On March 11th
Uttar Pradesh (UP) delivered the biggest landslide to any single party since
1977. .
The aftershocks of this massive landslide for BJP will be felt for years to
come.During my conversations with folks who had connections with workers
inside BJP, I was told that this time around they were quietly hopeful of
netting 250+ seats, a number which I myself was a bit skeptical of. The
whopping number (325 seats i.e.80+% of all seats) of seats won by the BJP &
its smaller allies was surely beyond the expectations of even the most ardent
BJP supporter. The genesis of this
political tsunami or what some in the media have called “Tsu- NaMO” is a
fascinating story in itself.
The story
begins not as one might expect in Lucknow (capital of Uttar Pradesh) but rather
555 kms away in New Delhi on a cold & foggy morning (typical winter weather
in Delhi). This however wasn’t just any other day in the nation’s capital but
was January 26, 2015, India’s 65th Republic Day. It has been a
tradition that on this day a high level foreign dignitary is invited to be the chief
guest for the annual Republic Day parade in India. In the early years the chief
guests tended to be pretty much political “lightweights” either from regional
neighbors or 3rd world nations. Mind you the recent invitee list was
impressive with names like King Abdullah (2006) Presidents Vladimir Putin
(Russia) in 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy (France) in 2008 & Lee Myung Bak (South
Korea) & Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (Japan) in 2014. But Narendra Modi who had
just completed 8 months in office after coming to power in huge landslide
victory in 2014 managed pull off the biggest scoop of them all (in terms of
chief guests for Republic Day) when he succeeded in getting Barack Obama (then
sitting US president) to be the chief guest in the annual Republic Day parade.
This being the first parade since the change of guard in New Delhi plus the
maiden visit of Barack Obama to India led to huge frenzy/hype in the media with
wall to wall coverage of the event. Modi turned up at the parade in monogrammed,
pinstriped suit. The suit instantly made headlines because of a specific
feature - its stripes were made of repetitions of a single motif: the Prime
Minister's name, Narendra Damodardas Modi. The narrative of this historic meet
was to be the increased bilateral co-operation in various areas such as trade,
security, terrorism, etc. between the world’s largest democracies & gradual
warming of ties between 2 nations that had once an adversarial relationship
during the Cold War. All this was turned on its head once sections of India’s
now (famous/infamous) sensationalist media’s focused only the suit. If you ask
most people what they remember the most from that day, the answer would neither
ne Obama’s visit nor what happened when they met but just the suit that Modi
was wearing. Modi tried to put to rest this “suit controversy” a month later
when the suit was auctioned off for charity however this ghost would come back to
haunt him later.
Fast forward
to April 2015, Rahul Gandhi while participating in a debate on agriculture
crisis in the Lok Sabha, openly mocked Narendra Modi saying “yours is a Suit-Boot ki Sarkar", a reference
to the PM's monogrammed suit. He alleged that the BJP government had frozen
minimum support price for crops and had diluted the land acquisition law to
weaken the farmers in favor of industrialists. The speech (one of the very few
Rahul Gandhi had given to this point: just 5 in 11 years) was one of the most
hard hitting blows delivered to the Modi government. The opposition’s
allegations against Modi such as “Only few big industrialists have benefitted
from Modi’s rule in Gujarat & not the common man” which earlier during the
2014 campaign had failed to stick to Modi had now hit close to home beginning
to dent Modi’s image. Rahul’s speech was looking to stress on Modi being
"pro-business" and "anti-poor/anti-farmer". Modi government
was immediately put on the back foot by this attack. BJP was in a minority in
Upper House Rajya Sabha where they required support from other parties to pass
any type of legislation. The Land Acquisition Bill had given the opposition
something to rally around against Modi. Sensing the stiff opposition to this
bill driven by these “suit boot ki Sarkar” comments, Modi had to (in one of the
few major pullbacks) drop the Land Acquisition Bill by end of August 2015. Electorally
also the juggernaut set in motion with the win in 2014 & in state elections
thereafter came a screeching halt with the loss in Delhi (Feb 2015) & more
importantly in Bihar (Nov 2015) in that same year. These defeats were huge setback
for Modi, especially the Land Acquisition Bill which was one of the several
“big bang” reforms he wanted to implement to speed up investment, growth &
development in India. He knew that he had to immediately shed this moniker
associated with him of being “pro-business” both for the good of his &
BJP’s electoral future otherwise both of them would be finished. There was no
better than person than Modi who understood this newer “aspirational” & young
(India 2/3 of India’s population is below 35 years of age) Indian voter who was
seeking a betterment of their lives currently stuck in poverty and/or hardship.
