State Assembly Elections: BJP in for a shock

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, camping in Varanasi till November 16, is said to have told his men to escalate the issue of the Ram temple to the exclusion of everything else till the general election next year. No criticism of the Centre or of BJP governments in the state, a rally of saffron clad sadhus at Ayodhya on November 25, followed by similar rallies at Nagpur and Bengaluru and ‘500 meetings across the country’ are what he has prescribed.

But judging by the public mood in the states, even Ram may not be able to help BJP much. A ‘Mood of the Nation’ survey by Lokniti-CSDS earlier this year had indicated that more people were in favour of a change at the Centre than in July, 2013. Ground reports from the states seem to indicate simmering anger among cross-sections of the people in the states going to the polls in the next three weeks.

The anger is more evident in the three states of the Hindi belt, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. And reasons are not far to seek. A survey done by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) in May-August, 2018 put the unemployment rates at 26 per cent in Chhattisgarh, 30 per cent in Madhya Pradesh and a staggering 55 per cent in Rajasthan.

No wonder the youth in the three states are restive.

BJP governments in the three states seem to be paying the penalty for cutting down on public spending in favour of publicity and grand, celebratory exhibitions, yatras and statues. They went overboard in displacing the poor, in allocating natural resources to profiteers, outsourcing jobs to private players and in neglecting agriculture. The issues are coming back to haunt and to bite.

Failures of the government at the Centre to curb price rise and its disastrous policies like demonetisation, a flawed GST and its zeal in installing the world’s tallest statue, etc. are also taking a toll. The money spent on Sardar Patel’s statue, for example, is said to be 90% of the central spending on roads and bridges, more than the entire allocation for Ayushman Bharat and 90% of the central budget for skill development.

In a state like Telangana, which is holding its first Assembly election and which started with a whopping revenue surplus of ₹6,778 crore, the TRS government increasingly finds itself on the backfoot following embarrassing disclosures and indictment by the CAG which has accused the state government of undervaluing its fiscal deficit and overstating its revenue.

In Mizoram, the smallest of the states going to the polls with just 40 Assembly seats, the incumbent Congress government is facing a tough challenge even as an unnecessary controversy over voting rights to Bru refugees herded in camps in Tripura, has polarised or united the state like never before.

Change is in the air as the battles are joined for polling that ends on December 7. Counting and results are expected to be announced on December 11.