Slogans and rhetoric are not to be trifled with in politics. Often, they communicate the vision of a regime. Narendra Modi’s ascendancy to power has led to the coinage of a number of rhetorical expressions. One such — ‘double engine growth’ — is employed by the Bharatiya Janata Party in poll-bound states quite frequently. The double engine metaphor is the saffron party’s way of assuring — threatening? — voters that development is only possible when the state and the Centre have the same dispensation in power. Unsurprisingly, Karnataka, which goes to the polls in May, has been hearing quite a bit about double engine growth. In a meeting with party workers, Mr Modi speculated that the state would receive a ‘double blow’ in the absence of a double engine government. Earlier, the party president, J.P. Nadda, had sounded even more ominous: he had asked the people of the state to vote for the BJP to ensure that Karnataka continues to receive the blessings of Mr Modi.

The rhetoric employed in both instances is illuminating. Mr Nadda, his critics stated, was suggesting that the prime minister may be ill-disposed towards the state if it were to exercise its free will and choose a political opponent to power. If this, indeed, is true — several Opposition-ruled states would insist that this is their experience as well — it would lead to the inference that the Centre’s goodwill is determined by partisanship. This is unwarranted as it goes against the principle of federalism etched in the Constitution. Unfortunately, by expressing apprehension regarding Karnataka’s future in the absence of the double engine government, Mr Modi only corroborated his government’s selective, transactional attitude towards federalism. Cooperation between the states and the Centre makes the Indian federation tick. The Centre and the states are not bound by a patron-client relationship. The BJP’s double engine rhetoric is informed by paternalism and prejudice. It must be derailed on principle.