Soroor Ahmedanalyses the various factors that have been taking shape in different States and comes to the conclusion that it would not be smooth sailing for the BJP in 2024.
Even before the results of Karnataka election were fully out, political pundits had starteddebating as to whether it will have any impact on the Lok Sabha election in 2024 andAssembly polls in Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh later this year.
The BJP shouting brigade and even many ‘balancers’ started claiming that the votingpattern of the people in states and national elections are quite different and that thereis still no alternative to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They would cite the example ofChhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh which the incumbent BJP lost to the Congressparty in December 2018, yet the saffron party virtually swept the Lok Sabha election heldfive months later in May 2019.
OTHER EXAMPLES
For self-consolation this is a very good argument. It is true often the voting patterns in State Assemblies and Parliament are different. But it is also true that many times theyremain the same. Take the case of Punjab where the Bharatiya Janata Party performeddismally in 2017 and 2022 Assembly elections as well as 2019 Lok Sabha poll. Though it issituated on the border with Pakistan and one of the largest producers of army personnelyet the Pulwama terror attack and subsequent bombing of Balakot have little impact on thevoters. Contrary to this Congress did very well winning eight of 13 seats to be followedby Shiromani Akali Dal and its ally BJP two each and Aam Aadmi Party one. This is thestate where the number of seats won by the National Democratic Alliance has fallen whencompared to 2014 election.
Incidentally, the Shiromani Akali Dal which espouses the cause of Sikhs and BJP, whichclaims to be the champion of the Hindus, were very much in alliance till 2020 farmers’movement.
This fact goes to reject the argument that the voting pattern is always different in thestate Assembly poll and parliamentary election. This has been noticed in West Bengal for40 long years between 1977 and 2019. The Left Front and later Trinamool Congress wouldsweep all the polls. It was only in the last Lok Sabha poll that the BJP managed to win 18seats out of 42. Once again Pulwama factor was given credit for this good performance ofthe saffron party.
Similarly, this pattern has been noticed in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Bihar several times. InSouth India, barring Karnataka, nowhere the Pulwama factor worked. This does not mean thatthe people there are not nationalist, but that the BJP had failed to exploit the situationto its benefit because of its organisational weakness.
BJP’S INHERENT PROBLEM
The problem with the BJP is that organisationally it has grown weak because of the over-centralisation of power at the top in the last nine years. If the party lost Karnataka, itwas because of the mess created at the state level. First B S Yediyurappa was promoted andmade chief minister in 2019, and that too by wooing 17 legislators of the ruling JanataDal (Secular)-Congress combine. Then in 2021 he was sacked. Basavaraj Bommai was made thechief minister. Then at the time of ticket distribution Yediyurappa was overlooked. As thelatter is now over 80 and in all practical purposes retired, it would be an uphill taskfor the saffron party to match the performance of 2019 election in the Lok Sabha poll nextyear. In 2019 it won 25 out of 28 seats.
In Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, the BJP’s central leadership has created chaos byindulging in toppling game alluring turncoats. This has been done at the cost of committedworkers.
No doubt Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a mass leader. But none of his victory waspossible without well-oiled war-machine. It was because of its absence that the BJP couldnot win much seats in Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and even Telangana in2019 elections.
By dismantling the whole machinery at the bottom level, it would be a very difficult taskfor the saffron brigade to match 2019 performance.
WITHDRAWAL OF TMC, AAP FROM K’TAKA
There is another matter of concern for the BJP. The hailing of Congress victory byTrinamool Congress chief, Mamata Banerjee, and Aam Aadmi Party’s national convener, ArvindKejriwal, and their absence from the Karnataka theatre throughout the electioneering isbeing interpreted in a different way after the results were out on May 13. Was this a partof strategy to prevent division of non-BJP votes?
This question arises because in the Assembly election held in neighbouring Goa early in2022 Trinamool Congress and Aam Aadmi Party played a crucial role in ensuring the defeatof the Indian National Congress. They walked away with 6.77% and 5.21% votes. The BJP got33.31% and Congress 23.46% votes. While BJP bagged 20 seats, Congress, AAP and TMC endedup with 11, two and zero seat respectively in the House of 40.
