No Time to Pause

THE NEWS FROM the first round of polling held on April 19 was mixed, with low turnouts in north Rajasthan and western Uttar Pradesh (UP), reports of anger among Jat voters and a certain complacency among the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supporters a cause for concern in the saffron camp. There was a need to step on the gas and stoke the campaign fires and the moment came when Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke at a rally at Banswara in Rajasthan on April 21 and launched a frontal attack on Congress, accusing the party of a radical redistribution agenda and plotting to favour infiltrators and those who have more children. In the days that followed, Modi did not relent and said Congress was looking to divert quotas to Muslims by depriving Other Backward Classes (OBCs) of their legitimate rights. He pointed to the Congress government in Karnataka that had restored reservations categorising Muslims as “backward”, and later in the campaign criticised the West Bengal government for smuggling in religion-based quotas in violation of the Constitution.

The idea was to single out Congress as a real and present danger, as a party that would, if given a chance, have no compunctions about redistribution of private wealth and follow­ing a path of social divisiveness. The thought was to prevent the Lok Sabha election from devolving into a battle of local issues in various states that would disadvantage BJP. The move did succeed but not to the extent BJP wanted it to. The elections in Haryana, Rajasthan and Maharashtra became localised. In Rajasthan, the sullennessofJatvoters, unhappyaboutbeingdealt outof thepower equation in the state where their wait for a chief minister remains unfilled, saw Congress score upsets in seats like Churu, Sikar, Jhunjhunu and Bharatpur. The confused and fractured picture in Maharashtra where both the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Shiv Sena split in two resulted in another setback for BJP. In a bid to strengthen the party, BJP allied with NCP rebel Ajit Pawar but it appears this did not work with the party’s support base.

Modi mixed BJP’s message, making it an amalgam of develop­ment promises (Viksit Bharat), pro-poor schemes, and criticism of Congress’ appeasement politics. Though BJP suffered losses in several states, it might have been even worse off but for the prime minister varying his line of attack. He sought to shake off the sense of disappointment in the ranks of the party cadre and supporters on Tuesday, June 4, evening while speaking at the BJP headquarters when he pledged to implement big decisions in his third term. It was an important speech as he made it clear that he is up to leading the party and government and that his focus on combating corruption and quickening economic growth remains undiluted. “There is no time to pause, no time to stop,” he said. The government will not swerve from taking big decisions. “This is Modi ki guarantee,” he said. The people of the countryhaddoneagreatfavourtoBJPandtheNationalDemocratic Alliance (NDA) by electing it office for a third term. The prime minister’s message was intended to convey that Modi 3.0 will not lack ambition nor would it be cowed by the stronger than anticipated Opposition performance. It was also a signal to allies that while the exigencies of coalition government may mean some give on the part of BJP, the accommodation will not mean abandonment of key political and governance objectives.

The setbacks in Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Haryana may have been offset by better showings in Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh but the biggest story of the election lay in UP that has been a BJP fortress since 2014 with the party winning two Assembly and two Lok Sabha elections. The upsurge in the Samajwadi Party’s (SP) fortunes in UP, a develop­ment missed by all exit polls and surveys, proved to be a major factor in preventing BJP from hitting the majority mark on its own. The West Bengal scene was also the opposite of what most exit polls had indicated, with the Trinamool Congress (TMC) holding firm after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee played an audacious hand by taking on BJP as well as the Left-Congress and pulling off an impressive win. The reasons for the BJP meltdown in UP will take time to decipher but it is evident the “double-engine” government—or the Narendra Modi-Yogi Adityanath model—that has worked for the party hit a serious air pocket. One aspect could be unhappiness with candidates, with voters in many constituencies seeking a change. This meant that even where voters supported BJP, they did so some­what reluctantly, and this might well have resulted in lower turnouts. The key factor explaining the SP and Congress successes in central and eastern UP could be a movement of the Bahujan Samaj Party’s (BSP) Jatav base towards SP when it became apparent that the Dalit party was not in the reckoning. BSP leader Mayawati has suffered by going it alone; not winning a single seat. Her decision to silence her nephew and apparent heir Akash Anand midway through the election was puzzling and might have pushed more BSP voters to the SP-Congress camp.

