O Captain! My Captain!: India’s 2039 Prime Minister

What if I told you I can predict who will be leading our country 17 years from now? The future Prime Minister is a man you’ve all heard of, albeit never in this capacity: former captain of the Indian men’s national cricket team, MS Dhoni. But how can I be so sure that Dhoni has what it takes to be our Prime Minister? Let me elaborate.

The Scoreboard

First, let’s find out: what does it take to win the position of Prime Minister of India?

The data of the 2019 Lok Sabha election shows that out of an eligible voting population of 880 million, only 612 million people actually voted. Further, the winning party (BJP) won just 37.7% of the latter number, or 231 million votes. In 2019, that was approximately the population of a single state, Uttar Pradesh, alone.

In India, states are divided into constituencies, each constituency corresponding to one seat within the Lok Sabha. Therefore, the party which wins the highest number of constituencies effectively gains control of the central government. Under this system, with just around 231 million votes across constituencies, the BJP now occupies 303, or 55%, of the 543 Lok Sabha seats. Therefore, the winning party of a general election need not have the support of the majority of India’s eligible voting population; just that of a moderately large minority of the actual voting population. To win an Indian national election, a party needs only 231 out of 1400 million, that is, 16% of the nation’s entire population to vote for it!

But while this data gives us an idea of the quantitative requirements to win an election, what about the qualitative ones? What qualities must a candidate aspiring to be Prime Minister possess himself?

The Player

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First, there are the virtues expected of any leader - integrity, humility and prudence - which MS Dhoni has exhibited time and time again throughout his cricketing career. Dhoni himself once said, “leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality”: the capacity this ex-captain has demonstrated time and time again.

From selecting spinners to bowl in a historic tie-breaker against Pakistan during the 2007 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, to promoting Rohit Sharma as an opener during the 2013 ICC Champions Trophy, Dhoni’s unusual yet ultimately ingenious decisions have led his team to numerous victories.

But this flair for leadership, though necessary, isn’t the only prerequisite to ruling a country. (After all, as our dear neighbour has proven, a successful cricket captain does not always make for a good Prime Minister!)

For Dhoni to stand a chance at prime ministership, the Indian population must see him not only as a successful sports captain, but as a capable politician as well. This begs the question: does Dhoni’s public image fit into that of a future Prime Minister?

I argue that it does.

Dhoni hasn’t proven his patriotism just by representing our country in the cricket stadium. After training with the Paratrooper Regiment for a month in 2019, Dhoni spent a few weeks the year after patrolling and performing guard and post duty in the then hazardous region of Kashmir. Photographs of his brief military stint are now plastered across the Internet. Coincidence? Or the greatest of this captain’s strategies so far?

Dhoni’s reputation also remains happily untarnished by any personal scandals or discredit to his character. His clean, inspiring image will win him the public’s support in his political career.

The All-Rounder

While these advantages alone might stand him in good stead for Prime Ministership, Dhoni also wields the power of representing multiple majorities. Hailing from Jharkhand, Dhoni naturally appeals to the highly populated Hindi-speaking belt of North India. The states and union territories whose official language is Hindi together consist of 226 constituencies, which translate to 40% of the seats in the Lok Sabha (including those reserved for Scheduled Castes and Tribes).

Further, could Dhoni be the first Hindi-speaking candidate to break the barrier of the south? Having captained the Chennai Super Kings to four Indian Premier League titles, Dhoni has won the admiration of a considerable section of the Tamil population. If he plays his cards right, this admiration may win him at least a handful of Tamil Nadu’s 39 constituencies, thereby setting him up as a Pan-Indian candidate.

Not only does Dhoni come from a linguistic majority, but a religious one, too. Of India’s fourteen Prime Ministers since independence, only one (Manmohan Singh) has been non-Hindu. Say what you will about secularism, but being a Hindu in a Hindu-majority country does prove an advantage when running for public office.

Similarly, only one (Indira Gandhi) of these fourteen past Prime Ministers has been female. In fact, our current Lok Sabha has the highest percentage of female MPs ever elected, at a mere 14.4%. Belonging to the dominating gender will make rising through the ranks in the political profession far easier for Dhoni.

Now that we’ve analysed the assets Dhoni already wields, what more does he need to run for Prime Minister?

An independent candidate has never become Prime Minister of India before, so it’s safe to assume that Dhoni will need to be backed by a party. But which national party is Dhoni most likely to join?

Team Selection

While Dhoni has never broken his silence on politics in the public forum, speculation about his affiliation with the BJP swirls regularly across the internet. Just last November, an image of Dhoni shaking hands with Amit Shah at an India Cements event went viral. More significantly, multiple BJP members have publicly praised Dhoni and recommended his transition into politics. For example, Subramanian Swamy, presently a member of the Rajya Sabha, stated in 2020: “M. S. Dhoni is retiring from Cricket but not from anything else. His talent to be able to fight against odds and his inspiring leadership of a team that he has demonstrated in cricket is needed in public life. He should fight in LS General Elections in 2024.”