In Gujarat too in December 2022 AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal campaigned intensively andthus in the process further damaged the Grand Old Party. AAP won five seats and got 13%votes.
In Meghalaya election in February this year the TMC won five seats and got 13.79% votesagainst Congress 13.17%. The latter too bagged five seats against 21 in 2018 election. Infact, the TMC virtually destroyed Congress there by wooing 12 of its MLAs in November2021.
HAPPY TO SEE BJP DEFEATED
However, on May 13 West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee expressed her happiness overthe BJP’s defeat in Karnataka while Kejriwal congratulated the Congress Party, though AAPwas very much in the fray. What is interesting is that he did not visit the state thoughAAP, now a national party, fielded candidates in 209 seats. The Delhi CM last made a tripto Karnataka way back on March 4. The state unit leaders said that Kejriwal’s preoccupation in Delhi prevented him from campaigning in the southern state. It is anotherthing that Punjab chief minister, Bhagwant Mann, and a couple of party leaders campaignedin Karnataka, where it ended up securing just 0.58% votes and lost deposit in all of them.
If Kejriwal was really so busy in Delhi throughout this period, why did he campaign forJalandhar Lok Sabha by-poll. Here his party succeeded in snatching the seats fromCongress. In Jalandhar he had even criticised Congress top brass for not campaigning forthis by-election. The BJP finished fourth here.
If Mamata and Kejriwal kept themselves away from Karnataka battle, it is a significantdevelopment which took place after the disqualification of the Congress leader RahulGandhi in February. More than Congress victory, they were against any win by the BJPanywhere in India. Had AAP and TMC played spoilsport in Karnataka as in Goa, they wouldhave come under attack from the likes of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, RJD supremoLalu Prasad, and DMK chief M K Stalin, who are all working for a broad-based allianceagainst BJP. If this trend continues, the AAP in particular may contest the coming polls inChhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan just in name as Congress and BJP are locked ina straight fight.
MUCH DEPENDS ON BRS
However, much depends on the way Bharatiya Rashtriya Samiti of K Chandrashekar Rao moves.His party is likely to be locked in a triangular contest with the BJP and Congress inTelangana later this year. In Karnataka it backed Janata Dal (Secular) and did not fieldany candidate. BRS too is happy to see the rout of BJP in Karnataka which was expandingits influence in Telangana in the recent past. But after the victory in the neighbouringstate, Congress rank and file are feeling motivated.
Curiously, Bharat Rashtriya Samiti’s partner in Telangana, All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen fielded only two candidates in the House of 224 when Karnataka is justadjacent to Telangana. It was also a part of the erstwhile Nizam state and has substantialMuslim population.Yet Asaduddin Owaisi put up candidates in only two seats here and suffered humiliatingdefeat in both. In contrast he is morekeen on putting candidates against RJD, Janata Dal(United), TMC, Samajwadi Party and Congress candidates in Bihar, West Bengal, UttarPradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Jharkhand. Here AIMIM had in the past contested in theconstituencies having just 15% or less Muslim electorate. The party had repeatedly beenaccused of facilitating the BJP victory.
AIMIM never contests any seat outside Old Hyderabad in Telangana when thereare several constituencies in Nizamabad, Medak, Adilabad, Mahbubnagar, Karimnagar, etc.having sizeable Muslim voters. It contested just eight seats and won seven. The rest itleft for alliance partner Telangana (Bharatiya) Rashtriya Samiti.
The silent withdrawal from the Karnataka battle by Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal isa pointer to the fact that they are now not so keen on leading any Third Front. The BJPhas by using central agencies pushed them to the one common rival camp. The bargainingposition of Congress had now improved. TMC, AAP and even for that matter BRS may now adoptdifferent strategy for contesting Lok Sabha elections and Assembly polls in theirrespective home turfs of West Bengal, Delhi, Punjab and Telangana.
All these above factors suggest that it would not be smooth sailing for the BJP in 2024.