Will Modi alter his style of leadership? The risk of slipping into a survivalist mindset is that it allows the Opposition to gain traction while the ruling side keeps losing steam. Being defensive can only delay the inevitable

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The defeat of individual BJP ministers like Smriti Irani and Ajay Kumar ‘Teni’ in UP is evidence that the Modi factor was not enough to overcome the unpopularity of individual candi­dates. It will take some time for the message from UP, particu­larly Purvanchal, to sink in. The delivery of welfare programmes which reached most households was intended to solidify the support for BJP. Modi’s ‘Hindutva-plus development’ model has forged a social coalition where non-Yadav OBCs were a pillar of support. BJP’s outreach to OBCs had altered the political balance in UP, ending the dominance of Mandal politics. This time round, the formula has not worked. The question whether BJP’s OBC support has slipped needs a more careful examina­tion. BJP has polled 41 per cent votes and this does not seem to be possible without OBC participation. After a dream run in office, Adityanath will be under scrutiny as he has helmed a government without much resistance, using the bureaucracy to implement programmes that included providing housing in addition to PM Awas Yojana. While development initiatives did reach rural areas, caste as a consideration is back. It was precisely such caste combinations that undid BJP in the 1993 Assembly election in UP after the demolition of the Babri Masjid when SP and BSP were in alliance. The Yadav-Muslim-Dalit consolidation had trumped BJP and, more than 30 years later, the SP-Congress alliance has halted the saffron party in its tracks—this time without BSP.

An important aspect of Modi’s politics has been an unhesitat­ing advocacy of Hindu cultural identity and a preparedness to wage a wider battle against ideological adversaries who contest his view of India. BJP’s calculations that Hindutva would provide inroads into the east and south proved partially correct. The party achieved a long-awaited breakthrough in Kerala and its vote in the state as well as in Tamil Nadu has increased. BJP has made gains in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh too, but expectations were belied in West Bengal where exit polls had predicted a big jump. BJP has a 16 per cent vote in Kerala and 10 per cent in Tamil Nadu, and though the latter number will be less than expected, it is a start. Despite a vigorous campaign in the company of regional allies, NDA could not cross the critical threshold that would have delivered seats in Tamil Nadu. The Hindutva consolidation expected in UP in the wake of the Ram Mandir consecration ceremony did not happen either. The problem lay in creeping incumbencies and an impatience for faster progress on issues such as employment.

Will Modi alter his style of lead­ership that focuses on ambitious goals and political dominance? It would be fair to anticipate that agendas like uniform civil code (UCC) and economic reforms could face serious headwinds. The pitch for UCC, always a polarising issue, will not be easy to pursue. It is not that Modi cannot sometimes retreat and declare victory. He surprised allies and opponents when he withdrew the three farm laws after farmers’ unions from Punjab, western UP and Rajasthan blockaded Delhi for over a year. Realis­ing the agitation was hurting the government, threatening to take attention away from more productive decisions, Modi, on Gurpurab on November 19, 2021, had announced that the laws would be repealed. But while the more contentious parts of the BJP agenda could be put away, the prime minister is unlikely to see merit in being overcautious. The risk of slipping into a survivalist mindset is that it allows the Opposition to gain traction while the ruling side keeps losing steam. Being defensive can only delay the inevitable, which is a defeat in the next election.

The evidence of his leadership indicates that Modi will push on with the agenda he considers non-negotiable. Allies and opponents alike will be forced to consider the perils of another election at short notice. As the 2024 verdict has shown, there is no guarantee that the public mood will remain the same.

About The Author

Rajeev Deshpande

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