Beginning of ‘BJP-mukt Bharat’: Modi’s abuses and Yogi’s threats fail to work in state elections

Narendra Modi had promised a ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’ to his supporters in 2014. Four years later people are showing BJP the door. Assembly election results from the five states—Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram—clearly reflect the voters’ mood swinging a vast part of the country. The BJP is no longer the voters’ first choice and Narendra Modi has certainly lost his charisma while the Congress Party is on the comeback trail and Rahul Gandhi has emerged as a serious challenger to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Congress is a clear winner in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh where it is on its way to form the government while Madhya Pradesh is still open to any of these two parties. But the BJP has lost its decade and a half supremacy in MP too. The BJP has lost its decade and a half supremacy in MP too. The BJP was a non-player in Telangana where it is again a non-starter.

The loud and clear message from the five assembly results is that the BJP is on the retreat while the Congress is gathering steam. Narendra Modi’s big brag about ‘no vacancy at the top till 2024’ certainly seems hollow now.The Congress led opposition alliance that has already started crystallising looks likely to dislodge the Modi-led NDA in the 2019 parliamentary polls.

But what are the factors that led to such a dramatic political transformation in the country? After all, Narendra Modi is the first prime minister who managed a clear majority in the Lok Sabha for his party in 2014, when for the first time a party secured a majority after three decades.India trusted Modi blindly and the much talked about ‘aspiring middle class’ propelled him to lead the BJP to a massive victory.

Frankly, Modi seemed invincible in 2014. The middle class swooned over him, the business treated him as a Messiah and the poor trusted him to change their lives for the better.

But Modi failed all his supporters. Indian middle class is in wilderness as the Indian economy teeters on the brink. Youth are clueless about their future as jobs are shrinking and unemployment is staring at them.  The business is the worst hit with moves like demonetisation and unimaginative implementation of the GST. The poor people in rural India are committing suicides while its compatriots in small towns are still waiting to get their share of ₹15 lakh black money deposited in bank accounts that Modi had promised to his voters in 2014.

Well, Modi played a hoax with the Indian people and it worked for him one time. He marketed himself well in the run up to the 2014 elections and took the people for a ride. But as the saying goes, you can fool some people for some time but not all the people all the time. Indians have ultimately seen through Narendra Modi. People are now itching to dump him. And, if the five-assembly election results pattern persists, Modi will not be back in 2019.

But it is not just Narendra Modi who stands exposed. The BJP seems to be as much of a loser in Modi’s game of one-upmanship. It’s curtains for its regional leadership, for politicians like Shivraj Chauhan(Madhya Pradesh), Raman Singh (Chhattisgarh) and Vasundhara Raje (Rajasthan).Modi not just overshadowed them but forced them to work for his dozens of much-hyped schemes like Swachch Bharat and Beti Bachao; Beti Padhao which were highly ill-conceived and turned a liability both for the BJP and its state leaders.  It will take time for the BJP regional leadership to revive. It’s a great setback for the saffron party as it has lost these leaders in the Hindi belt which has been its bastion since its rise in national politics.

Last but not the least, India seems to have seen through the Hindutva politics of RSS-BJP combine as well. The problem with Hindutva is that it’s still rooted in ancient times which does not jell with Indian aspirations of moving into a modern and developed world. Politics of cow vigilantism and ‘Sant Sammelans’ may excite some people but cannot inspire Indian middle classes or its aspirational masses who have dream of upward mobility.

After all, India is no Pakistan. Here religion cannot drive politics. Pakistanis may look the other way when its establishment fiddles with the country’s constitution and ruins institutions. India is the land of Urjit Patel and Justice Chelameswar who refuse to buckle under pressure and are willing to stand-up for the independence of their institutions. Modi and the BJP may have bought over the mainstream media to keep the people blinded from the ground reality. But they cannot hijack an average Indian’s consciousness who has better sense than the media and makes better judgments about what has gone wrong with the country.

Politics of hate may cloud some people’s vision for sometimes. But it cannot permanently shake Indians’ faith in its centuries-old culture of inclusiveness. Both democracy and inclusivity are the bedrock of Indian ethos and its civilisation. Hindutva politics does not match with our ethos. It’s, therefore, not acceptable to the majority in this country. Modi and the Sangh wanted to change Indian ethos and the people are now out to punish them for fiddling with their heritage.

It may seem too early to write off Narendra Modi and the BJP from the 2019 electoral battle based on just five assembly election results.But India has surely turned away from the BJP and a beginning has been made in the five states for a bigger change in May-June 2019. These election results are surely a curtain raiser to 2019 when India may usher in a ‘BJP-mukt Bharat’.