The political adage that ‘the road to Lok Sabha goes through Uttar Pradesh’ has been proved right once again. In 2014 and 2019, the Bharatiya Janata Party was comfortable in its arithmetic in Lok Sabha by winning 71 and 62 seats in the state, respectively. The setback it faces now in 2024 is also due to a shortfall of seats in UP. While a detailed seat-wise analysis of the state will have to wait until the final results are released by the Election Commission of India, there are tell-tale signs of the errors and omissions committed by the losers, in this case the BJP, that turned out to be a gain for the Congress and the Samajwadi Party.
The BJP will have to spend sleepless nights analysing the UP results this time. In 2019, the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) were against the BJP, the Congress was also seen as the B-team of the SP, and therefore capable of pooling anti-BJP votes on the side of its opponent. Yet, the BJP managed to post an impressive tally of 62 seats. Again, the BSP could not retain even one of the nine seats it had won in 2019; six of them have gone to the SP, two to the Congress, and one to the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) this time. For the BJP, a pre-poll tie-up with the BSP would have been better than dismissing it as a spent force.
According to some analysts, the Modi government’s schemes like contractual Agnipath for entry into the Indian Army could have had a negative impact on young voters. Most of the less-educated youth from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Rajasthan turn to the Army for employment. The Agnipath scheme was not bad in intent but the content was probably not explained and disseminated among the stakeholders, leading to apprehensions. This could be one of the many reasons for the reduced enthusiasm of the youth and first-time voters to turn away from the BJP or prefer not to vote at all thereby bringing the voting percentage down in some constituencies.
2024 lacked any poll issue
Besides UP, the BJP falling below the 272 majority mark should also be attributed to Rajasthan and Karnataka to some extent. Ironically, just a few months ago, in November 2023, the BJP wrested Rajasthan from the Congress by winning 115 seats in the assembly. The party’s state unit needs to come up with an explanation regarding how and why the voters became disenchanted with the BJP in such a short time. After losing Karnataka to the Congress, the BJP had sufficient time to put its house in order, which it seems to have failed to do.
This was probably one general election without any serious issues on either side, the broader alliances of NDA and I.N.D.I.A. Both BJP and Congress had fewer alliance partners. The anti-BJP alliance was strange in the sense that many of its members were contesting against the Congress in some states and were partners in other states. The Congress fielded candidates against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab while the two were in an alliance in Delhi; all this was done to dislodge the BJP from power.
If the Congress had no issue to target the BJP, the BJP too campaigned with no wishlist in hand. On the one hand, important poll planks like the Ram Mandir and abrogation of Article 370 were a done deal, and the party kept speaking about the first hundred days of the new government, the Modi 3.0. The salaried class and the middle-income group of voters expected more tax benefits and promises of welfare schemes. While the Congress’ promise of “Mahalakshmi Scheme” promising to deposit Rs 1 lakh every year in the bank account of poor families was run down by the BJP, there were reports of women lining up outside banks to open accounts. That this election was fought on such issues and reservation based on religion and distribution of wealth etc., speaks for itself as for the total lack of serious issues.
2004 lesson worked in 2019, didn’t in 2024
The 2004 election was an eye-opener for the BJP. The five years of the NDA government under the leadership of a gentle and affable Atal Bihari Vajpayee witnessed a steady growth in the economy. All sectors, especially the service sector, were posting satisfactory results. There was peace on the northern border because of the agreements between New Delhi and Beijing. This paved the way for trade agreements and higher levels of mutual confidence between the leadership of the two countries.
Spurred by these positive indicators, the party came up with the “India Shining” slogan as the poll plank for 2004. There were suggestions to go slow on this slogan, especially after the Congress came up with a high-pitched anti-BJP campaign to take the wind out of the BJP’s sails. The “Congress ka haath, aam admi ke saath” slogan clicked. As a result, the BJP polled seven seats less than the Congress. But more importantly, two of BJP’s allies, the AIADMK led by Jayalalitha and Telugu Desam Party led by Chandrababu Naidu, harped on the massive economic growth during the past five years and sought reelection on that score. In both states, Tamil Nadu and (then united) Andhra Pradesh, the opposition wiped the sheen out of the ruling party’s campaign by projecting farmer’s suicides, lack of infrastructure for market access and other such issues that concerned the common voter. The TDP won five seats while the AIADMK scored zero.
While the Congress emerged as the single-largest party, the BJP-led NDA lost a big chunk of its strength from allies. In the 2014 and 2019 elections, the BJP remembered the bitter lessons of 2004 and decided not to harp on economic progress or successful foreign policies as a barometer to test the popularity of the government. Instead, the party did two things very unlike the BJP. It announced its prime ministerial candidate (Narendra Modi) well in advance. Secondly, it campaigned on the muscular leadership qualities and great achievements of the PM and his agenda for the future. This worked in 2019.
This was the reason the BJP changed its campaign thrust from development and achievements to more mundane issues like religious reservations and ‘wealth distribution’ scheme proposed by the Congress. Why this did not work in 2024 is for the BJP to analyse. But for now, the forgotten era of coalition politics has begun.
Seshadri Chari is the former editor of ‘Organiser’. He tweets @seshadrichari. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)