Return To Lok Sabha With Clear Majority May Not Be Easy For BJP In 2024 Polls

Four more assembly elections are due in April, next year, involving Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha and Sikkim.

Nantoo Banerjee, IPA, 22 February 2023 :  Much of BJP’s chances to return with clear majority to Lok Sabha after next year’s national election may depend on how the party fares in eight state assembly elections during this year.  They offer a big test for BJP. Only two of the eight states — Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh — are ruled independently by BJP. Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan are governed by the Indian National Congress. Telangana, another major state, is ruled by K. Chandrasekhar Rao-led Bharat Rashtra Samiti, a regional party.

Four more assembly elections are due in April, next year, involving Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha and Sikkim. They may be timed with the Lok Sabha polls. BJP’s political opposition is working strongly to convert the Lok Sabha poll into an aggregate of state elections. BJP may find it tough to fight regional parties on the campaign ground. BJP has become too Modi-Shah centric with both the leaders coming from the state of Gujarat, which has been in saffron hands since 1995. The party lacks strong regional faces, except probably Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma, the Assam chief minister.

The results of three of these assembly elections will be known on March 2. Presently, all the three north-eastern states — Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland — are governed by BJP with coalition partners. In tiny Meghalaya, BJP has as many as three political partners, namely National People’s Party, United Democratic Party and People’s Democratic Front. In tinier Nagaland, BJP is in the government with the support of two local political parties. While Tripura and Meghalaya have two Lok Sabha seats each, Nagaland has only one LS seat. BJP hardly matters to the tribal groups in Nagaland and Meghalaya. The results of the assembly elections in these three states may have little consequence on BJP’s Lok Sabha election prospects from the entire north-east, barring the state of Assam, which is currently ruled by BJP with two other political parties as coalition partners. Assam has 14 LS constituencies. Nine of them are currently represented by BJP.

The election results from Karnataka in May, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh in November and Rajasthan and Telangana in December should provide a somewhat fairer picture of the political opinion trend, in general, ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Significantly, the number of non-BJP governed states is as many as 14 out of the country’s total 31 states, including Jammu & Kashmir now under the president’s rule. These non-BJP states are: Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Kerala, Mizoram, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and West Bengal. On the contrary, the number of strictly BJP ruled states are only four, namely Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Under such circumstances, Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s assertion while campaigning in poll-bound Tripura, last week, that there is “no competition” for BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections sounds rather hollow, if not pompous. He said the people of the country are wholeheartedly moving with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as his initiatives have led to marked change in their lives. “During the small period of eight years, we have tried to raise the standard of living of 60 crore people….  There have been so many achievements. There are major changes in the railways. There is a new policy in the space sector…. I feel that in 2024, there is no competition and every one in the country is moving ahead with PM Modi.” The people of Tripura probably wished to hear more about the job prospects of the state’s growing unemployed youth, new central projects in the state, a more harmonious life between its tribal and non-tribal population and its faster linkage with the rest of the country. Consumers in Tripura — using anything from battery-powered cycle rickshaws, the biggest single source of employment in its state capital Agartala, to small grocery and stationery shops — are becoming increasingly dependent on Chinese supplies. The ordinary people are more concerned about their personal security, employment, income and price inflation than the country’s GDP growth, international status and technological prowess. Instead of coming close to the people with initiatives at the grassroots level focusing on their preferences and avoiding their prejudices, BJP’s high-profile central leadership appears to be less sensitive to their immediate needs and concerns.

An authoritarian style of government is never popular in a liberal democratic system. Periodical political changes through elections serve as an essence of democracy. Political freedom carries more weight than the improved financial health of a section of people and overall economic growth. Paradoxically, the operational style of BJP governments at the states and the centre carries the flavour of ideological control that ordinary people disfavour. Indoctrination is generally disliked.

However, most ruling political parties in India — be they in states or at the centre — refuse to learn. The longer a party or a political combination is in power, the more arrogant and despotic it tends to become in its operational style with little regard to the people’s choice. It fails to fathom the public sentiment at the bottom of the pyramid.  India’s constitutional federal structure to keep the country united in the face of sharp divisions and diversities in terms of language, religion, culture, and culinary practices, holds liberal ideology as its biggest strength. Lately, Narendra Modi had asked party workers to reach out to every section of society, including the marginalised and minority communities, “without electoral considerations”. They were reportedly told to sincerely connect with “Pasmandas, Bohras, Muslim professionals and educated Muslims”, not for votes but “mainly to build confidence”.

Elections have never been easy in India for any political party or political combination, especially since the end of the national emergency in 1977. Several high performing prime ministers and state chief ministers failed to steer their political parties to repeated election victories as the distance between the people and the government widened with one party or a political alliance remaining in power for too long. However, there have been a few exceptions both at the state and national levels. Jawaharlal Nehru was India’s longest-serving prime minister whose tenure lasted 16 years and 286 days.

Next came Indira Gandhi serving 11 years at a stretch and again, after a gap, for four years, until she was gunned down by a security man at her official residence in Delhi. Both the politicians belonged to the Indian National Congress. At the state level, Gujarat under BJP, Odisha under BJD, West Bengal under TMC and Delhi under AAP are recent exceptions. Earlier, West Bengal was under the Left Front rule for three decades. Political parties or alliances, which bank on better communications with the people and understand better their passion, emotion and sentiments and respect them, have better chances to get reelected to stay in power. Interestingly, regional political parties and Congress have strongly stepped up their people-connect drive to combat the BJP challenge.