But while others may consider the BJP the best fit for Dhoni, why should this party appeal most to him?

Let’s consider his other options.

The BJP’s leading competition, the Indian National Congress, has notoriously been dominated by the Gandhi family since independence. The party’s current president, Mapanna Mallikarjun Kharge, is only the sixth to take up this mantle through a democratic intra-party election, and the first non-Gandhi to do so in the last 24 years. While the Congress categorically refuses to name its prime ministerial candidate before polls, it’s safe to assume that the next will be someone with close ties to the Gandhi family, if not Rahul Gandhi himself. These exclusionary tendencies make it tough for an outsider to thrive within the Congress party.

Moreover, the present may be the least favourable time to join the Congress, which has been in a state of decline since its worst-ever performance in the 2014 national election, followed by a merely marginally better show in 2019.

So which other party could Dhoni potentially enter?

After the BJP and Congress, the party with the highest number of seats in parliament is the All India Trinamool Congress, headed by Mamta Banerjee. The party’s stronghold is in West Bengal, but even within this state, it has suffered severe losses to the BJP in recent years. Outside West Bengal, the party’s presence has diminished so greatly as to call its status as a national party into question after the 2019 election. Essentially, this party does not have the Pan-Indian quality required for its candidate to have a real shot at prime ministership.

The Aam Aadmi Party, while the new kid on the block, is making waves in Indian politics. Could Dhoni emerge as a national leader as the AAP emerges as a national party? Unfortunately, the AAP’s brand appears to be dominated by its original founder and current leader, Arvind Kejriwal. Kejriwal is as unlikely to tolerate a leader more popular than him as Dhoni is to play second fiddle to Kejriwal.

By sheer process of elimination, it makes the most sense for MS Dhoni to join the BJP. Assuming that Dhoni does join this party, what must he do next in order to be its prime ministerial candidate by 2039?

Team Dynamics

To prove himself within the party, Dhoni will have to work his way up from the grassroots like so many of its past leaders, from the respected Atal Bihari Vajpayee to our Prime Minister Modi himself. He can begin by representing an underdeveloped BJP constituency and demonstrating his ability to create change there. With the level of fame he commands, even small steps in the forward direction could be magnified to massive, prime ministerial proportions in the public eye.

He can also aspire for a prominent role in the Union Council of Ministers. This doesn’t necessarily have to be the Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports: just any position in which he can promote real, and more importantly, visible progress.

Finally, Dhoni must run for election to a state legislative assembly, or even the Lok Sabha. Running for a seat in the Lok Sabha directly would eliminate the possibility of competition from smaller state parties, and running from a constituency where the BJP is already well-established would further boost Dhoni’s chances. He can run from his home constituency, Ranchi, which is already under BJP rule. While the BJP won 43% of this constituency’s votes in the 2014 general elections, its presence rose to 57% in 2019.

If he can then show tangible development in this backward, yet resource-rich part of Jharkhand, Dhoni will be guaranteed the support of millions’ but more importantly that of Amit Shah and Prime Minister Modi in his future political endeavours.

Required Run Rate

If Dhoni has passed all these checkpoints by 2039, while maintaining his strong connection with the Indian population and forging new ones with higher-ups in the BJP, he will prove a worthy successor to Prime Minister Modi.

But can he win a national election?

Let’s assume the BJP retains its current share (303) of Lok Sabha seats. Now, add to this the votes that Dhoni himself will draw to the BJP. We can suppose that Dhoni will win the BJP the two Jharkhand constituencies it lost to the UPA alliance in 2019. Bihar, meanwhile, has 40 Lok Sabha constituencies. Again, Dhoni can win a significant portion of the seats lost to the Janata Dal and Lok Janshakti Party, say 11 of the 22.

While Tamil Nadu’s 39 constituencies are historically dominated by the DMK and AIADMK, let’s assume that Dhoni manages to win four more seats from this state. Let’s also say that Dhoni takes away four additional constituencies from the diminishing AITC influence in West Bengal. Under these conditions, the BJP will win 324 of 543, or 60% of Lok Sabha seats in 2039, paving a blazing path for Dhoni’s role as Prime Minister.

The Commentary Box

While Dhoni has miles to go to achieve prime ministership, all you have to do is leave me a comment sharing your opinion on my prediction.

Meanwhile, I will send this article to MS Dhoni requesting his response (along with many humble compliments: after all, I’d better get into the good books of our future Prime Minister!) and will let you know as soon as I hear back from him.

Don’t forget to return to this article 17 years from now, when I am (hopefully) proven right!