Amit Kushari IAS retd
The results of the recent Assembly bypolls in Bihar, MP,Karnatak and Punjab must have given a real jolt to the NDA supporters. BJP could get only 8 out of the 18 seats, whereas Congress and its allies got 10 seats. Just 4 months back India was witnessing a tidal wave of BJP/Narendra Modi and if that Modi cyclone was still sweeping over India it was expected that NDA would win at least 15 out of the 18 seats. But that has not happened! Has the direction of the wind changed in just 3 months? Is the popularity of Modi waning? Is Congress on a come back trail? Has anti incumbency against Modi started already in just 3 months? If this trend continues, what do we expect in the coming Assembly elections in Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and J&K? These questions are haunting the minds of all political analysts and election watchers.
Here we must remember that these by-polls were only in a few Assembly segments and not in Lok Sabha seats and Modi was not himself a factor in these polls. Neither Modi nor any highly placed NDA leader campaigned in these by-polls where candidates were being elected for hardly one or two years. The RSS did not campaign for the NDA in these polls. On the contrary, it was a matter of life and death for Lalu and Nitish who really burnt their midnight oil, joining hands together to defeat BJP. Personally I am not very surprised by these results except for the results in Madhya Pradesh. How could BJP lose the seat in Madhya Pradesh, where BJP is in power? Usually in a by-poll people vote for a candidate belonging to the ruling party because voters want their MLA to be in the good books of the state Government so that he could bring a lot of funds for development in their area.In Bihar there is a JDU govt and so people might have voted for the Lalu-Nitish combine to get more funds for development. In Karnataka there is a Congress govt. in position and so people could have voted for the Congress. But what happened in Madhya Pradesh? Are the people so unhappy with the BJP govt. there? Only 3 months back MP chose 27 BJP MPs out of 29 seats. How did suddenly BJP become so unpopular? The BJP think tank has to really ponder over this issue and find out an answer. How did the BJP vote percentage decrease from 45% to 38% in Bihar in just 3 months? In Lok Sabha elections there was a 65% voting in Bihar but in the by-polls only 48% voted. This lack of enthusiasm is perhaps more among the Hindus because of severe caste based acrimonies. The RJD supporters like Yadavs were perhaps reluctant to vote for JDU candidates and the JDU supporters like Kurmies were perhaps reluctant to vote for RJD candidates and were unwilling to vote for BJP because inflation did not subside in the last 3 months and so they were unwilling to go to the polling booth at all. However, the 16% Muslims of Bihar must have voted in larger numbers because defeating BJP is a top priority matter in the Muslim mind. This time there was no division of Muslim votes at all in Bihar and the entire kitty went to Lalu- Nitish- Congress combine.
The BJP leaders have to think over these issues and take measures so that BJP does not slide downwards. The prices of potatoes, onions, tomatoes and other vegetables have to be kept firmly under control and the BJP Govt. has to take a few dramatic measures to make the people happy. For example, the Govt. of India could do something drastic for reducing the shelling on Indian villages along the border with Pakistan. However that could be dangerous also and could lead to a full scale war. The average Indian expects that Narendra Modi Govt. should make selected surgical strikes on Pakistan to airlift Dawood Ibrahim and Hafeez Sayeed, put the duo in a cage and display the cage in various parts of India,especially the poll bound states.Easier said than done! Similarly if the Govt. could open up factories in every part of India so that all unemployed people could be employed overnight, NDA could make miraculous gains. But such things never happen in real life. It is also difficult for the govt. to abolish Article 370 or to construct the Ram temple very quickly. The only magical step which the govt. could ,perhaps, take is to introduce a uniform civil code for the whole of India. This is also quite a difficult task because the entire Muslim community has to be persuaded and convinced so that they could also co-operate in this gigantic step. Without the gentle and willing co-operation of the Muslims( specially women) even this task is very difficult. These things cannot be done by force. Even the Ram temple has to be constructed with the friendly co-operation of the Muslims so that no one feels belittled.
(The author is former Financial Commissioner, J&K)
Feedback to the author at 09748635185 or amitkus@hotmail.com
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