1. Modi is the message
Taunted as panauti (jinx) by Rahul Gandhi midway through the campaign, PM Narendra Modi again showed how good he is at winning elections. Not only has Rahul’s taunt boomeranged, Modi’s status as BJP’s talismanic campaigner, charismatic leader, and principal votegetter is further cemented. His popular appeal was the single most important factor in BJP’s win in three states and its improved performance in Telangana.For voters, he’s a leader with credibility: They took his pre-election ‘guarantees’ seriously. That is all the more remarkable because he has completed 9 years in office, and that too in an age of exploding voter expectations. He was the frontrunner for 2024 even before Sunday. Now, it’s hard to see who will beat him.
2. A winning formula
BJP has now fashioned a way to win elections across states and nationally. Effective governance, big development spends, targeted welfare measures, Hindutva, and a muscular nationalist image, of which selling India’s growing global heft to a domestic audience is a key part. The list of successful programmes over the last nine years is long and testifies to a new BJP culture – target sections of voters, craft a delivery mechanism, and make sure benefits are not lost midway in the delivery channel. This new BJP works 24×7, under Modi and Shah, and as general elections approach, be sure the Modi sarkar will come up with more smart schemes.
3. Everyone’s into welfare schemes
Their contrasting worldviews notwithstanding, focus on welfare ran as a common strand through the promises of all parties. Health insurance, cooking fuel, free/ affordable education were the new promises on offer. BJP did resist the temptation of clambering onto the bandwagon of loan waivers, free electricity and return to the exorbitantly expensive OPS, but was not tone-deaf to the aspirations on the ground, especially of poor and women. LS elections may see its restrained response translating into responsible welfarism. What opposition parties do will be interesting to watch.
4. Hindutva works
It proved to be the force multiplier for BJP in three states. The beheading of Kanhaiya Lal, a tailor in Udaipur, for alleged blasphemy and the brutal mob killing of Bhuneshwar Sahu may not have provoked outrage outside Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh and the attack on a religious procession at Khargone in MP may have been dwarfed by the criticism of Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s ‘bulldozer’ response, but they were perceived differently by voters. BJP ensured these incidents were all seen through the prism of ‘appeasement’ of Muslim hardliners. The attacks on Sanatan Dharma by members of INDIA added a new theme in the Hindutva discourse. And this may find greater resonance after the consecration of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.
5. No takers for Congress‘ social justice plank
Rahul Gandhi’s sudden switch to caste survey, and his championing the ‘jitni abadi utna haq’ slogan, had marked its emergence as a new factor. Congress’s promises of ‘caste counts’ in states in the aftermath of the survey in Bihar invested it with a salience and an urgency. The party’s failure in the three states, each with big concentrations of OBCs, has shown the limits of caste survey as an electoral strategy. Part of the reason may be that voters saw through Congress’s late conversion to Mandalism as an opportunistic ploy. However, while Brand Modi may have helped BJP transcend the caste divide, the party is unlikely to ignore the issue. The campaign saw BJP endorsing the concept of a caste count. The victory gives it the headroom to engage with it from a position of strength and on its own terms.
6. More fights in opposition bloc
Despite a highvoltage start, the effort to build an anti-Modi bloc never really got off the ground because INDIA partners kicked the can of seat-sharing down the road. Sunday’s results will mean more complications for the bloc. Congress may be mourning its heartland losses, but the grief is not shared by many of its INDIA allies. They were resentful of what they saw as Congress’s overbearing ways post-Karnataka. Rahul Gandhi’s underwhelming performance will help them when they question Congress’s claim to be BJP’s natural challenger. Congress, never one to cede ground, will resist these demands for parity by citing victories in Karnataka and Telangana, and by saying it’s the first choice for Muslims and ‘secular’ voters. Expect more fights in the opposition ranks.
Taunted as panauti (jinx) by Rahul Gandhi midway through the campaign, PM Narendra Modi again showed how good he is at winning elections. Not only has Rahul’s taunt boomeranged, Modi’s status as BJP’s talismanic campaigner, charismatic leader, and principal votegetter is further cemented. His popular appeal was the single most important factor in BJP’s win in three states and its improved performance in Telangana.For voters, he’s a leader with credibility: They took his pre-election ‘guarantees’ seriously. That is all the more remarkable because he has completed 9 years in office, and that too in an age of exploding voter expectations. He was the frontrunner for 2024 even before Sunday. Now, it’s hard to see who will beat him.
2. A winning formula
BJP has now fashioned a way to win elections across states and nationally. Effective governance, big development spends, targeted welfare measures, Hindutva, and a muscular nationalist image, of which selling India’s growing global heft to a domestic audience is a key part. The list of successful programmes over the last nine years is long and testifies to a new BJP culture – target sections of voters, craft a delivery mechanism, and make sure benefits are not lost midway in the delivery channel. This new BJP works 24×7, under Modi and Shah, and as general elections approach, be sure the Modi sarkar will come up with more smart schemes.
3. Everyone’s into welfare schemes
Their contrasting worldviews notwithstanding, focus on welfare ran as a common strand through the promises of all parties. Health insurance, cooking fuel, free/ affordable education were the new promises on offer. BJP did resist the temptation of clambering onto the bandwagon of loan waivers, free electricity and return to the exorbitantly expensive OPS, but was not tone-deaf to the aspirations on the ground, especially of poor and women. LS elections may see its restrained response translating into responsible welfarism. What opposition parties do will be interesting to watch.
4. Hindutva works
It proved to be the force multiplier for BJP in three states. The beheading of Kanhaiya Lal, a tailor in Udaipur, for alleged blasphemy and the brutal mob killing of Bhuneshwar Sahu may not have provoked outrage outside Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh and the attack on a religious procession at Khargone in MP may have been dwarfed by the criticism of Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s ‘bulldozer’ response, but they were perceived differently by voters. BJP ensured these incidents were all seen through the prism of ‘appeasement’ of Muslim hardliners. The attacks on Sanatan Dharma by members of INDIA added a new theme in the Hindutva discourse. And this may find greater resonance after the consecration of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.
5. No takers for Congress‘ social justice plank
Rahul Gandhi’s sudden switch to caste survey, and his championing the ‘jitni abadi utna haq’ slogan, had marked its emergence as a new factor. Congress’s promises of ‘caste counts’ in states in the aftermath of the survey in Bihar invested it with a salience and an urgency. The party’s failure in the three states, each with big concentrations of OBCs, has shown the limits of caste survey as an electoral strategy. Part of the reason may be that voters saw through Congress’s late conversion to Mandalism as an opportunistic ploy. However, while Brand Modi may have helped BJP transcend the caste divide, the party is unlikely to ignore the issue. The campaign saw BJP endorsing the concept of a caste count. The victory gives it the headroom to engage with it from a position of strength and on its own terms.
6. More fights in opposition bloc
Despite a highvoltage start, the effort to build an anti-Modi bloc never really got off the ground because INDIA partners kicked the can of seat-sharing down the road. Sunday’s results will mean more complications for the bloc. Congress may be mourning its heartland losses, but the grief is not shared by many of its INDIA allies. They were resentful of what they saw as Congress’s overbearing ways post-Karnataka. Rahul Gandhi’s underwhelming performance will help them when they question Congress’s claim to be BJP’s natural challenger. Congress, never one to cede ground, will resist these demands for parity by citing victories in Karnataka and Telangana, and by saying it’s the first choice for Muslims and ‘secular’ voters. Expect more fights in the opposition ranks.