23rd May, 2019, marked a auspicious day in the electoral history of India. The high mandate received by the NDA coalition gave a befitting reply to the opposition parties which had targeted BJP and PM Modi with unsubstantiated allegations. The BJP has won close to 47% of the total vote share achieving a higher mandate that what the party had received in 2014 general elections. Stunning the opposition with the landslide victory, BJP is sweeping away with votes and seats in major states like Uttar Pradesh where Mahagathbandhan existed to oust BJP from the state. BJP not only performed exceptionally well in the state, but took away more 50% of the seats in the state. The grand project of the opposition, mahagathbandhan, received even grander defeat at the hands of BJP.
The BJP was predicted to repeat its performance of 2014 in Uttarakhand as it was leading on all five seats in Uttarakhand. Even former chief minister Harish Rawat of the Congress was trailing by a margin of over one lakh votes in Nainital. Certain of clinching all the seven seats in the national capital, the BJP continued to dominate the trends with two of its candidates taking the lead by a margin of over 3.40 lakh votes. AAP since the beginning of the electoral campaigns was overconfident that it would secure a high mandate in Delhi and in this wake, even rejected the coalition with Congress party. The results were exactly opposite, even after the Atishi Marlena fiasco and strategies to garner sympathy votes, AAP trailed with 3 lakh votes on most seats.
BJP was not only fighting the political opposition but a slew of arm-chair activists and twitter warriors with delusions of grandeur. These twitter warriors who claimed to oppose BJP on ideological grounds, came out in support of some candidates with a really shady behaviour. One suc activist is Swara Bhasker, infamous for her ‘placard’ campaign against Hindus in the wake of Kathua rape case.
Swara Bhasker suddenly came out as “supporters” for many of these candidates who faced defeat in the elections. With her newfound political knowledge, she started making comments with no head or tail. The idea of being “out of the box” took a toll on the actress when most of the candidates she campaigned for, finally lost with big margins.
The supposed rising stars like Kahaiyan Kumar, experienced heavyweights like Digvijay Singh, and the knight in shining with hyped track record armors like Atishi, were among those that the actress had campaigned for, but they were seen biting the dust in their constituencies, trailing with a surprising margin of 4 lakhs and above votes. Sawara Bhasker has been a staunch critic of PM Modi and came out to support most of the members of the opposite parties. She became the flag bearer of liberal upsurge during the election process. Swara Bhasker campaigned for 5 candidates in all during these elections and every one of these candidates suffered defeat. One of the candidates, Swara Bhasker campaigned for received just 17,000 votes.
Efforts by the Congress, which also initially faced infighting, to woo voters with Bollywood glamour by fielding actress Urmila Matondkar and campaigns by actors such as Sanjay Dutt for his sister Priya Dutt do not seem to have impressed the voters much. Despite her star power, actress Urmila Matondkar was trailing by a massive 3.95 lakh votes against BJP MP Gopal Shetty in Mumbai North. Well, elections and movies have one thing in common, if you don’t perform well, you go home.
At the end all of this, everything sums up in one single statement, India has discarded the India hating left liberals like Swara Bhasker who will now have to decide if politics is still a profession that most of them should pursue. Left is finally on the verge of being cleansed at the political front and soon from many other areas of people’s interest. 2019 elections was a message to the entire liberal brigade that India chooses development and progress over corruption and bigotry.
