What an eventful weekend it has been! Reading in between the lines on everything that I saw and heard from the exit polls and analysis, I came to a conclusion and tweeted on the night of December 2nd that BJP is going to comfortably win in Madhya Pradesh, form governments in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh and BRS will form the government in Telangana with the help of BJP.
Although Congress has won the Telangana elections comfortably I still feel that their government will not last long given several of their leaders have jumped ship from BRS only. The fact that DK Shivakumar had to do his usual task of keeping the flock together showed clearly that Congress couldn’t completely trust their MLAs but how long will they be able to do this resort politics? Time will tell.
Be that as it may. What led to the outstanding victory of BJP in the Hindi heart land?
Based on their victory in Karnataka, Congress thought that that giving freebies left, right and centre will make the public vote for them and winning is a given. They showed great confidence and even most of the exit polls corroborated their sentiment. However, everyone except for a handful of pollsters underestimated the inherent mastery of BJP when it comes to fighting elections.
Madhya Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh election was nowhere close to Karnataka scenario. In Karnataka, BJP didn’t have a very strong existing face, they couldn’t set the narrative well and anti-incumbency easily brought them down. Due credit must be given to DKS and Siddaramaiah for steering their ground organization. BJP is a party that learns from its mistakes quickly. In MP, they sensed that Congress will again apply their freebie toolkit and Kamal Nath gave early indications. Shivraj Singh Chauhan, fondly known as Mama in MP, immediately rolled out his Ladli Behna scheme which put immediate money in the hands of female voters. Why would they then wait for something to be done by Congress in the future when already its happening in the present and so they rallied around Mama. The corruption mudslinging similar to Karnataka didn’t stick on BJP unfortunately for the Congress who were clearly using the Karnataka template.
Initially, BJP top brass even thought that public in MP was tired with Shivraj Chauhan and didn’t want to expose him a lot during the campaigns. However, Shivraj was patient and BJP also realized that he still enjoyed the clout and brought him back visibly in the rallies and cutouts which paid off even though they didn’t announce any CM face and Modi asked people to vote for his guarantee.
Rajasthan
Congress’s infighting in Rajasthan between Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot was out in the open for everyone to see and they wasted almost 4 years of opportunity to project a good governance and administration image for themselves. On the other hand, BJP managed its internal rumblings much better during their election campaign. Its rumoured that Vasundhara Raje wanted to be projected as the CM face and did all that she could to reinforce her presence as a force to reckon with but BJP top brass kept her in check although they gave her confidants tickets and prevented her from doing any significant damage. She had to give in and BJP went without a CM face to the public and still won.
Congress’ Rhetoric Flops
Congress’s attempt to play the caste card also didn’t click in all the three states. Their usual jibes at Narendra Modi using Adani card and abusing him as Panauti (bad omen) linking it to the loss in the recent world cup didn’t find any audience as people couldn’t relate to it all. This was terrible strategy on the part of Congress. In Rajasthan, BJP was very successful in setting the narrative of corruption and female atrocities that people could easily relate to as it affected their day to day life. Even in Chhattisgarh, BJP was able to set the corruption narrative on the Congress very smartly.
People Confident Over Modi’s Guarantees Than Congress Freebies
Its very important to note the significant point that BJP has now learnt to counter the freebie guarantee politics of the Congress. Its very evident that the public trusts the Modi guarantee more as they have seen the results visibly already on the ground. Going to 2024, this will act as a big plus to BJP. Another very important point is that the Anti-Sanatana Dharma comments by the Congress allies were met with anger in the Hindu voters which they silently showed in the ballots. The fact that Congress didn’t publicly condemn the likes of DMK for their Anti-Hinduism slogans remained etched in the minds of people and BJP didn’t make any mistake in ensuring the same.
Easily Modi’s BJP looked much more credible in the eyes of the public and the Congress leadership couldn’t erase this even though Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Vadra went about with their usual speeches during their campaigns. BJP’s corrective measures in MP by changing the candidates and bringing union leaders to fight and not going with a CM face in any state paid off. BJP’s alacrity in changing their strategies stumped Congress big time in these elections.
I strongly believe that with the current momentum and public sentiment that has built up in these three states, BJP will definitely cross 400 in 2024. In order to ensure this, I think BJP should bring the Loksabha elections forward around February end/March itself. The fact that they now have counter to the opposition strategies of freebies, caste formulas although they still might not have the Muslim vote base which is not a big issue if they can keep the Hindu votes together. BJP must continue with Shivraj Chauhan as the CM in MP due to the public sentiment but can bring new faces like Balaknath in Rajasthan and similarly in Chattisgarh.
The losses in these three states have shattered the Congress dreams of becoming a dominant leader of the I.N.D.I alliance running up to the 2024 elections. BJP looks in tremendous form, understands the pitch really well, is now the seeing the ball also very well and has perfected its art of pull shots very well learning from their earlier mistakes. BJP is all set to win the world cup in 2024 by breaching the 400 runs mark. Ab ki baar, 400 paar! Lets wait and watch!
Ananth Mahadevan is a political commentator based in Bengaluru.
Subscribe to our channels on Telegram, WhatsApp, and Instagram and get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally