No easy pickings for the BJP

THE BJP seems to be in for a rude shock. It may have to sweat it out in the five states that go to the polls next month, and even then the prognosis isn’t favourable. Double-engine anti-incumbency is setting in big time in states where the BJP is in power; and even where it is in the Opposition, the Modi charisma does not seem to be enough to win Assembly polls. Overriding local factors have contributed to double-engine failures earlier too, most recently in Karnataka. But the struggle to win back a state from the Congress, for instance Chhattisgarh, throws open a new phase of a steep and rough climb for the BJP.

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The national mood-uplifting events — Chandrayaan-3 and Asiad success — don’t seem to be getting translated into a groundswell of support for the BJP in the states.

For a party that takes immense pride in its karyakarta or the humble worker, the top-down approach and a command-and-control structure may be stifling the organic growth of new leaders. Madhya Pradesh is the best example. The BJP does not have a chief ministerial candidate and is no longer sure about what works. CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, a backward-caste grassroots leader, has been given the ticket. But that is it. He does not steer the campaign. Bringing in Members of Parliament to contest Assembly polls is a sure sign of uncertainty.

MP has had a BJP government for four terms since 2003 with a brief interregnum of 15 months, after which Jyotiraditya Scindia switched sides, helping the BJP grab power in 2020. Now, the anti-incumbency seems real. The negative vote against the government is obviously going to the Congress, which is expecting to ride the people’s anger to victory. The experiment of trying Parliament members out to stem the rot at the Assembly constituency level may not work in a situation where voters may have an all-pervading angst about the local party structure itself.

In fact, such a sentiment may even rub off on to the Union Government’s image when the going gets tough. So, this time around, the contradictory results of the 2018 Assembly and 2019 Lok Sabha elections need not necessarily get repeated. The last time, the Congress had won 114 seats (just one short of the halfway mark) and the BJP 109 in the MP Assembly polls, and then within six months, the BJP swept 28 of the 29 parliamentary seats in the state. Something similar happened in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. The Congress won 100 out of 200 seats in the Rajasthan Assembly elections, but the BJP grabbed all but one seat in the parliamentary polls. And in Chhattisgarh, the Congress bagged 68 Assembly seats out of 90, but won just two of the 11 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

The situation across the country is also unlike 2019. And that realisation has already forced the BJP to forge an alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra and the Janata Dal(S) in Karnataka — something unthinkable in 2019. If genuine support for PM Modi, bolstered by the response to the Pulwama terror attack, helped the BJP overcome local factors in 2019, the Hindi heartland antipathy in Madhya Pradesh points to a grave situation. In fact, even Rajasthan, which should have been easy pickings after five years of Congress rule and with a tradition of the state never repeating a government, is not offering a walkover.

The Rajasthan Congress ought to have resembled a spent force. Normally, when a state Congress unit gets over a debilitating bout of infighting, it would be in no shape to face its opponent at the hustings. Despite narrowly averting a vertical split engineered by Sachin Pilot, the government and the party are holding out. While Vasundhara Raje loyalists would blame it on the BJP’s decision to sideline her, it is a fact that the party could not mobilise the masses and convincingly turn the tables on the Congress over its poor governance. Finally, Ashok Gehlot’s freebies may not work, but he is trying to put up a good fight. And the BJP central leadership seems to be even willing to gamble away Rajasthan in order to finish off Vasundhara.

While Congress is retaining its satraps in MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh (Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel), the BJP does not have a CM face in any of these three heartland states. Modi seems to be redoing the Indira Gandhi act — an all-encompassing leader who leaves little room for satraps. Congress leaders during Indira’s times were pygmies happy to be her minions, wholly dependent on her grace and not their merit. Unlike the BJP, a terribly weak Congress is now holding on to its Chief Ministers and former CM Kamal Nath despite the temptation to weaken or remove them. In MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the satraps have weathered rebellion and still are in the saddle.

Baghel is in control and has even triggered a sort of Chhattisgarhiya pride among the people that is working well for him. Investigations by Central agencies against some functionaries of the government are the only visible Opposition activity in Chhattisgarh, where the freebies have taken the anti-incumbency sting off. All effective governments are desperately copying each other in wooing voters with largesse such as waiver of electricity bills, health insurance, mobile phones, scooters, direct transfer of money and what not.

One positive aspect of the Indian system of one-nation-many-elections is the gradual institutionalisation of welfarism. It is pro-poor developmental activity when one party does it, but freebies when its opponent attempts the same thing. The fact remains that governments are being richly recompensed for their efficient management of welfarism. Telangana’s K Chandrashekar Rao, too, has been riding a popular wave of schemes that offer relief to the poor. If at all his two-term anti-incumbency bites, it may only help the Congress and not the BJP. And of course, the BJP is just a minor player in Mizoram.

The national mood-uplifting events — the success of Chandrayaan-3 and the unprecedented performance of Indian athletes at the Asian Games — do not seem to be getting translated into a groundswell of support for the BJP in the states.