It is all about perception, silly. Elections of today have changed to become manageable. Arithmetic and chemistry are secondary matters of concern; first is the creation of perception and then keeping it afloat until the day of voting. My understanding after two weeks of touring, first Chhattisgarh and then Madhya Pradesh, is this: voters are neither too confused nor too conflicted; neither vocal nor silent. There is neither a tod for arithmetic nor is it about establishing a chemistry, and that age-old adage—‘janta ko sab pata hai’, the public knows everything—has become clouded in perception.
In both the states, I met a few who answered the question about the election mood with a short ‘fight hai’—a fight is on. When probed further, it comes down to ‘aapne bola’—you said it. Who is this ‘you’? Not me, but the national media.
“Media showed it on TV that Congress and BJP are in a neck-and-neck fight”.
So don’t they think there is a fight? Two out of five, or four of ten, would reply ‘no’.
We can label the voter as silent or confused. But no, the voter pretends. For, despite the awareness, their opinions are clouded by the subtle art of perception.
As mentioned in my previous reports, I had gone to Chhattisgarh with the understanding that the Congress was in a stable, winnable position. But mid-air the ‘misunderstanding’ shattered. There emerged a fight, with the BJP having the undercurrent, which came in prominence first with the opinion polls. A month before the two states went for polling, opinion polls took over the little screens that have infiltrated every home and the lives of each of its members.
By the way, in villages too, the majority janta has stopped watching television. ‘Madam, phone par sab kuch aa jaata hai, TV toh on hi nahin hoti aaj kal’. Everything’s available on the phone while the TV sits idle, barely ever switched on. And I thought it was people like me and you, the ‘urbanists’, who have stopped watching TV, but the dehat is many steps ahead of us.
The beginning of the perception creation
Anyway, as stated, opinion polls for Chhattisgarh changed the perception a month ago. The hands down Congress win in the two states became a neck-and-neck political battle. In Madhya Pradesh’s 230-member assembly, the number predicted for Congress was between 113 and 125, while BJP stood at 104 and 116 seats. In Chhattisgarh’s 90-member assembly, Congress had been predicted to win 45-51 seats while the BJP wasn’t far behind at 39-45. It was the beginning of the creation of perception. The fight had been established. Then,in Chhattisgarh, the ‘solid’ candidate list created by the BJP took the fight a notch up. In Madhya Pradesh, the fight became tight due to the ‘laadli laxmi’ scheme. TV channels, media interviews, social media universities—all started peddling these narratives to holler up the ‘perception’.
In Madhya Pradesh, the clout of perception is mightier. In 2018, which was deemed a “change” election, Congress came riding high on the ‘badlaav’ wave after 15 years. But infighting, the rift and raft among the old and the new, allowed the BJP to wield its way back to power. As 22 MLAs went towards absolute power, peoples’ vote and their voice became obsolete. But governments rarely get more popular the longer they stay in power and Shivraj Singh Chouhan and his coterie had run that course in 2018. Which means that the fatigue among the voters should be even more now. But it is not.
The perception claims that people have not yet truly reached the fatigue point against Shivraj. Nor do they care who the next chief minister will be. Which is why to say that the 2023 election in Madhya Pradesh is riding on the desire for badlaav or on laadli laxmi is all too immature. And Shivraj is not the preferred choice. There are more factors working against the BJP than against the Congress. In the undercurrent, there is anger among people over what happened to their mandate after the 2018 election. Congress in state and Narendra Modi at the Centre has reached a crescendo. Yet, the perception being peddled is of a tightrope fight.
WIll BJP settle for perceptions?
Modi and Amit Shah are masters of creating perception and setting off a psychological war. After the first phase of voting in Chhattisgarh, crackers were burst in the BJP state office. In Madhya Pradesh, the media has become biased towards being biased. A local journalist told me in Indore, “The election this time is about issues and change…but the BJP will win 120 seats.”
There are no clear answers to why the belief persists that the BJP will win both Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh; nor are there people with explanations on how it will happen. Some say the arithmetic favors the BJP; others say it is chemistry and the prominence of ‘Modi mania’. But ‘Modi mania’ only exists during the Lok Sabha elections. In states, it is the local faces.
The 2023 elections could earmark the new wisdom—perception is as important as reality. And the public has made up its mind, some on real issues, some on faces, some even on NOTA, but many are invested in the settled perceptions. If Modi and Shah decide to forget about public relations and perceptions and cede the field, hoping Shivraj in Madhya Pradesh and dhaan (paddy) politics in Chhattisgarh would secure them victories, you are mightily wrong. People no longer look beyond the spin into substance. And you might agree to disagree or disagree to agree but winning elections in Amrit Kaal has much to do with perception and less to do with faces, issues, and change.
Shruti Vyas is a journalist based in New Delhi. She writes on politics, international relations and current affairs. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)