If the BJP's prime ministerial candidate manages to secure the numbers that the opinion polls have been projecting in the crucial State, it would herald the revival of the party and a shift in the politics of caste
The surge in support of the people for the Bharatiya Janata Party, led in the coming lok Sabha election by Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate, is understandable in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. The three States have just elected BJP Governments, with the first two decimating the Congress in the process. Since in all three, the BJP has strong State-level leaders, Mr Modi’s contribution to the party’s projected strong performance there in this year’s general election can be seen as being incremental more than anything else.
The State which should make analysts sit up is Uttar Pradesh. The BJP does not have any of the advantages that have propelled the party to a position of power elsewhere, and yet, if recent opinion polls are to be believed, the party is set to perform ranging from very well to spectacularly well in the State in the coming election. The BJP is projected to get anywhere between 30 and 49 seats out of the 80 on offer. Considering that it managed only 10 seats in 2004 and an equal number in 2009, even the 30 at the lowest end of the projection spectrum would be a three-fold increase.
The BJP does not have a strong local leadership in Uttar Pradesh. It had, two decades ago, when Mr Kalyan Singh and Mr Rajnath Singh were the party’s face there. While Mr Rajnath Singh has since moved on to the national scene, Mr Kalyan Singh is not as formidable as he was, although he still retains a pan-Uttar Pradesh image. The latter’s decline is primarily because of the advent of Mandal politics which consolidated the hold of caste-based parties such as the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party and pushed out the BJP. The other contributing factor was Mr Kalyan Singh’s political flip-flops which weakened his hold over the people. He quit the BJP, formed his own outfit, then warmed up to the Samajwadi Party, drifted away and eventually returned to the BJP. It was the absence of a strong State-level leadership as a result of these developments which compelled the BJP to try out an outsider, Ms Uma Bharti. The experiment did not work out, and it is unclear what role Ms Bharti now has there.
Over the decades, therefore, the BJP had been in a free-fall. Caste polarisation, a weak local leadership and a demoralised organisation had pushed the party not just to the third position behind the regional parties but also in many constituencies to the fourth spot after the Congress. This was distressing for a party which had governed the State efficiently, first under the chief ministership of Mr Kalyan Singh and later under Mr Rajnath Singh’s leadership. Non-partisan analysts will admit that the Governments of Mr Kalyan Singh (the first one) and Mr Rajnath Singh were the best that the State has had in the last couple of decades and more.
Given this grim situation, where the party had lost its hold not only over the lok Sabha constituencies but also on the Assembly seats, Mr Modi’s growing popularity is nothing short of a miracle. The credit for this goes entirely to him, because he arrived in a sort of vacuum. It is true that the party cadre and that of the Sangh Parivar are in place, but over the years they too had got disoriented. The BJP’s prime ministerial candidate has by his mere presence managed to breathe life into them. For the first time in two decades, party workers and leaders genuinely believe that the BJP is back in the reckoning, and perhaps back with a bang.
I recently had the occasion to visit Allahabad and Phulpur. These two lok Sabha constituencies had long given up on the BJP and fallen prey to caste politics of the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party. Incidentally, the two constituencies were once the country’s most prestigious ones. While Allahabad is the home town of the Nehru family, contiguous Phulpur was represented by Jawaharlal Nehru. There seems to be a fresh wind blowing there and the people are talking in admiring terms about Mr Modi and the BJP. While it is too early to say that these constituencies will go the BJP way this time around, the fact that the party is once again being seriously considered demonstrates a turnaround. From all available accounts, the sentiment is being replicated elsewhere in the State.
While Mr Modi’s personal popularity is at the core of the revival of the party in Uttar Pradesh, what is rarely discussed is the key role that his confidant Amit Shah has been playing in the process. Since taking over as the party’s in-charge for this politically crucial State, he has worked to put in place an organisation that has the ability to exploit the Modi brand. Mr Shah’s detractors had warned that he will seek to revive divisiveness by fanning communal passions and polarising the voters to gain an upper hand for the BJP, but he has done nothing of the sort so far. On the contrary, he has busied himself with promoting the campaign of pro-development and genuine inclusiveness that Mr Modi has adopted and which has been reflected in the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate’s rallies in Uttar Pradesh. It is Mr Shah’s deft micro-management of the electoral campaign in the State that seems on its way to fructification.
Besides, Mr Shah has perhaps realised that the old brand of local BJP leaders is past its prime. His team does not have the usual faces but comprises emerging and credible leaders. The likes of Mr Varun Gandhi are playing important roles. The Kesrinath Tripathis, the lalji Tandons and the Kalraj Mishras are still around, but it would be a fallacy to say that they wield the sort of influence that they did in the earlier years. They are not dustbin material yet, but they are also not anymore the most projected or desirable face of the party.
If Mr Modi manages to secure the success that the opinion polls have been projecting, it would not just herald the revival of the party in Uttar Pradesh but also indicate a shift in the State’s politics of caste and religion — even if that shift is far from monumental for the moment. It would mean that the voters are willing to let go of their parochial loyalties and, offered an option, give governance and development a chance.
However, it would be naïve to believe that the BJP has managed to break the caste combinations. The Yadavs are still by and large with the Samajwadi Party, while the Dalits are firmly behind the Bahujan Samaj Party. But a revision, if not a complete repudiation, of this caste calculation, is not an impossibility.
What is certainly going the BJP’s way is the consolidation of the upper caste votes which, over the last 10 years, have gone to either the Bahujan Samaj Party or the Samajwadi Party. The BJP will also gain from a plethora of Other Backward Classes (minus the Yadavs) votes and the urban votes which could cut across castes.