Any failure in helping the poor would mean a possible desertion by the same
“aspirational” voters that brought him to power in 2014.
He then started
to work earnestly to transform his image to overcome this negative perception
of his. He started to work on multiple schemes (some of which were started
before 2015) geared towards the poor which formed a huge chunk of the Indian electorate.
Most famous of them was the Jan
Dhan Yojna which was to open bank accounts for all, especially the poor people who
had no access to banking system before. In the past money from welfare schemes used
to doled out to the poor through actual transfer of cash but what used to
happen in practice is that the corrupt middle man through which money was
routed to the poor took his own “cut” short changing the needy recipient. Now
by directly depositing money into the bank accounts of the poor, Modi has
removed the need of the poor to “grease the palms” of the corrupt middle man to
receive their benefits. Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana & Suraksha Bima Yojana were just 2 small examples where
BPL(before poverty line) families could get life & accident insurance of
upto 2 lakhs at highly nominal rates of just a few rupees per month. One of
these schemes which has been a silent factor in the huge win in UP is Ujjwala
Yojana. It is a scheme where BPL families got free LPG connections. This has
been proven to be a big hit with the womenfolk in UP where 5+ million got
benefit of this scheme. Now that LPG cylinders are very common in the cities,
we tend to underestimate the hardships with associated with running an old wood
fired “chullah”: laboring every day to collect wood, inhaling the toxic smoke
that comes with burning it, etc. By getting these LPG connections these women
were able to break free of this for the first time in their lives. All these schemes slowly built
up goodwill for the Modi regime over the course of its current term. But the
master stroke at the end was of course demonetization. A problem described by
people from all walks of life which affects them the most in India today is the
rampant & unchecked corruption. During the last 3 years of UPA-II
government hardly few months went by without any new corruption scandal
breaking out. However no one inside or outside government had any idea on how
to tackle the menace of corruption.
Modi vowed to tackle this head on during the campaign in 2014 which many
thought to be a hollow promise to which was made to simply get elected. Opposition
leaders constantly reminded him of his promise in 2014 to deposit 15lakhs in
account of every Indian by forcing all the black money stashed abroad to be
returned to India. On Nov 8th 2016 by demonetizing the 1,000 &
500 rupee notes overnight he sent a clear message to the masses that the status
quo will not be maintained & that his government is taking concrete steps
to tackle this issue head on. There were issues like the goals of doing this as
explained by the government changed quite a few times a.k.a. “shifting of the
goalposts”. In addition the economic benefits of demonetization are debatable due
to various factors as majority 97% of the cash found its way back to the banks,
etc. but the social implications are not at debatable. As an experiment when I
was in Ahmedabad & Mumbai in January this year I tried to get a sense of
mood of the people post demonetization. I tried to strike up conversations
about it with people from all walks of life from businessmen, retirees, white
collar workers, servants, drivers, etc. The striking feeling I got that what I
read in the newspapers & online while in the US regarding massive anger
among people, opposition leaders protesting everywhere, etc. was completely
divorced from the reality on the ground where it was massively popular with few
exceptions here & there. Many economists & opposition politicians cried
foul about the massive shock to the Indian economy & pain felt by
especially the poor. But they missed the general point that this move was
wildly popular was the general masses. The masses especially the poor saw the
corrupt businessman/politicians/mafia nexus as the source of all corruption. In
their mind this was a lesson taught to the corrupt by Modi to set them straight
& hence they were willing to bear some short term pain for it. After
decades of suffering, apathy & inaction on corruption, Modi was the first
politician taking firm action to solve the issue (inspite of what the actual benefit/result
was). This is similar to Brexit & Trump election phenomenon where the
masses tired of the status quo support radical moves which “gives the
appearance of someone wanting to change things around ” even if it doesn’t
always lead to any actual benefit on the ground. As I mentioned in my blog before the UP results that with
this one Robin Hood type master stroke plus other schemes for the poor Modi had
overnight solidified the change in BJP’s image from a middle
class/traders/businessmen party to a pro poor party. This was meant to win over
the poorest of the poor who weren’t traditionally BJP supporters. All these welfare schemes + demonetization + surgical
strikes across the border with Pakistan have gradually built up the narrative
of Modi being a resolute leader working for the betterment of the nation with
unwavering zeal. On the ground in UP where citizens on being asked by various
reporters (across various media outlets) on why did they liked Modi the most
common answer by far was that “Modi is a
decisive leader”. This was a stark contrast to some previous leaders who made
simply made promises but did very little once elected. All the moves by Modi’s
government looks much different from the
so called “policy paralysis” in 2nd half of UPA-II government which
was beset with scandals & everyone including bureaucrats scared of taking
any major decisions for fear of being implicated rightly or wrongly at a later
point in time.
