The -United India- rally in Kolkata on Saturday was the first step to dislodging Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He, of course, never stopped being in election mode. But the battle bugle has sounded for the next parliamentary election, the schedule for which the Election Commission may announce in early March. Modi has initiated counter-measures: the first was the 10 per cent reservations in jobs and higher education for economically weaker sections of the general category, code for the forward castes.

The DMK, which participated in the -United India- rally, has gone to court against this, saying that reservations were mandated by the Constitution as a measure of social justice, not to remedy economic inequality. Modi is expected to announce measures for farmers, who snatched from his party-s hands three states in December. This may include income-supplementing programmes of the kind that exist in Telangana, Odisha and Jharkhand.