No more slogans of “desh ke gaddaron ko, goli maaro salon ko”—shoot the traitors—in Delhi polls. The man who made it a war cry in 2020, Anurag Thakur of the Bharatiya Janata Party, is back in action, talking about surgical strikes and Afzal Guru.
He is targeting the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress over national security issues.
Parvesh Verma who had called Shaheen Bagh protestors potential rapists and killers in 2020 is a much sober leader today as he takes on Arvind Kejriwal in the New Delhi constituency.
Nobody is talking about the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. In fact, Union Home Minister Amit Shah is almost missing from Delhi’s poll campaign.
Former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma of the infamous Prophet Muhammad controversy has got neither the party ticket nor a place on the party’s star campaigner list.
These instances show how the BJP has changed its poll campaign template in Delhi, focusing on the AAP government’s governance or the lack of it, not on communal polarisation that backfired in 2020.
It’s not the only instance of the BJP learning from mistakes and making a course correction. See how the party has fully embraced what Prime Minister Narendra Modi once deplored as the ‘revdi’ culture. It saw Brand Modi taking a hit in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. When it looked like it was no longer potent enough to beat anti-incumbency against Manohar Lal Khattar government in Haryana, the BJP replaced the CM. It wouldn’t risk the Haryana election even for PM Modi’s friend. As Brand Modi showed signs of diminishing returns in the parliamentary polls, the party had no hesitation in underplaying it in the Haryana and Maharashtra Assembly elections.
The Centre set up the Rohini Commission in October 2017 for sub-categorisation of the Other Backward Classes (OBCs). The intent was clear—mobilise marginalised sections of the OBCs against the dominant ones who were aligned with Opposition parties. The BJP soon realised that it didn’t need to open Pandora’s Box. The government ended up giving 14 extensions to the Rohini Commission. It finally submitted its report to President Droupadi Murmu in August 2023. Nothing has been heard about it since then.
But, when it came to sub-classification of the Scheduled Castes, the BJP government in Haryana was quick to implement it right before the Assembly election. Congress leaders admit in private that ‘deprived SCs’ like Valmikis and Dhanuks voted overwhelmingly for the BJP in the Assembly election.
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Frozen in time
There are instances galore, since 2014, of the BJP revising its political and electoral strategies and tactics after every setback. That’s what differentiates it from the Congress. Just hear the speeches of Opposition leaders. They have started sounding like a broken record. Look at the Opposition’s poll pitches. They have remained frozen in time, no matter how many elections the Congress loses.
If NYAY or minimum income scheme was the Opposition party’s poll pitch in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, nothing but the amount changed in 2024. If guarantees or revdis worked for the Congress in Himachal Pradesh in 2022 and Karnataka in 2023, the same continues to be the main offering in every election. No matter how electorally ineffective they have become for the Opposition. Protecting the Constitution was one of the Congress’ main poll planks in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The party has continued to raise the same issue in every election since then. Does it really want the voters to elect a chief minister to protect the Constitution?
That brings us to Rahul Gandhi’s obsession with the caste census. In the last Lok Sabha polls and in one assembly election after another—Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, Haryana, Maharashtra and even Jharkhand—caste census was a dud as an effective poll plank. But he loves the idea and won’t give up. He was talking about the same caste census in Delhi’s Muslim-dominated Seelampur constituency last week. Look at the Congress’ poll pitch in Delhi—freebies, caste census, protection of the Constitution, and PM Modi promoting oligarchy at the cost of the poor. These sum up the Congress’ poll campaigns in the last five years at least.
So, why is it that the BJP learns from its mistakes and keeps changing its political and electoral tactics and strategies but the Congress won’t? Some reasons are very obvious. The BJP has strong monitoring and guidance systems, especially the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh that intervenes effectively whenever the party seems to go astray. The party is led by leaders like Amit Shah who are 24×7 politicians. It has a robust organisation that ensures constant feedback from the grassroots. Even though today’s BJP has no dearth of sycophants and ‘yes men and women’, they have little say in decision-making. Notwithstanding his personality cult, PM Modi is there to promote the party, not the other way around. It’s just the opposite in the Congress.
But the difference between the BJP and the Congress also lies in the way their respective leaderships think about their parties and their roles and functions in a democracy. The BJP leadership sees the party as a political organisation. For Rahul Gandhi, it’s an idea, a philosophy. For the BJP, politics is about power and so it must win at any cost. For the Congress, politics is a war between good and evil—and elections are a battle of ideas and ideologies. They must be fought. The results aren’t important. That should explain Rahul Gandhi’s equanimity and abiding faith in the issues he keeps raising, no matter if they resonate with the voters or not.
DK Singh is Political Editor at ThePrint. He tweets @dksingh73. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)