As it rightly said that even the most successful politician
needs a great backroom operations manager. Amit Shah is the “Chanakya” to
Modi’s “Chandragupta”. He led the massive mobilization of BJP/RSS Cadre on the
ground in UP planning meticulously right from the booth level up to each
constituency. This level of detailed organizational planning missing from any
of the other opposition party puts them at a serious disadvantage when trying
to turn out the vote. In 70 seats where BJP was weak he “imported” leaders from
other parties to fight elections mind you in face of fierce opposition from
local BJP leaders. With the traditional BJP upper caste vote solidly behind him
solidly he identified the weakness of the opposition’s coalition’s (non-Yadav
OBC’s for Samajwadi Party) & (non-Jatav Dalit’s for Bahujan Samajwadi
Party). Both Akhilesh & Mayawati rode to power in Lucknow based on broad
support from OBC’s & Dalit’s respectively. However once in power their own sub-caste’s
(Yadav’s & Jatav Dalits) have to seem to be benefited the most (at expense
of other sub castes) in many people’s eyes. This leads to resentment among the
non-Yadav OBC’s & non Jatav Dalit’s that this was a new form of
discrimination against them (which in the past was done to them by upper
castes). As Shekhar Gupta has pointed out that new young Indian voter is no
longer bound by caste & he wants to break free of this mold & aspire
for a betterment of his lifestyle. Amit Shah tapped into this anger by fielding
a record 150 non-Yadav OBC’s & several non-Jatav Dalits. This social
engineering packaged along with Modi’s popularity & OBC credentials created
an unbeatable combination. Modi & Shah also tapped into another type of
discrimination anger: favoring of Muslims for various benefits by the previous
SP government. With the “shamshan/kabristan” comments from Modi reverse
polarization was achieved as people perceived that the SP was openly favoring
Muslims at the cost of the remaining Hindus. This result overall was seen by
many as a backlash against the identity politics practiced by both SP & BSP
who when in power favored a few at the expense of all others. BJP knew that
with 20% of Muslim population never voting for it + hardly any support from the
BSP’s 10% Jatav Dalit & 10% SP’s Yadav OBC’ base it had to simply capture a
majority of the remaining 60% of the electorate (which they did by winning 40%
vote share). For the last 30 years with the mushrooming of innumerable regional
parties in the mutli-polar contests the threshold for majority was much lower
& hence one won elections by simply
consolidating the votes among your main communities/castes + disenchanted
floating voters from others. Amit Shah by creating this “rainbow coalition”
across castes means in a form of a Hindu consolidation has blown up this old
school “Mandal school politics” of pandering to just your own communities which
doesn’t work anymore. Also importantly gone are the days when BJP simply asked for votes simply in
name of Ram Mandir. BJP knows that with the issue stuck in courts there was no
need for this to be the main focus of campaigning as they would not be able to
fulfil it & at the end of their term pay the price for not fulfilling their
promise.
