In the most significant moment post the 2014 Elections, the Modi wave took over the states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and almost propelled BJP to power in yet another North Eastern State, a region where the Party did not have any presence some years ago. The significance of the results is not expressed completely only because it is the demise of the new born baby of Indian politics, AAP or a huge step in the elimination of the oldest party which is way past its prime but also because of the background in which these results have come. There is a bigger picture that the political outfits and their agents analyzing the results on your TV sets don’t want you to see. We seek to disclose exactly that picture for you and explain how BJP took its opponents by surprise and made a clean sweep. We explain why the Assembly polls were a referendum on the decisions taken by the Modi Government in the recent past and how the same has trumped religious and caste politics which has left many puzzled.
A referendum on Modi ’s governance:
The elections were preceded by two major events, the surgical strikes carried out by the Indian Army and demonetization by the Central Government in a bold attempt to launch an open attack on corruption, terrorism and other evils. The opposition parties fearing massive surge in support for the BJP left no stone unturned to malign the Government and defame the Prime Minister. Before the elections the opposition parties had joined hands and made tall claims of BJP decimating to the pre 2014 levels on the premise that there was public anger against demonetization and the Government’s attempts to take credit for the Jawan’s valour. The news traders passively supported these naïve claims by touting the elections to be virtual semi finals to the 2019 General Polls and a referendum on the decisions of surgical strikes and demonetization. These political and media outfits have suddenly changed their stance and are now putting the blame on the electoral for getting wooed away by communal and caste divides.
But the reality is that the election results are a clear manifestation of popular support to demonetization and surgical strikes and appreciation for the Prime Minister’s fight against corruption.
It is a vote for development and a vote against the unequal treatment of the Shamshan and the Kabristan which had been rightly raked up in between the elections by PM Modi. As the former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had once remarked that the way to Delhi goes through Lucknow, what UP results represent are not the ambitions of a province but the pulse of the Nation. It is an acknowledgment of what the Central Government has done in the last two and a half years.
Cross Caste, Cross Class, Cross Religion and Cross Region support:
The claim of the results being a manifestation of public approval to the Government’s decision is not unfounded or baseless but is evidenced by the kind of support that has propelled the BJP to power. The BJP is no longer restricted to its traditional vote base of the upper caste or the middle classes or the urban regions but it has received unprecedented support across every class, every kind of region (whether the fertile plains of UP or the hills of Uttarakhand or the remote areas of Manipur), every religion even as BJP pulled off impressive results in Muslim majority areas of UP including Deoband and most importantly every caste.
As accepted by the BSP supremo in her naïve attacks on the Election Commission BJP has been voted in by those castes which are traditionally averse to the BJP. It is common sense that there is some force which helped the BJP in receiving such massive support across the social spectrum; that force is the hunger of development and poverty alleviation which is shared throughout India and which in order to be aroused needed an able leader. The nation has finally found that leader in the current Prime Minister which helped in overcoming the archaic religion and caste equations.
Conclusion:
These results most importantly reflect hope. It is a message for the non BJP parties in general and the regional players in particular that they can no longer have a cakewalk based on convenient combos like the M+Y combo on which the SP-Congress alliance relied and failed miserably. The electorate can make informed choices rising above religion and caste equations and throw you out if you don’t fulfill their aspirations. Issue of demonetization was one such issue where the public saw an attempt to end the era of corruption and poverty. ‘Surgical strikes’ was another issue to which the electorate related and rallied behind the Bhartiya Janta Party. The media and the political outfits which would have been all over the place had BJP performed poorly and immediately declared Demonetization to be the wrecker in chief for the BJP have however gone lukewarm and are trying to analyse other non existent reasons.
