ‘troublemakers’ and dissuade them from attending the protests.An analyst has described, with documented evidence, how members of right-wing groups acted as ‘parallel law enforcers’, shouting, “Police tum sangharsh karo, hum tumhare saath hain,” (Police you keep fighting, we are with you!) while threatening and manhandling protesters. The Hindu Raksha Dal chief claimed that they were his organisation’s workers.If true, this is a serious development. Can the police use street goons against protesters?This is strikingly akin to the way goons masquerading as Shiv Sena workers broke strikes in the 1960s. They attacked trade union workers on behalf of business owners. The communalisation of the police force will have long-term consequences.The third aspect is the complete absence of violence at the protests by CJP youths and opposition parties. The demonstrations were entirely peaceful and disciplined, and the leaders remained in full control. When such huge crowds gather, there is always a chance that some hotheads might overreact. Even this did not happen during the two agitations held over four months. As a result, the administration could not justify taking suppressive measures.How the judiciary has been rendered ineffectiveA day before the CJP protests on October 10, the Supreme Court had warned the authorities against imposing excessively stringent restrictions and directed officials not to cause undue inconvenience to the public.It wanted the government to minimise restrictions, including the closure of metro stations.The court warned against illegal detentions and permitted the peaceful assembly of unarmed people. “Lawyers, journalists and other professionals shall not be hindered in the discharge of their professional duties in any manner whatsoever,” the bench had said.However, most of these directions were flouted by officials and police acting under orders from the political bosses controlling the home ministry. With their boss Shah watching, they continued to resort to harsh, even coercive, measures to frustrate the protests.Also read: Why Home Minister Amit Shah Must ResignCaught between two conflicting sets of directions – those of the Supreme Court and those of the Home Ministry – officials were forced to follow their political bosses rather than the apex court’s directives. Of course, the court passes strictures which, judging by past experience, often mean little. Very few contempt-of-court cases have resulted in punishment. Others languish in court files.Consider the affidavits filed in the Supreme Court by home secretary Govind Mohan, Delhi Police chief Anurag Kumar, DMRC chairman R. Tara and others. These amounted to little more than double-talk. In the first part, they apologised to the court, only to go on to defend their actions assertively. What, then, was the apology for?Solicitor general Tushar Mehta maintains that such apologies are normal practice. He apparently saw nothing wrong with the approach.However, the court found a prima facie case of contempt of court in the affidavits. Will it actually take up the case, or leave it to its fate, as has happened with other contempt cases?P. Raman is a veteran journalist.