Ashwani Kumar Chrungoo
The recent elections in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat have given birth to a new topic of discussion post the election results i.e. The Moral Victory. It gained currency almost simultaneously the results were being announced. Importantly, the people who would earlier blame Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) for continuous election defeats were seen as the votary of this new categorization of Victory. The political victories were emphasized as insufficient without the ‘moral victories’. Since the BJP got 18 seats less than the earlier number of seats and the Congress plus got 18 seats more than what it had earlier in the Assembly so it was concluded by this particular class of advocates of the defeated players that the ‘moral victory’ lies with the Congress. In a very typical tone, the Lutiyans Media pooh-poohed the theory that the political victory was absolute and suggested that the moral victory plank cannot be ignored. This advocacy, though had politically motivated reasons behind it, yet it was presented as the only gospel truth revealed to the ‘enlightened ones’ available in the Lutiyans media channels.
It is two and a half years back that Gujarat witnessed a sudden spurt in the Patidar aspirations in the northern and southern parts of the state. Meetings after meetings and rallies after rallies brought to the fore that the Patels in Gujarat needed reservations in the jobs in the state. Ahmadabad witnessed the worst violent phase of the agitation (first such violence after 2002 riots) under the leadership of a young boy named Hardik Patel who spearheaded the Patidar movement. After sometime, a new brand of aspirational identity politics was brought into play suggesting that the OBCs were the worst hit sections of the society under the BJP rule in the state. Alpesh Thakur was recognized as the leader of this brand of politics mostly in the rural belt of the state. It was a virtual antithesis of the the Patidar brand of arguments in favour of OBC rights. Almost the same time, a young man Vignesh Mewani emerged on the scene with a view that the Dalits in the state were the worst hit during the two decade old rule of the BJP in the state. He even went with the argument that the Dalits and Muslims were the natural allies since they faced discrimination and thus needed to come on one stage to challenge the BJP government.
All these three brands of ‘rebellion’ against the government were scientifically sponsored. They had their mentor well seated in the Cambridge Analitica, an international IT company which works in collaboration with the Facebook and gained a big name in organizing defeat to Hillary Clinton in the last US Presidential elections. The Congress party had in fact given a contract to the company Cambridge Analitica years ago in Gujarat to advance its case and has continued its relationship with it for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections too. In a very subtle fashion, the three bands of aspirations in the state of Gujarat were nurtured to politically articulate their view points. The three young leaders caught the imagination of the people who were otherwise having their grievances against the BJP or the government in the state. They virtually ignited a strong undercurrent in the socio-political scenario of the state with a determined focus on the 2017 election to the State Assembly. Two outside factors also helped them to push their cause i.e. the rain and flood hit people’s woes and the plight of the farmers.
The Congress came to the scene with Rahul brand of politics at the right time before the elections and sought a truce with the three young leaders. The alliance also got the tactical support from The Church in the state and the Salman Nizami factor was introduced at an appropriate time by the Congress during the elections. Surprisingly, the former chief of Pakistan Army congratulated the Congress Party well before the elections of its possible victory in the Gujarat elections followed by the infamous meeting with the Pakistan authorities of the Congress leaders at the Mani S Iyer’s residence in New Delhi. It was a stage set for everything for Congress in the Gujarat elections.
The BJP ought to have been well aware of the developments better than anybody else. The strategic camping of Amit Shah in the region of Surashtra and Dr. Jitendra Singh in the Southern Gujarat and the whirlwind tour of the state by Shri Narendra Modi with a bull battery-charge offensive from Arun Jaitley and Ravi Shanker Prasad from New Delhi speak clearly about the chess board moves of the party. The local leaders of the BJP were asked to focus extraordinarily in the urban areas. The rural areas were virtually left to the Modi-Shah Effect. BJP got unexpected support from the youth from a number of states who camped in various areas of the state and campaigned for the BJP. The results after a hectic campaign and propaganda threw a wonderful result to analyze.
The BJP got almost 50% of the votes, 8% more than the Congress, both the parties increased their vote share percentage as compared to 2012. The Congress plus got 80 seats in the Assembly while the BJP got 99. Almost 55% of the seats that BJP won are from the heavily urbanized areas like Ahmadabad, Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot, thus brushing aside the anti-demonetization and anti-GST theory. Congress had a cakewalk in the regions of Saurashtra & Kutch. The BJP got overwhelming support in all the three other regions of the state. Though BJP got the best percentage of the votes yet the votes did not get converted into an appropriate number of seats due to the typical coalition arithmetic. Transfer of votes in the opposition alliance was near to perfect. However, it missed the train for at least the next five years or up to the 2019 parliamentary elections.
In a situation in which the stage was set for these elections for the last two and a half years, Congress if with all the organizational backing, coalition experiment, the three vicious brands of caste agitations, the outsourcing of campaign and the Rahul brand of Shiv Bakht politics plus the incumbency factor of long 22 years could not get through, it has a number of lessons to learn. Al least, the ‘moral victory’ sham it should shun away with and accept its defeat gracefully, which it is ‘determined’ not to do.
In politics there are no consolation prizes, you are either a winner or a loser but the world does not end there. Politics is a flowing river and it cannot be stopped by creating hurdles and barrages. BJP has a big lesson to learn and that is that the connect with the people is the ultimate brand of politics. However, ‘moral victory’ votaries need also to learn a lesson in cricketing language i.e. It is always ideal to prefer to get out on 99 and lead your side to victory than to remain not out on 80 and losing the match.
(The author is the President
of Panun Kashmir-PK)
feedbackexcelsior@gmail.com
Follow our WhatsApp channel