With the BJP wresting many seats from the Congress and reducing even regional parties to irrelevance, can federalism hold out?

Is the BJP well on its way to becoming the grand ruling party and the Congress the grand old — obsolescent would be more apt — party? Bihar may have just been the microcosm for the rest of India as the byelection results have largely borne out the two trends it has thrown up. First is the continued popularity and acceptability of Prime Minister Narendra Modi despite the bad year of the pandemic. People still believe he can deliver despite the lockdown-induced reverse migration, the sharp economic downturn and a moderate relief package that was mostly credit-based. The common voter has clearly responded to short-term stress alleviation measures like the welfarist doles of foodgrains and some direct cash transfers as symptomatic of the Government’s larger concern and action. Of course, one doesn’t expect the Modi aura to diminish within a year of a mammoth Lok Sabha victory but the pandemic threw an unprecedented challenge and if he has emerged relatively unscathed through troubled times, then he is expected to hold on to his leadership stock, no matter how flawed the pandemic management may seem. And through his repeated national address on each crisis facing the nation and Mann ki Baat broadcasts, he has convinced the ordinary

voters that he was doing his best and was purposive enough about the responsibility they had given him despite his helplessness with resources. He has got the benefit of doubt. COVID is his booster shot considering the BJP lost Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Delhi before it. The Congress, in comparison, hardly seems a catalytic converter of serious issues, ranting rather than presenting a better alternative that makes sense to the voter. Second, Modi’s persona is heaving down on the bread and butter agenda, making it look immaterial or secondary to the larger scheme of nationalism, which has been dressed up with Hindutva. In his election speeches, rarely did Modi mention joblessness, education or a national rebuild programme except the old tropes of Ram temple, Pulwama and guiltless majoritarianism. Local issues are always more real and Modi’s monolithic swamping of regional parties and allies seems to have supplanted them with demagoguery and bombast, one that made Bihar voters forget the promises that he did not keep from 2015. Young Tejashwi Yadav may have been a generational disruptor, forcing Modi to confront economic realities of the State and holding him to account on performance rather than shaming, but without the power of governance, one wonders how feisty federal leaders will be, given the trampling narrative that is being played out across the country. Can federalism hold itself up to the BJP’s centripetal force in State after State, almost making development hostage to the Central party’s largesse and grace and the vote a transaction of mutual benefits rather than a democratic process? Yes there is defiance but that is an abstraction, not as palpable as the numbers needed on the board. And the BJP has clearly mastered arithmetic, ensuring all its voters turn out, deploying Modi as its magic wand in the last rounds of the campaign.

The BJP won 41 of the 59 seats across 11 States, including Madhya Pradesh (MP), where it stamped its rule, picking up 19 of the 28 seats. Contrast this with the one-time national party, the Congress, which had sitting MLAs in more than 40 seats but won 12 seats while two seats were won by the BJD. One seat each was won by the Samajwadi Party (SP), the JMM and the NDPP, and two by Independents. The BJP wrested eight seats from the Congress in Gujarat, four seats in Manipur and retained its six constituencies in Uttar Pradesh (UP). It won two seats in Karnataka and one in Telangana. In Gujarat, the Congress, which had fought the BJP creditably in the last Assembly election and could have actually consolidated itself as a credible Opposition, instead lost MLAs to its rival. It paid a heavy price as five of those who won were once its own. This despite making Patidar leader Hardik Patel the State working president over senior claimants. This senior clout vs junior aspiration cost the Congress its Government in MP. And the byelection there, primarily necessitated by Jyotiraditya Scindia’s exit with his loyalist MLAs, only proved why festering wounds can only bleed the party further. The bypolls became a prestige issue for Jyotiraditya with 16 seats in the Gwalior belt. First, he had to prove to the Congress that he commanded the ground on his personal merit and not because of the party or former Chief Minister Kamal Nath. Second, he had to convince the BJP that he deserved a place in the hierarchy of its State leaders. With his efforts, he won nine seats in his bastion as the BJP ended up getting more seats than it needed to stay in power comfortably. In Karnataka, the BJP wrested Sira and Rajarajeshwarinagar from the Janata Dal (Secular) and Congress respectively. The two-time Congress legislator, whose resignation had necessitated the byelection in RR Nagar, polled more votes as the BJP candidate. The BJP even opened its account in Sira, considered part of the Vokkaliga heartland, which, given that JD(S) leader HD Deve Gowda belongs to the same caste and the Congress has a sizeable voteshare, should have voted predictably. As for UP, SP leader Akhilesh Yadav may dream of a regime change in 2022 but can he afford to be unrealistic winning just one seat now? The Congress is now sadly a vote-cutter than a vote-getter and better rebuild its organisational matrix than chase verdicts. As for federal parties, they need to nurture even their known constituents, focus on State concerns and be as aggressive as Tejashwi has been in Bihar. They can be the only wall against the BJP’s wanton march.