Victorious, yet weary?

In 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) made electoral history. Fielding 428 candidates to the 16th Lok Sabha election, the Party earned a humongous mandate by securing 282 seats riding on the so-called ‘Modi-wave’ which swept away the adversaries.  

The BJP, since then, has occupied an enviable position in Indian political arena, making its ardent dream of ‘Congress-Mukt Bharat’ almost a reality.  

The latest exploit being the Northeast, where, the Party first tasted electoral success in Assam in 2016, and thereafter continuing to make its mark in Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya and Nagaland, where the Party is part of the ruling government. Through intelligent alliance and strategy, the BJP electoral machine has been on a roll.

The recent success in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland are both ideological and symbolic. Ideologically, Tripura has been a left bastion, while victories in Christian majority states – Meghalaya and Nagaland – to a certain degree, have cleansed the party of the ‘anti-Christian’ tag.  

“Time and again, election after election, the people of India are reposing their faith in the positive and development oriented agenda of the NDA. People do not have the time or respect for negative, disruptive and disconnected politics of any kind,” a euphoric Narendra Modi tweeted after the election result.  

As things stand now, BJP is part of the government in all North-east States except Mizoram, and they have much to celebrate as the national map is being filled with saffron planks.  

Yet there is a lingering feeling that something is amiss with the much vaunted electoral juggernaut.  

The electoral success in Northeast was interspersed with sobering losses of ‘prestigious’ Lok Sabha seats in by-polls in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar. All these states are BJP ruled state, of which Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are going to state assembly election this year. The three Northeastern states collectively send just five MPs to the Lok Sabha.  

A news report informed that since 2014 elections, BJP has suffered 14 losses out of 16 Lok Sabha bypolls. Anantnag in Jammu and Kashmir, Bhandara-Gondiya and Palghar in Maharashtra, Kairana in Uttar Pradesh, Nagaland seat in Nagaland will see bypolls this year.  

Adding salt to the wounded pride, N Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) on March 16 withdrew support from the NDA government over the Centre’s refusal to grant special category status to Andhra Pradesh.  

Consequently, political commentators are livened with an animated discussion of possible stitching a crucial alliance, reminiscent of “The Mahagathbandhan” formed in Bihar against BJP in 2015, which put a temporary break to Modi’s wave.  

Sensing the state of affairs, the Congress, which was recently accused of “chronic laziness” by a political commentator, in its 84th Plenary, seems more energized and launched a scathing attack on the BJP both on ideological and economic front.  

The recurring theme, among others, being religious polarisation, corruptions, constitutional sanctity and the apparent implementation failure of disruptive economic policies such as demonetisation and Goods & Services Taxes.  

How will the maverick Modi-Amit Shah duo respond to the challenges? For starters, in coming days, there will be more populist policies while diametrically upping the ante on religious and nationalist rhetoric. The Centre’s recent deposition at Supreme Court on Ram Sethu for the Sethusamudram project is a good indicator for the future. The opposition should not fall into such trap.