Bengal, Gujarat and others, should have
some serious introspection for their proponents and supporters who had started
making claims and counterclaims on waning BJP gains/Modi Factor/Modi Wave.
The results of the four assembly polls
after the 2014 Lok Sabha election tell how unfounded those questions were.
If seen on the rational plank, not
superimposing the performance of BJP in the assembly segments in the Lok Sabha
polls, that was far better than what BJP came out with in Maharashtra, Haryana,
Jharkhand and even in Jammu & Kashmir, the rationale of BJP getting
stronger at the expense of Congress and its allies (of now).
After the Lok Sabha polls, a historic
mandate defining the electoral and political landscape of India, when BJP
emerged as the only party winning majority on its own after the 1984 polls when
Congress had swept the country riding on the sympathy wave after Indira
Gandhi's assassination, had telling signs.
1984 to 2014 - it is a full circle now for
Congress and the wheel has turned having a new hand steering it. There was
sympathy wave for Congress then. There was anti-incumbency surge for Congress
this time.
But, more importantly, for BJP, there was
no sympathy wave. What gave the party central poll-plank was this anti-Congress
anti-incumbency surge coupled with anti-Congress anti-corruption wave. And the clear
projection of Narendra Modi as the prime-ministerial candidate, with a
track-record of over a decade of development oriented governance in Gujarat coupled
with his Hindutva identity, when there was no other prime-ministerial candidate
in the field (including Rahul Gandhi), filled whatever gaps were left in BJP's
preparation/appeal/credentials.
BJP's win this time was earned, helped by
several factors, including efficient management of elections, down to the booth
level, sweeping grounds in the most important states of Uttar Pradesh and
Bihar, and maintaining extensive outreach in states where it was nowhere in the
scene, like West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Northeast states.
They efficiently managed the anti-Congress
wave, absence of a clear, official, Modi-adversary, the fractured opposition, the
Hindutva politics elements and crushed the hopes of the opponents with
extensive campaigning by Narendra Modi.
The opposition didn't question its loss on
these pointers and went into a quickly adorned fallacy of a 'BJP/Modi on
decline' based on the outcomes of the bypolls, while Modi and BJP kept on
oiling and working the machinery that delivered it the Lok Sabha pollls.
And Congress (and Opposition) did its own
peril the four assembly poll results show, with three having BJP governments
while in J&K, BJP is the clear kingmaker with maximum vote share.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
