Satwant Singh Rissam
The lotus has bloomed once again in the country and it is start of a new era in the Indian politics. There were doubts about BJP’s performance but the results have proven that the image of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi as an administrator was intact within the voters. In spite of facing criticism from Hindu nationalist groups who were unhappy at the delay in building Ram temple and unemployment, as a problem in the country, Modi survived all these issues. Moreover, it was believed that the steps like demonetization and the GST could become hindrance in the return of the NDA government but this all proved wrong as the electorate in India had something else in their mind. No party or group of parties could match Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) on ground and the mandate is a clear victory for another 5 years. The parties like Congress and even ‘mahagathbandhan’ could not stop the prospects of the BJP from coming back to power.
Let us accept that we are now living in a different India from the one that existed a decade ago. To talk of the Congress, the 2019 has come as a big tragedy. Even after winning three states back from the BJP in December last year it failed to retain a foothold in the parliamentary elections. India, at one point of time, had seen Congress as a national force but BJP in past some years mastered on the idea of nationalism. I still believe that the Congress has not lost this election all because of Rahul Gandhi. Although it is his political failure for the year 2019 and in politics we cannot rule out anyone so easily. In past one year we saw a new Rahul Gandhi who emerged more confident and reached out to media to engage it on many issues. Interestingly, on the part of PM Modi this media interaction was completely missing for the five years. Basically, Congress failed to strike any alliances across country and it even lost the ideological argument set by the BJP. Rahul Gandhi is facing the toughest political question of his life as it is not the Congress which was once led by Indira and Rajiv, who had mastered the idea of nationalism many decades back.
If we talk of Jammu and Kashmir then both the regions have once again shown a contrasting result. Jammu again has seen the saffron surge while the valley stood and faced the Modi wave by lending full support to the National Conference (NC). In fact, again every vote to the NC was a vote against the BJP as we witnessed in 2014 when Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were trusted by voters in Kashmir. This time, both the PDP and Peoples Conference (PC) were seen as an offshoot of the BJP and voters considered NC as an only option to defend Kashmir’s distinct political identity. The time ahead is full of challenges for the NC as putting up Kashmir issue in Parliament would be difficult when the narrative across country is based on nationalism. On the other hand, in the state also the Congress party’s ‘tactical alliance’ failed and the assembly wise results on both the seats of Jammu region doesn’t show any good future for Congress. These parliamentary polls have reflected the mind of voters in Jammu and Kashmir. After seeing all this, the results of the assembly elections appear very obvious to me.
I believe that the issues like nationalism worked for BJP across the country in 2019. Besides, the results have shown that people, especially youth, have shown their trust in the PM Modi and his style of working. The Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his campaign has been demanding a ‘majboot sarkar’ and it seems the voters have put their stamp on his demand. But from 2014 to 2019 there were many promises which were not fulfilled by the Modi government. So in those terms, I see that this success may also put a seed of failure if BJP doesn’t work on those promises which it ignored in last five years. The Narendra Modi has returned on a mandate which has come only in his name and he has to deliver this time all by himself.
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