Akhilesh has marketed himself a popular leader
pursuing development above the stereotypical lawlessness associated with his SP
party. But he simply couldn’t overcome the years of built up negative
perception of “goondagardi” of his government & many ministers. His
alliance with Congress failed to materialize any tangible benefits as the Cong
vote share simply collapsed. Many SP leaders now question the benefit of going
with Congress in the first place as they didn’t got many votes transferred from
Congress to their kitty. Talking to a friend about this SP – Cong alliance I
jokingly said that “25 + 0.5 is still only 25.5” i.e. not much difference to SP
by adding the negligible Congress votes. Akhilesh if he reforms his party &
win over the intra family squabbles can surely comeback to power some day in
future as he is young & the future of the Samajwadi Party. Mayawati’s
future on the other hand is bleak. She has failed to develop the next generation
of leaders, remains inaccessible from both media & her supporters, and
spends most of her time in New Delhi rather than on ground in Uttar Pradesh. Add
to that the fact that she got routed so decisively in UP this time around that
she lacks the requisite no. of MLA’s to renominate her to Rajya Sabha when her
term ends in 2018. Her ranting in a press conference about EVM’s being
supposedly hacked by BJP without offering any proof was downright bizarre. Her
Dalit base is being slowly poached away by BJP while her experiment of giving
tickets to Muslims to woo them to her side also failed miserably. The Mandal
politics of getting votes based just based on caste of SP & BSP have been
neutralized to a large extent. Modi & Amit Shah have been successfully
creating a pan Hindu coalition (vs BJP being a just upper caste party in the
past) breaking across all caste barriers. The worst situation that any
opposition party finds today in is the Congress party. They have lost elections
after elections in the past 5 years (barring a few exceptions like Punjab)
& are getting dangerously close to getting wiped off the map in major
states across India. Except North East they control only 3 states: Punjab,
Himachal Pradesh & Karnataka which goes to polls next year. They have been
supplanted by BJP as the new pan India national party. Their base is massively
shrinking with passage of time & there is no section of the society which
today then can call as reliable voters for Congress. Their base which at one
time used to be the poor is being lured away in all directions by other
parties: by Modi with his new pro welfare schemes & by Aam Aadmi party by
its promise of free electricity & water.
They can’t seem to be giving out the standard response “introspection is
required” after every successive loss. The party appears completely rudderless
without the stewardship of their president Sonia Gandhi. They are failing on providing
even a credible opposition to the policies of Modi government like
demonetization, etc. Sonia’s ill health preventing her from campaigning in UP
this time around foretells that she might not be even around in 2019 for the
next Lok Sabha elections. Hence the burden of dragging the party out of the
doldrums simply rests with Rahul Gandhi who has been proven until now to be a completely
ineffective leader. Many people including some leaders in his own party simply
don’t understand his infrequent engagements in discussions on important issues (followed
by long periods of silence on sidelines), lack of focus & vision, bizarre
comments like “being little down in UP “when in fact they were even behind the
tiny Apna Dal outfit in terms of seats, unexplained absences away from party
affairs & reluctance to lead from the front. One of the most interesting
stories which will touch upon most of the above factors was when the
ex-Congress politician Himanta Biswa Sarma went to meet Rahul Gandhi. Himanta
Biswa Sarma was the de-facto no. 2 in Assam govt. below Chief Minister Tarun
Gogoi. Initially both men were close but started drift apart due to rising
popularity of Himanta & Gogoi trying to promote his son as his successor.
Himanta went to meet Rahul Gandhi to implore to him that Tarun Gogoi who was
fighting 15 years of anti-incumbency was deeply unpopular in Assam. He stressed
that to win elections again Gogoi needed to be replaced by someone else which
necessarily didn’t have to be him (Himanta). Rahul during the meeting
apparently didn’t even listen to him & according to Himanta was busy
playing with his dogs, feeding them biscuits & looking at his phone. Himanta
frustrated with this, quit the Congress party. Amit Shah brought him over to
the BJP where he worked to thrash the Congress in the assembly elections last
year & subsequently also worked towards the BJP’s maiden win in Manipur
last week. The fact that the Congress candidate stood 4th in Amethi portends
to the fact that it wouldn’t be a complete shocker if he were to lose from
Amethi in 2019 Lok Sabha polls (in absence of any pre poll alliance). As many
journalists like Ruhi Tewari & Sagarika Ghosh have noted that he needs to
take accountability & work 24 x 7 instead of being a part time politician or
otherwise step aside for the good of the party.
