It is wrong to interpret the losses that the BJP has suffered in the recently conducted by-elections as a negative mandate on Prime Minister Modi or as a sign of his ‘waning’ magic. local elections have their own dynamics. Modi’s test will be in 2019
With the announcement of the elections to the Haryana and Maharashtra Assemblies, the media, particularly the television channels and the professional seminarists, are projecting them as another ‘test’ for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In fact, it is only a continuation of the ‘tests’ that Mr Modi has been facing ever since he won the lok Sabha election with a thumping majority. And subsequently began the celebrations following each and every reverse the saffron party suffered at the hustings, from the panchayat elections to Assembly by-polls. Ridiculously enough, every poll in the country is now being seen as a referendum on Mr Modi, a test of his popularity, an appraisal of his performance. It is, therefore, not surprising if this testing continues for the next five years till the actual test of the lok Sabha takes place.
Experiences over the last several decades prove that the electorate in the world’s largest democracy has become mature enough to distinguish between the different elections. To cite some recent instances, the BJP itself was buoyed by the outcome of the Assembly poll in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh towards 2003-end, and advanced by six months the lok Sabha election of 2004 — which proved to be its waterloo. Again, even as Ms Sheila Dikshit won the Delhi Assembly poll for three consecutive terms, the people of Delhi voted for the BJP to the metro’s civic body.
During travels in Uttar Pradesh ahead of the 2014 election, one remembers meeting hardcore supporters of the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party who categorically stated that they were fed up with the lack of a decisive leadership at the Centre and wanted a strong Prime Minister. Yet they added in no uncertain terms that they would vote for their respective regional/caste leaders when it comes to the Assembly election.
Thus, it would be naïve on the part of any political party to think that the massive lok Sabha mandate in Uttar Pradesh in favour of the BJP was in any manner a verdict on the SP or the BSP. It was clearly and categorically a decisive verdict against the UPA and a vote for Mr Modi. Hence, the result in the recent by-poll in Uttar Pradesh is least surprising. As in the past, in local elections, it is the issues, the local leadership, the personalities involved, the caste and religious permutations and combinations and the dynamics, which influence the outcome. It can neither be dismissed as a mandate on the Prime Minister or on the candidates.
The BSP was missing from the scene, as a result of which the minority votes shifted en bloc to the SP. Also, the BJP was hoping that Ms Mayawati’s Dalit votes would shift en masse to it as it did in the general election. That did not happen. The BJP experimented in western Uttar Pradesh with a leader recognised in eastern Uttar Pradesh. The focus of the party’s campaign too remained confined to religious issues, whereas it should have raised with vigour problems pertaining to power, roads, unemployment, law and order etc. With the unexpected victory in the lok Sabha poll, both the local-level party leaders and booth-level cadres had become complacent. last but not the least, the Sangh Parivar cadres who had fanned out to every nook and corner during the last poll were conspicuous by their absence. The State and the Central leaderships kept away from campaigning.
Similarly, the outcome of the Uttarakhand by-poll wherein the Congress won the three seats at stake, barely within months of the State sending BJP candidates from all five seats to the lok Sabha, could hardly be termed as a reflection of Mr Modi’s ‘waning’ popularity. If at all it showed something, it was an affirmation of faith in the leadership of Chief Minister Harish Rawat as against a faction-ridden BJP. The verdict in Bihar too reflected the success of the synergy between lalu Prasad’s RJD and Mr Nitish Kumar’s JD(U), a coming together of ‘secular’ votes, an euphemism for Muslim votes. It also exposed a divided house within the BJP State unit.
If the BJP could regain the Vadodara seat, vacated by Mr Modi, by a massive margin of over one lakh votes, even as it lost three Assembly seats, how can the overall results be treated as a verdict against Mr ModiIJ Apparently, Chief Minister Anandiben Patel and her Rajasthan counterpart Vasundhara Raje have to work harder. If the outcome of most of the by-polls after the lok Sabha election was a test of Mr Modi’s popularity, as is sought to be projected by his critics, by the same logic the results of the upcoming elections in Haryana and Maharashtra, where the ruling Congress faces huge anti-incumbency and a probable defeat, too should be seen as a resurrection of the Modi Magic.
Such outrageous arguments do not behove a mature democracy such as ours. Elections in a federal set-up with multiplicity of issues cannot be treated at par with popularity ratings that are put out in the West. Mr Modi won the test in May 2014, and his next examination by the people would be in 2019.
Yet, any electoral defeat is a setback for the loser and any poll victory is a morale-booster for the winner. The outcome of the consecutive polls may not influence the popular verdict in either Haryana or Maharashtra, but it will certainly embolden both opponents and allies alike. Doesn’t the sarcasm of both the Congress and the Shiv Sena on the Modi Magic sound similar, though both are exploiting the opportunity for apparently different objectives — one to put up a brave front and another for hard bargainingIJ It also influences the morale of the party workers to a limited extent.
Therefore, the occasion does call for the BJP to do some introspection to ensure that the performance of the Union Government or the lack of it does not serve as an issue for the Opposition to exploit and somewhere influence even local polls.
While the Modi Government has certainly impressed even critics with its initiatives on the foreign policy front and for successfully bringing down the inflation figures, it is time the impact trickles down to the grassroots. People are keen about bullet and high-speed trains, but they are equally anxious, if not more, that the regular trains are punctual, cleaner and offer quality food.
A voter in trans-Yamuna would judge Union Minister for Railways Sadananand Gowda if the chaos that he witnesses at the Sarai Kale Khan entry to Nizamuddin railway station in New Delhi is brought to an end; Nitin Gadkari would be assessed by the removal of bottlenecks on NH-24, right from Akshardham to Ghaziabad. Mr Rajnath Singh would be tested on the basis of the changes in the behaviour of the police personnel on the streets of Delhi — their integrity and response.
It is certainly time for the national initiatives to percolate down to the local level.
(The author is Senior Fellow and Editor with the Vivekananda International Foundation)