05 December 2013, 10:06 PM IST
The changed political landscape in the country following assembly elections in five states will come in full view only after results are announced on Sunday. But some of its contours are already visible to all except those who have rubbished the exit polls. This attempt, especially by Congress, to clutch at a random straw in the wind is, however, a manifestation of despair, not of hope – of a defeat foretold, not of prescience.
That is indeed the most prominent contour. Other than in Mizoram, Congress has received a drubbing. It was unable to play the anti-incumbency card in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh or play the pro-incumbency card in Rajasthan and Delhi. Voters across the board sent Congress packing for its failure on several fronts.
It did not control inflation, contain corruption, redeem its pledges to create jobs, prevent the slide of the rupee, provide security to women or act tough against home-grown and foreign terrorists who disturbed peace times without number.
The party's riposte on these charges simply didn't wash. One reason was the pervasive impression that UPA-II government was weak, indecisive, unable and unwilling to face multiple challenges with the requisite amount of determination and political skill. It meekly succumbed to what it speciously called 'coalition compulsions' to explain, if not justify, scam after humongous scam.
The leitmotif of Congress' election speeches also revealed its disconnect with the electorate's concerns and aspirations. Rahul Gandhi's rich-vs-poor and urban-vs-rural rhetoric does not appear to have elicited much fervour.
Today's voters, especially the younger ones, are more receptive to a discourse that harps on education and jobs, and less to one that is redolent with populism. Indeed, what Congress appears to have not quite grasped is the marked, if steady, erosion of identity politics, especially – though not exclusively – in urban areas.
Identity politics has doubtless not entirely run out of steam in states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar where Lohia-ism still casts a long shadow. But in several other parts of the country, political mobilisation strictly on caste lines is paying lower and lower dividends. That holds true of mobilisation along secular-communal lines as well. Harping on the sense of victimhood of Muslims is not good enough to gain votes any more even if the reasons for it – a sense of deprivation, even oppression – are genuine.
Significant in this regard is the set-back Congress has received despite the many social welfare schemes it has launched in its two terms in office – ranging from MGNREGA and the Right to Information to the Right to Education, Aadhaar and the Food Security Bill. It would be hasty to conclude that the electorate has turned indifferent to freebies. But their potential to translate into votes is more and more problematic.
Likewise, to all appearances, the electorate seems to have sent the signal that it does not want to get stuck in a time-warp as far as communal incidents are concerned. No one objects to the courts bringing the guilty to book. But neither do they want past horrors to visit the present and vitiate the future.
Pragmatism of this sort is of course an anathema to those who have strong reservations about Narendra Modi's politics and personality – the one rooted, in his own words, in 'Hindu nationalism' and the other displaying some disquieting traits of authoritarianism – traits that are all too obvious in his body language and oratory.
Note, however, must be taken of his admittedly feeble moves to reach out to Muslims, send a cosy feeler to Pakistan and shift, ever so slightly, from BJP's traditional stand on Article 370. The party did swiftly deny any such shift. Yet the deed was done. And the beneficiary has been Modi. Pakistan, for example, is prepared to do business with him.
The pitfall for BJP leadership would be to take for granted that the party's success in the assembly elections is a prelude to success in the general elections. Nothing could be more misleading. In three of the five states that went to the polls, it had only one rival: Congress. In Delhi, it has had to contend with a newcomer – Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party. And in Mizoram, it had no presence at all.
In the general elections, regional formations will pose a formidable challenge to both BJP and Congress in many populous states. In UP and Bihar, caste and religious 'vote banks' still remain strong. The Muslim electorate, especially, is prominent in these states as well as in West Bengal and in the Southern states. There is also the mess in Telangana. Neither of the two national parties have much of a hold on these developments.
BJP has won the battle in assembly elections. There is, as of now, nothing to suggest that it will carry the day in general elections. What appears certain however is that more reverses are in store for Congress. The reason? The 'middle ground' in Indian politics has shifted to a more nationalistic, more market-oriented, less 'secular' and more 'muscular' form of governance. Narendra Modi represents that 'middle ground', not Rahul Gandhi. That, in substance, is what the huge voter turn-out in the assembly polls portends – for better or for worse.
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