BJP wins Gujarat, Rahul sheds loser tag by T K Arun

BJP wins Gujarat, Rahul sheds loser tag by T K Arun

Topic: BJP wins Gujarat, Rahul sheds loser tag

Writter: T K Arun

Publish Date: Monday, 18 December 2017

Published on : The Times of India

BJP wins Gujarat, Rahul sheds loser tag

The Bharatiya Janata Party has retained Gujarat, winning fewer seats than in 2012, and wrested Himachal Pradesh from the Congress. Yet, despite these losses, the Congress and its new president, Rahul Gandhi, having started the race on leaden feet and hobbled, have emerged running, if not quite on twinkle toes. The 2019 general elections are no longer a foregone conclusion and the BJP and the Congress will both have to innovate their election platforms.

In about one-third of the total assembly constituencies in Gujarat, the BJP has lost the lead it had registered in 2014. Clearly, a similar pattern cannot be ruled out in other states that had embraced Narendra Modi wholesale in 2014. Even after the sweeping victory in Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, the BJP can count on its tally in the state dipping below the 73 mark of 2014. This is why Modi travelled to Chennai, to meet the ailing DMK leader Karunanidhi — you need to compensate for the seats that would be lost in the north with new ones in the south and in the east.

The Gujarat results put a premium on the contests that will take up political time in 2018: Karnataka and Tripura, and, towards the end of the year, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.

Urban Gujarat has stayed with the BJP, although with markedly less enthusiasm. The Congress probably lost more backward caste votes than the Patidar votes it gained from its promise to create a quota for this socially and economically dominant caste.

It would be a big mistake for Rahul Gandhi and his party to start thinking that the new Congress president has suddenly started oozing charisma. What he has gained is a certain degree of credibility. This is on account of two things: the BJP government in Gujarat had messed up so much and alienated so many sections of society that all those disaffected were only too happy to cheer someone articulating their grouses; and, Gandhi stayed the course, sticking around continuously and sticking to a rooted discourse, instead strapping on wings to reach escape velocity from reality. He would do well to stay the course.

The BJP and Modi would be well advised to appreciate that underhand attacks, such as the Congress being anti-Gujarat or a fifth column for Pakistan marshalling a former prime minister, a former foreign minister, a foreign secretary and several key former diplomats against India, did not win Gujarat for them. These tactics probably put off people and served only to lower the PM’s image. His appeal to Gujarati sentiment, as someone the people of the state had gifted to the nation, probably swung enough sentiment in the BJP’s favour for the party to scrape through.

The BJP has to offer a constructive agenda for the nation, going beyond vikas, that is, development. Vikas is right now refusing to oblige with a great many jobs and tangible feel-good. Not only that, vikas is something that all parties seek to achieve — after all, India would not today be the third largest economy in purchasing power parity terms if vikas had not happened since Independence. Polarising the electorate on communal lines will not send a constructive message to the electorate.

The Congress has to reimagine itself in terms of the positive agenda it has to offer. The shadow of corruption looms large over the party and its leaders and it must come up with plan luminous enough to drive it away. Promising quotas to castes and groups is not a viable or credible strategy. It must uphold a credible model of inclusive democracy instead.

The Congress would also need to work out a strategy to prevent old warhorses who have to be sidelined from kicking up a fuss large enough to create electoral damage, as Vaghela seems to have done in Gujarat.

No one has triumphed in Gujarat, the BJP’s win falls far short of the party’s official boast of getting 150 seats and the Congress’ loss smells more of hope than of defeat.