Right now Modi & Shah are not only popular but simply outworking
Rahul Gandhi by the sheer amount of work they put in every single day to plan
for the future. As seen in UP even a master strategist like Prashant Kishore in
UP can’t save Congress from a debacle if the electorate is not buying what the
Congress party is offering right now. When reporters who travelled UP
extensively asked about Congress for most of the voters the question seemed more
like a joke as they didn’t care at all about the Congress party. Question for
Congressmen is that if he doesn’t step aside will they rebel to force change or
are they simply not doing it right now out of respect for Sonia Gandhi. However
if they wait too long for either Rahul Gandhi to change or force a change at
the top, the damage to the party might be unmitigable. Congress does have a
role to play in national politics as the primary opposition to BJP to keep the
government’s power in check & keep them honest. If it doesn’t mend its ways
soon, Congress tally in 2019 will be even lower when it could theoretically
cede the title of main opposition party to some other regional party who has
more seats.
Modi &
Amit Shah has transformed the BJP into an unstoppable snowball rolling down the
hill for 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Even opposition leaders like Omar Abdullah
have openly commented that if the current situation persists then opposition
should forget about 2019 Lok Sabha elections & instead start planning for
2024 elections. One thing opposition has been guilty of many times is
personally attacking Modi which does no good to their own fortunes. Cheesy one
liners similar to those seen in 80’s Bollywood movies like “maut ke saudagar” doesn’t
work anymore. Modi is able to masterfully spin these personal attacks to his
benefit sometimes even playing the “victim card”. Opposition needs to come up
with a better & a coherent strategy to combat Modi on issues that affect
the common man (like seen with the Land Acquisition Act). They have look beyond
the usual wooing of certain sections of society as their vote banks as it
invariably helps the Modi - Shah axis to masterfully create reverse
polarization. Modi’s popularity especially among the youth as reported from the
ground in UP is very high. Hence they have to rethink their old time tested
strategies which might have work with older voters in the past but which is
becoming more irrelevant with each passing day as more & younger voters
joins the electoral rolls. Shekhar Gupta has eloquently said that the new young
voter doesn’t vote like his fathers & grandfathers based on caste or past
history of party but rather on basis of “what have you done for me lately”.
Modi has
created this new broad arching sense of nationalism packaged with welfare
schemes for poor independent of caste & creed. Modi for his part once he
achieves close to majority in Rajya Sabha in mid-2018 he should be able to pass
legislation much easily & move his development agenda forward without much
resistance. Failure to provide growth will lead to resentment among the people
& we have seen in the past that the “aspirational” voter can get restless
very easily & throw you out of power if his/her situation is still the same
after 5 years. Also the thorny question of how to have inclusive growth that
uplifts along with others the Muslims also remains to be seen. BJP might not
have given tickets to Muslims in UP due to what they say was the “winnability”
factor. But at same time they can’t afford to be seen what other parties did in
the past i.e. working for betterment of only some & not all. They will have
figure out how to work for all 100% of the population without leaving behind
the 20% Muslim population in UP.
Currently with
the opposition appearing disjointed & dispirited, Modi looks to continue
his electoral success in 2019. Biggest impediment to a repeat BJP win is taking
things for granted/ overconfidence which has been the downfall of many popular
governments in the past. BJP has to simply look back at last time it was in
power for 5 years at Centre & how its “India Shining” campaign flopped
miserably. Modi who has transformed his image successfully to project himself
as the “messiah” of the poor right now has no equal in Indian politics &
has been called the tallest leader in Indian politics by many. Some have even
compared his popularity to the massive popularity that Indira Gandhi once
enjoyed. This blast from the past should however accompany with a statutory health
warning. Indira Gandhi who at the zenith of her popularity in 1971 coined the
“Garibi Hatao” slogan (similar to the pro poor agenda by Modi today) came
crashing down 6 years later post Emergency due to hubris & abuse of power.
