The Indian voter is getting
increasingly demanding.
If it is not a total collapse, it is certainly a wake-up
call.
The results of the bye-elections held in four states,
Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Punjab ,
have come as an embarrassing development for the Narendra Modi led National
Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.
It is an unacceptable 8-18, unacceptable from the point of
view of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) strategists who are busy writing off
the Congress party and who are still basking in the glory of the overwhelming
victory they scored in the Lok Sabha polls in May 2014.
Of the 18 seats, Congress and its allies won 10 while BJP
won seven and its Punjab ally SAD one. BJP had
performed exceedingly well in many of these assembly segments in the recently
concluded General Elections. And BJP had performed exceedingly well in Bihar , bagging 31 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats, with its
allies. That was indeed a clear Narendra Modi effect.
Thus, in Bihar, the bypolls were being seen as the
referendum on Narendra Modi’s governance and on Nitish Kumar’s governance, his political
legacy in Bihar and his political alliance
with Lalu Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).
The BJP may rush to dismiss the results but given the way
Modi led the BJP and the NDA in sweeping the nation on the electoral turf with
a non-Congress party first time getting so many seats on its own, but any
subsequent loss of his party will be seen in the context of his ‘performance on
delivery of his promises of bringing the better days’ with questions raised on
his governance.
The results declared today have come on a day when
Narendra Modi’s government is completing its three months in office with its
inaugural on May 26 and these three months have enough of his government’s
fumbling blocks to talk about, something that the voter would never have
expected to happen when voting for him.
The BJP may rush to dismiss the results as reaction on
Modi’s government and may use the line of national Vs local issues, but doing
so would be electorally harmful.
The warning signals for the Modi government have started
surfacing and the government needs to assess them and work them out because
these results also tell the voter is getting increasingly demanding.
If we go by the trends in the assembly segments, we can
tell the voter is learning to react swiftly on the ‘delivery of the electoral
promises’ and Modi has made many, with many of them sky-high that need time.
The voter may go with that but when it is not with the fumbling blocks like
targeting honest officials (likes of Sanjeev Chaturvedi) and indulging in
vendetta politics (sacking and transferring Governors) coupled with seasonal
price rise to the sky-high levels. Such fumbling blocks look even more
unpardonable when there is not much to talk about on nagging domestic issues.
And that is the case with the Narendra Modi government while writing this.
If the bye-election results are not a total collapse, the
timing of it is certainly a wake-up call.
September 13 is going to see another round of
bye-elections, with three Lok Sabha seats (Medak in Andhra Pradesh, Mainpuri in
Uttar Pradesh and Vadodara in Gujarat) and 33 assembly seats spread across nine
states (Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Sikkim,
Tripura, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal). And the year-end is scheduled for four
state assembly elections – Maharashtra ,
Jharkhand, Jammu & Kashmir and Haryana.
So, the timing is bad if the BJP strategists have
political plans to enjoy a run of complacency on ‘performing’.
The bye-election results today have generated much
negative points for Narendra Modi and the NDA government. This round has gone
to Nitish Kumar and Lalu Yadav’s jibes have got the extended lease of his
political life.
Any similar outcome in the September 13 polls would seriously
amplify the effect of these negative points, and that would greatly undermine
the BJP’s chances in the three assembly polls (except J&K, even if the BJP
is talking of majority on its own there), that going by the results of the Lok
Sabha elections, should be won by the BJP easily. Happening so would create a
ripple effect that would be potent enough to affect and derail the plans for
the whole five years because more assembly polls are scheduled ahead.
That should never have been the problem, except, that the
Modi government has some pretty unacceptable fumbling blocks with not much to
talk about on governance parameters when the Indian voter is getting
increasingly demanding and is reacting swiftly and decisively.
An increasingly demanding electorate – yes, it is good for
the Indian Democracy - and it is also good for Narendra Modi – because, in
spite of the all the fumbling blocks, he is still the person (in fact the only
person in Indian politics at the moment) who can deliver for India, for the
voters who voted him in for better days ahead. Narendra Modi is a politician
who is believed to have more focus on his political legacy and how the
generations would remember him and his background of no personal attachments
helps us in believing so.
It will be good (and the nation needs it) for Modi if he
reads the signs and works to control the elements in his government from doing
things that are creating the fumbling blocks. He needs to be conscious that the
voter has become totally frustrated with the worn-out style of politics being
practiced so far.
Narendra Modi must read these messages from the
bye-election results today. The scale of his political legacy would depend on
how he reads these signs and how he acts subsequently.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com
