Narendra Modi scored his fifth sweeping victory since 2002 in the state Assembly elections in Haryana and Maharashtra, even falling short of a majority in the latter. All these were about just one issue, Narendra Modi himself, except the first one in 2002 for the Gujarat Assembly. That was effectively a referendum on the riots following the Godhra incident, where the Gujarati voter vehemently rejected any guilt for it and gave Mr Modi an unprecedented majority. In all subsequent elections, Mr Modi reinvented himself. In 2007, he was the leader Gujarat had chosen to defend Gujarati asmita (identity) - helped along nicely by the Congress, since its vituperative "maut ka saudagar" epithet actually boomeranged on it. In 2012, he presented his "vikas purush" persona, and with an eye already on the national stage, invited others to share the state's prosperity. That avatar was in full flow in the general election earlier this year, further propelled by the sorry tales of Congress misrule. All these fetched handsome dividends, which is now a part of our folklore.
Mr Modi was supposed to have gambled by making the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) go it alone. Maybe so, but this was foretold. These state elections were crucial to the BJP's goal of establishing its primacy in the Indian polity. The party had to win them on its own to achieve this objective. It had depended on allies in both states to gain a toe-hold, playing a secondary role. The states could have been easily won by the alliances following their grand success in the general election. But that victory would have still left the BJP a junior partner.
BJP's chief strategist Amit Shah - hand-picked by Mr Modi as party president - knew from his Uttar Pradesh experience that a BJP vote share of 30 per cent plus would ensure its majority in a multi-cornered contest. Even with a slightly lower vote share, it would be the dominant party within hailing distance of a majority. Breaking old alliances was made easy in both the states by the recalcitrance of its partners, the Haryana Janhit Congress and the Shiv Sena. The state elections did become lotteries, but the BJP was not waiting for a lucky number. It was the sponsor of the sweepstakes, who gains regardless.
This time around, Mr Modi had become the chief dream merchant. He peddled a vision of a resurgent India much respected and wooed by small and large global powers, a garbage-free "swachh" Bharat with toilets in every school and house, and best of all, a land of opportunity where the youth with well-paying jobs would drive the economy to new heights. Who could counter its allure? Certainly not the Congress; it seemed to have thrown in the towel even before the bout had begun. It feebly asked Mr Modi what his achievements to date as the prime minister were. That became most opportune for him to contrast his 60 days in power against the Congress' 60 years. The Congress star campaigners, the Gandhi mother-and-son duo, were missing in action as Mr Modi and Mr Shah barnstormed every corner of the two states. Their hapless incumbent chief ministers, Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Prithviraj Chavan, were cannon fodder to Mr Modi. He easily out-campaigned them notwithstanding hoarseness of speech and recycled rhetoric.
Large crowds flocked to his rallies to hear that very message. That this was the high season of the pre-festival marketing blitz was not lost on the master marketer Mr Modi. Aspirational India wanted ever more mobile phones and electronic gadgets. Mr Modi sensed that it also wanted his versions of good governance and development. He made that irresistible of all marketing pitches: since the electorate had already bought the government at the Centre five months ago, he was offering free another at the state level. Not surprisingly, Mr Modi's closest rivals for media space were those Santa Clauses, Amazon, Snapdeal and others of their ilk.
The warriors remaining in the arena dealt in altogether different commodities: family fealty and victimhood. The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) in Haryana demanded votes as tributes to Tau Devi Lal and the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra invoked Bal Thackeray. These maudlin appeals were garnished generously with stories of injustices: the current INLD patriarch Om Prakash Chautala was sent to jail for creating jobs for the poor youth, while the Sena was kicked out of a 25-year-old alliance by an ungrateful BJP. It was all a Gujarati conspiracy to vivisect Maharashtra, it hinted. No attempt was too crude to appeal to the supposed chauvinism of the Jats or the Marathi manoos.
The new generation of voters saw much merit in belonging to the mainstream. Availing of promised new opportunities trumped victimhood any day. That was a no-brainer except to the Sena and the INLD (and one veteran Marathi editor, every channel's favourite Maharashtra expert, who predicted Mr Modi's Waterloo with fewer than 100 seats for the BJP. These, alas, were not famous last words. Pundits always live to prophesy another doomsday.)
With these fresh mandates, Mr Modi would be expected to deliver miracles. But that is for another day. For the moment, it would be cussedly churlish to deny him and his party their richly earned right to gloat.
Mr Modi consciously evokes Mahatma Gandhi when he handles the physical broom as he campaigns for a clean India. Electorally, he wields another kind of broom, that which the second most important Gandhi in India did in 1971 and again in 1980, sweeping the opposition into the dustbin, as celebrated in the memorable R K Laxman cartoons of those days.
The writer taught at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and helped set up Institute of Rural Management, Anand
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