In the end, when the results arrived, they took everyone by surprise. Nobody had predicted the depth and extent of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s victory or the scale of the Congress’ defeat. Rajasthan had always seemed a bit of a question mark. The state usually votes out the incumbent government and there was no reason to believe that the fractious duo of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and former Deputy CM Sachin Pilot, forced to sing together in tuneless harmony, could reverse that trend. And yet, people who covered the election said that the Congress was well-placed in Rajasthan.
Madhya Pradesh was regarded as a sure win for the Congress. After all, the party had won the last election and it had only lost power because of defections. Now, with anti-incumbency snapping at the heels of tired and old Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, we were told, the voters would put the Congress back on top.
Chhattisgarh was never even discussed. The Congress said that it was sure it would win. And most people did not disagree too sharply.
However, when the results came in, it was clear that hardly anyone had been able to accurately gauge the mood of the electorate. How can you tour a state and miss the fact that the BJP is heading for a landslide victory? But not only did those who covered the elections miss this, most of the pollsters did as well (with the notable exception of India Today-Axis My India exit polls). Much worse, the Madhya Pradesh Congress believed in its own propaganda. Till the end, it was sure that it was winning.
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Electoral appeal of Modi
Afterwards, when it was clear that the political experts had been wrong, various explanations were offered. None of them fit all the facts or told the whole story. And many were contradictory.
The Congress had lost, it was said, because it had not protested hard enough when its ally in Tamil Nadu, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) launched a foolish and reckless attack on Sanatan Dharma. But for everyone who said that, there was somebody else who attributed the Congress’ defeat to its adoption of soft Hindutva.
The same people who had complained about Rahul Gandhi’s dominance and had advised the Congress to leave the campaigns to experienced state leaders now said that Gehlot, and Madhya Pradesh’s former Chief Ministers Digvijaya Singh and Kamal Nath—the Congress faces of the election— were too old and too discredited. Where was the youth factor?
And on and on it went—none of it was very convincing, and all of it seemed to be made up on the spot in an effort to retrospectively invent theories to fit the facts.
What nearly all of the election results analysis did was miss the wood for the trees. Only one thing unites the BJP’s victories in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and it has very little to do with the local factors that are now being trotted out.
It is the electoral appeal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to voters in the Hindi heartland. That’s the only explanation that aligns with all the facts.
For some reasons, political experts — perhaps fearing that they will sound like chamchas (sycophants) — are reluctant to come out and say this. Even earlier, when the BJP pulled off a precedent-shattering victory in Uttar Pradesh, there was a similar unwillingness to accept that this was Modi’s victory. Instead, praise was heaped on state Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and he was made the hero of the election.
But the truth is that while all of the reasons offered for the BJP victories – caste arithmetic, welfare schemes, Hindutva etc., — do have their place, they are not the primary factors. It is Modi and the leadership he offers that makes the BJP virtually unbeatable in the Hindi heartland. The BJP did not have to bother to promote a chief ministerial candidate in Rajasthan, and even in Madhya Pradesh, it was by no means clear that Chouhan was going to be the undisputed leader after the election, given his equation with the central leadership.
The voters didn’t really care. They were voting for Modi, a leader whose appeal now vastly exceeds that of the BJP itself. Under Modi, all elections have become about him. And in the heartland, that works.
It is true that the same logic does not necessarily work in the rest of India. In West Bengal, Modi put his personal prestige on the line only to see the Trinamool Congress (TMC) win by a landslide. In Karnataka, he tirelessly toured the state, and campaigned hard only to see the Congress defeat the BJP. In Punjab, all of Modi’s campaigning could not make the ruling party in the Centre seem relevant.
But in the Hindi belt, voters love Modi. And as long as the BJP asks for votes in his name, the electorate will respond favourably and enthusiastically.
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Hindi-belt and 2024
This has implications for the 2024 general elections. If Modi’s charisma can deliver UP, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat — which now seems probable — then the BJP has the election sewn up. Bihar remains a gray area. Perhaps the Modi magic will work there or perhaps it won’t. But even without Bihar, the BJP will have enough Hindi-belt seats to act as the foundation for a winning majority.
It means that we are looking at five more years of Modi. As I wrote in this column some weeks ago, “Modi has ceased to be regarded as an ordinary politician. People see him as a force of nature.”
It is as clear that the Opposition has not figured out how to oppose him. Personal attacks (like the notorious “Chowkidar chor hai” campaign) tend to backfire. And when Modi is attacked on his policy failures, voters are unwilling to pin the blame on him personally. I also wrote, in that same column: “His failures are the fault of others. His successes are entirely his own. In some mysterious way, he seems to have risen above the hurly-bury of everyday politics.”
I doubt if the Opposition will be able to work out how to defeat Modi before the next general elections. So, the question we should ask may not be “will Modi win?”. It should be “what will he do once he wins?”
It’s a question fraught with significance because India stands at crossroads. The economy will do okay under Modi — we have seen that over the last decade — and development will continue. But the real concerns are about the institutions of our democracy. Will he respect them as much as he should? And what of the pluralistic character of India? How committed will he be to preserving and maintaining that?
Could it be that during his third term in office (he will be 79 when it ends), he will pay less attention on trying to win elections and punishing his opponents, and work toward ensuring his legacy is one of a strong but democratic leader? Or will we just have more of the same?
Modi never talks about these things, and neither does anyone close enough to ask dare press him on these issues. But ultimately, long after these assembly elections are forgotten, those are the achievements or failures that history will judge him by.
Vir Sanghvi is a print and television journalist, and talk show host. He tweets @virsanghvi. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)