Beating the BJP's popularity and political strategy seems not only difficult but impossible

Lakshmana Venkat Kuchi *

One had expected the political Mahabharat – in what was described as the semi-finals before the 2024 Lok Sabha general elections–the results of Assembly elections to five States of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa, and Manipur to have been narrower than the emphatic, decisive and even historic victory of the BJP.

Bucking electoral history of a little over three decades, the ruling BJP and its 'double-engined' Government bulldozed a serious and spirited challenge of Samajwadi Party and the alliance former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav in the State that matters the most in Indian politics – the biggest State of Uttar Pradesh in terms of area, size, population, and importance, as it sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha – and won a second successive term in office. As also in neighbouring Uttarakhand that was carved out of Uttar Pradesh.

The BJP bucked not just the recent electoral history in a State where no Chief Minister or political party could win successive elections but also has altered the course of National politics for the foreseeable future.

One may be accused of jumping to conclusions too soon, just on the basis of one good performance in Assembly elections, or be charged of being guilty of lazy analysis. But the fact of the matter is that the BJP has sent another reminder that when it came to strategy, implementation, hard work on the ground, there was no other contemporary political party that came anywhere close to it.

Just consider the common issues that were playing out in Uttar Pradesh, as also in the other four Assembly elections – price rise, unemployment, Covid-hit economic slowdown, and an agrarian crisis added onto localized anti-incumbency (for Congress in Punjab) and the BJP in others.

Particularly in Uttar Pradesh, there emerged a serious challenger, though the BJP dismissed Akhilesh Yadav as of no consequence, and posed a real threat through a coalition of castes he built up. More importantly, on the ground, he did draw very enthusiastic crowds all through the month-long election campaign.

There also did seem to be localized anger of people towards their representatives, most of them from the ruling BJP, going by the manner in which village after village in the State they were driven out and not even allowed to campaign.

The main challenger managed to build up a narrative, but as it turned out, clearly Uttar Pradesh did not buy it and the State instead believed the BJP campaign on the law-and-order issue when it reminded the voters of the 'Goondaraj' of yore that Akhilesh Yadav allegedly ran. What worked for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh seems to be a cocktail of its Hindutva and populist welfare programmes, especially the free food grains scheme for the poor.

Another significant phenomenon, as it was seen in Bihar a few months ago, women seem to have favoured the BJP and there were more women who voted than men. A majority of the women voters seem to have endorsed BJP assertions of having provided for a better law and order situation. Besides, the State Government's direct money transfer to build houses and toilets and other welfare schemes including free rations or the Prime Minister's Ujjwala scheme.

Clearly, the BJP and it's by now much-feared election fighting machinery were able to convey to and convince the voters of its political messaging. And perhaps the huge crowds that converged at his meetings, Akhilesh seemed to have been lulled by the complacency that the factor of anti-incumbency would see him through. But clearly, as results show in UP and elsewhere, the BJP managed to counter this challenge efficiently and very effectively.

The BJP romped home to comfortable victories in Uttarakhand, Manipur, and is in a position to form the Government again in Goa.

Now what this kind of a stupendous victory does to the Opposition morale can well be understood, especially at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP election machine have already started rolling out their campaign for the Gujarat Assembly elections due before the year-end.

An almost 'driven out' Congress still does not know what has hit them, in Punjab and elsewhere where it was supposed to have been doing well–in Goa and Uttarakhand. Ceding space to Aam Admi Party in Punjab has been only possible due to the desperate death wish of the Congress Party which tried its best to lose the elections–with its State unit chief Navjyot Singh Sidhu carrying out a diatribe against his own Chief Minister and his party's Chief Ministerial face Charanjit Singh Channi.

And the Congress high command's political sagacity is out there for everyone to see–how it dumped its Chief Minister Amrinder Singh, a few months before the elections and thought it had come up with a masterstroke.

Now what the BJP victory in Uttar Pradesh and three other States does is that it gives a critical headwind to the party and Prime Minister Modi for the 2024 Lok Sabha general elections. The most crucial of the States of UP has endorsed Home Minister Amit Shah's exhortations to UP voters that you must vote for Yogi to make Modi the PM in 2024.

With the most populous and important State behind the BJP, it starts with that much of an advantage in the 2024 general elections. And not that it was already in a happy situation what with the Opposition in total disarray and in a complete meltdown. The Congress, which still fancies itself as the rightful owner of the pan-India Opposition space, has proven time and again that it has become politically irrelevant in Uttar Pradesh.

And the tragedy for the Congress is that barring the Congress and one or two allies, no other non-BJP entity gives any importance to it and laughs away its claims of leadership status and taking on the BJP.

Also, as long as Congress, in its present debilitated state, insists on being what it is it will be an advantage to the BJP. None of the other political formations in the Opposition space have a pan-India presence and neither regional leaders are known beyond the boundaries of their respective States. Besides, many of them are happy to be what they are, like Naveen Patnaik on Odisha or a Jaganmohan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has made her National ambitions clear, but are there any takers is the question. But, any 'National' ambitions of a few other regional leaders like K Chandrashekhara Rao of Telangana will for the time being be given a temporary pause, if not totally abandoned.