Delivering a severe blow to the BJP in the Hindi heartland months before the 2019 general elections, the centre-left Congress dislodged the centre-right BJP out of power last week in the latter’s heartland bastions of Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. These three states are predominantly Hindu states with minority votes less than the national average. Since the BJP and the Congress are not just political opponents but also ideological adversaries, the significance of the Congress’s 3-0 victory, therefore, needs to be seen not just from political point of view, but also in the light of ideological battle the Congress has been fighting against the BJP and its saffron affiliates over the last few years.
With the BJP and the Sangh family increasingly resorting to vicious majoritarian identity politics, while using all the development spiel as a cover to pursue a divisive political, social and ideological project, the political centre had shifted more towards the right in the last four and half years. While the ideological battle will continue to be fought at various levels, in years to come, the Congress has succeeded partially in bringing back the political centre to where it existed earlier. Therefore, the electoral comeback of the Congress in the BJP’s strongholds where the saffron party was in power and where it had done exceedingly well in 2014 general elections, is a huge gain for centrist politics and democracy in India.
Barring Chhattisgarh, the Congress has not scored a decisive victory over the BJP. But the huge political imbalance that was caused by the BJP’s string of victories in several state elections since 2014 has partially been restored. Constitutionally, India is a secular democracy, in reality, we are still not a secular state in real sense of the word. But the outcome of the elections last week has proved that the Yogi Adityanath brand of hate-filled politics that thrives on demonising the minorities can be counter-productive. The spate of lynchings since 2016 and right-wing brand of nationalism may have pleased the hardcore Hindutva supporters of the BJP, but it need not swing ordinary voters who have their owns issues with the government, as was seen in the state polls.
BJP spokespersons have tried to play down their party’s loss. In their view, anti-incumbency is the major reason for Congress’s victory. This is partly true, at least in terms of seats in MP and Rajasthan. However, the BJP has lost lot of political ground by losing 180 MLAs in the three Hindi states where its vote share has also shrunk considerably. In fact, more than the seats the Congress won, the swings in vote share are likely to send a chill down the spine of BJP.
Though the Congress won only five seats more than the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, it covered a huge distance from its performance in 2013 assembly elections by gaining 56 seats and increasing its vote share by 4.52 per cent; the BJP, on the other hand, lost 56 seats and nearly 4 per cent in vote share. Rajasthan is no different: the Congress increased its seats from 21 in 2013 to 99 seats and its vote share went up more than 6 per cent, while the BJP lost a huge 90 seats and more than 6 per cent in vote share. In Chhattisgarh, the Congress scored a sweeping victory, while the BJP lost 34 seats and 8 per cent vote share.
More than the Congress, the biggest winner of the elections is Rahul Gandhi. He had lost election after election since 2014, making people doubt his leadership. But his perseverance and tenacity to face adversity paid off. Rahul has stunned his opponents: the formidable Modi-Shah combine. This will give him an image makeover – from an entitled, lazy heir to a hard-working party president who knows his job pretty well. The process of his transformation from an entitled gaffe-prone progeny to a seasoned election campaigner and a leader who understands ground issues started with 2017 Gujarat elections and has culminated in 2018.
The BJP’s victory in UP in March 2017 was an exception; a one-off aberration caused by misconception about demonetisation that the rich were hit the most by extermination of 86 per cent of high value currency. The reality of demonetisation was realised later by people and the impact of haphazardly implemented GST complicated things further. The result was that the wide-spread support the BJP enjoyed for almost three years turned into anger, as was seen in Gujarat and Karnataka. As the agrarian distress and joblessness made things even worse, the tide turned against the BJP and the Modi wave started receding.
It is true that the value of brand Modi has not collapsed completely. However, the problem for Modi is that the very states that propelled him to power in 2014 are slipping from his grip. Of the 282 seats the BJP won in 2014, 200 came from the Hindi-speaking heartland states, which include 65 seats from MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. BJP’s losses in these three states in terms of vote share – between 4 and 8 per cent – should be a cause of worry for the party, as the road to 2019 becomes even more challenging. The green shoots of Congress’s revival were visible after Gujarat elections. Since then, the grand old party has worked its way up. If the BJP loses its allies and Congress leads the opposition unity, it will not be a walkover for BJP and Modi in the next Lok Sabha polls. With the man who Modi and his party demonised leading from the front, the Congress could end up deciding the 2019 outcome.
A L I Chougule is an independent senior journalist.
