 "BJP's broad-based win")
"The people have spoken!" is the general theme of post-election analyses in India. What follows is often a minute parsing of even barely-heard whispers. Not so in 2014. The people have given a message that is not only clear but, more important, loud as well.
For starters, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has gained a majority on its own. The current National Democratic Alliance (NDA) it leads will comfortably cross 300 seats. No single party or pre-poll alliance has matched these feats since 1984.
The vote figures tell an equally significant tale. The BJP will get over a third of the 550 million votes cast, or about 184 million. That is 106 million votes more than its tally of 78 million in 2009. This increase of 135 per cent over 2009 is humongous and compares with the overall polling numbers in the second largest democracy in the world, the US (Barack Obama and Mitt Romney together secured 125 million votes in the 2012 presidential elections).
Anecdotal evidence suggests BJP voters are now well spread across age, income, location and gender groupings. Muslims everywhere are the only segment hostile to the new ruling party. Therefore, it might not be far from truth to say that barring Muslims, the BJP occupies the centre of the Indian polity, which belonged to the Congress until recently.
Two factors explain this, one negative and one positive. The negative is the abysmal Congress/United Progressive Alliance (UPA) performance, especially on the economy front, discussed to death already. A desperate people were ready to embrace an alternative that offered hope. This became the positive in the form of the BJP's claims of good governance and development in the states it ruled.
The BJP's prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, wielding the sledgehammer against the UPA, was the heart of the BJP's winning strategy. He highlighted what came to be called the Gujarat model. Critics tried to detect faults and infirmities in the model. But voters all over India found the Gujarat narrative appealing. It was "foreign-like", with assured 24x7 power, good roads and water managed from its own resources, even in moderate drought conditions, common in Gujarat. Efforts of the Congress and latterly, the Aam Aadmi Party, to debunk these as myths found little traction, as both reportage and election outcome tell us.
As in 2004 and 2009, Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh preceded the Lok Sabha polls. As in 2003 and 2008, the BJP won Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh handsomely in 2013. But unlike in 2004 and 2009, the Congress fared miserably in the general elections that followed, as the main issues of the state elections remained in sharp focus six months later. In December 2013, I had observed, "The famous victory of the BJP is in fact the rout of the Congress. And, that is not confined to the Hindi heartland alone. Voters will stick to their ABC (anybody but Congress) in state after state, if elections are held in the foreseeable future (It's the aam aadmi's pocket, stupid!; Business Standard, December 9, 2013)."
The BJP also knew it was not exactly running a campaign for sainthood. For it, the election schedule was a godsend. Most urbanised and more advanced states completed polling in April. The last phases in May involved about 50 seats in eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, always receptive to appeals on the basis of caste and community. The BJP seamlessly shifted gears to add none-too-subtle pitches to these factors, in addition to its core development and governance issues. This Janus-like strategy paid off.
There is another way to look at the election numbers. The NDA tally will barely exceed 200 million, or only a quarter of the number of eligible voters. That should give a pause to the euphoric new ruling party. There is much apprehension about the impact of the NDA regime on this multi-cultural country. Muslims will continue to respond poorly to Modi and the BJP. Also, there is considerable disquiet among substantial sections of the non-Muslim population, too, as can be seen from the passion the debate about a future under Modi arouses.
The BJP under Modi has a fair distance to go, if it is to shed the tag of a right-wing Hindu nationalist party in any meaningful way. As Shakespeare's Henry IV observed pensively, "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."
The writer taught at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and helped set up the Institute of Rural Management, Anand
For starters, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has gained a majority on its own. The current National Democratic Alliance (NDA) it leads will comfortably cross 300 seats. No single party or pre-poll alliance has matched these feats since 1984.
The vote figures tell an equally significant tale. The BJP will get over a third of the 550 million votes cast, or about 184 million. That is 106 million votes more than its tally of 78 million in 2009. This increase of 135 per cent over 2009 is humongous and compares with the overall polling numbers in the second largest democracy in the world, the US (Barack Obama and Mitt Romney together secured 125 million votes in the 2012 presidential elections).
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The BJP has gone well past what is otherwise called its core constituency, estimated at less than 20 per cent of the electorate. The party was expected to do well in its traditional strongholds in the north and the west. It now has significant presence in Assam, larger than that of the Congress. Its vote share is in respectable double digits in West Bengal, Odisha and Tamil Nadu, where it has been only a minor presence so far, though that has not translated into many seats. It has swept the two largest metros, Delhi and Mumbai, where it had no seats five years ago.
Anecdotal evidence suggests BJP voters are now well spread across age, income, location and gender groupings. Muslims everywhere are the only segment hostile to the new ruling party. Therefore, it might not be far from truth to say that barring Muslims, the BJP occupies the centre of the Indian polity, which belonged to the Congress until recently.
Two factors explain this, one negative and one positive. The negative is the abysmal Congress/United Progressive Alliance (UPA) performance, especially on the economy front, discussed to death already. A desperate people were ready to embrace an alternative that offered hope. This became the positive in the form of the BJP's claims of good governance and development in the states it ruled.
The BJP's prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, wielding the sledgehammer against the UPA, was the heart of the BJP's winning strategy. He highlighted what came to be called the Gujarat model. Critics tried to detect faults and infirmities in the model. But voters all over India found the Gujarat narrative appealing. It was "foreign-like", with assured 24x7 power, good roads and water managed from its own resources, even in moderate drought conditions, common in Gujarat. Efforts of the Congress and latterly, the Aam Aadmi Party, to debunk these as myths found little traction, as both reportage and election outcome tell us.
As in 2004 and 2009, Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh preceded the Lok Sabha polls. As in 2003 and 2008, the BJP won Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh handsomely in 2013. But unlike in 2004 and 2009, the Congress fared miserably in the general elections that followed, as the main issues of the state elections remained in sharp focus six months later. In December 2013, I had observed, "The famous victory of the BJP is in fact the rout of the Congress. And, that is not confined to the Hindi heartland alone. Voters will stick to their ABC (anybody but Congress) in state after state, if elections are held in the foreseeable future (It's the aam aadmi's pocket, stupid!; Business Standard, December 9, 2013)."
The BJP also knew it was not exactly running a campaign for sainthood. For it, the election schedule was a godsend. Most urbanised and more advanced states completed polling in April. The last phases in May involved about 50 seats in eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, always receptive to appeals on the basis of caste and community. The BJP seamlessly shifted gears to add none-too-subtle pitches to these factors, in addition to its core development and governance issues. This Janus-like strategy paid off.
There is another way to look at the election numbers. The NDA tally will barely exceed 200 million, or only a quarter of the number of eligible voters. That should give a pause to the euphoric new ruling party. There is much apprehension about the impact of the NDA regime on this multi-cultural country. Muslims will continue to respond poorly to Modi and the BJP. Also, there is considerable disquiet among substantial sections of the non-Muslim population, too, as can be seen from the passion the debate about a future under Modi arouses.
The BJP under Modi has a fair distance to go, if it is to shed the tag of a right-wing Hindu nationalist party in any meaningful way. As Shakespeare's Henry IV observed pensively, "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."
The writer taught at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and helped set up the Institute of Rural Management, Anand