The Message from the Verdict is More Prompt

The recently concluded assembly elections have got lessons for one and all. They remind the parties, which registered victory and also those which reaped failure, of serious introspection. The verdict has got some silver lining that can be experimented particularly in the biggest political bonanza coming in Uttar Pradesh which will absolutely decide the political narrative and fate of political parties in the coming decade. The silver line from the verdict for the political parties is more prompt.
The win for the BJP in Assam is not at all a reflection of the performance of the government at the centre but a negative voting against the Congress because people were thinking of a change because of anti-incumbency and they had no other option left for them in the absence of any grand alliance. As per the latest survey by Lok Niti-CSDS in all the states where elections were held, there was a negative perception about Modi except Assam.
In Assam, the BJP changed its strategy which the party had followed in Bihar. The cow politics completely vanished in Assam but the Congress abandoned the strategy that had helped the secular forces in Bihar. The Muslims also did not vote as maturely as they did in Bihar and their votes were unevenly divided between Congress and AIUDF which helped the BJP to win from the place where Muslims were in sizeable numbers.
According to available reports, out of 49 Muslim majority constituencies, the BJP won 15 seats, the Congress 14 and the AIUDF 12. Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) got five and Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) two. Both AGP and BPF are in NDA’s fold. In places where Muslims are 45-55 per cent, the NDA got nine, the Congress five and the AIUDF got three. And where Muslims account for 30-40 per cent of the vote – around 19 seats – the NDA got 15 seats, the Congress and the AIUDF two each.
The Congress also lost primarily because of strong anti-incumbency against the 15-year-long Tarun Gogoi government, the tug of war because of rising dynasty politics within the party, break away of Himanta Biswa Sharma – one of most influential leaders from the party fold who later joined the BJP, ignoring the ground realities and paying no attention to the call of other secular groups for a larger alliance. AIUDF tried its best under the patronage of JDU to form a grand alliance but Congress paid no attention to the undercurrents emerging from the political grounds.
On the other hand, BJP managed to win because it projected and relied heavily on the two strong local leaders from the Assam community who had fought for the Assamese identity. They tried to make an alliance with some regional groups without invoking the element of Hindutva ideology in their campaign trail. No one heard of cow politics or any other divisive issues except migrant issue which is intrinsic to the identity of Assam politics. The BJP masked the migrant issue on its polarisation agenda without mixing with Hindutva ideology and fooled the people the way they did during the Lok Sabha polls when they had masked all other issues with the rhetoric of development. The BJP won 60 seats and its allies got 26.
On Assam election, KC Tyagi, a senior JD-U leader, has said that Congress is responsible for the victory of BJP in Assam. Nitish did all in his capacity for an alliance of Congress, JD-U, RJD, AIUDF and AGP and in order to make it a reality he had also met Rahul Gandhi but things could not materialise. And now we can see the damage done reflecting in the verdict.
Now if we analyse, we can see that except in Kerala the percentage of votes polled by the BJP has gone down from 2014 Lok Sabha elections to 2016 assembly elections in Assam, West Bengal, and Tamil Nadu.
In 2014 BJP got more than 36 per cent votes in Assam which has reduced to 29.5 per cent in 2016. In West Bengal BJP got 16.8 per cent votes in 2014 which have come down to 10.2 per cent in 2016. In Tamil Nadu, it has gone down from 5.5 per cent to 2.8 per cent. In Kerala, it has gone up from 10.3 to 10.7 per cent which is also marginal increase.
The Congress may count these figures for a solace that the party has won 115 seats in total as compared to the BJP’s final tally of 64 seats in Assembly elections in five states. And Pondicherry has for the Congress a consolation.
In all five states, Mamata Banerjee is an undeclared man of the match and her party has performed much better in terms of vote percentage and seats as compared to the last election. In 2011, TMC had got 38.9 per cent votes which increased to 39.3 in 2014 and 44.9 in 2016. Mamata has emerged more powerful which will reflect during the process of formation of any grand alliance for the next Lok Sabha polls. Jayalalitha has certainly changed the rules of the game and proved all political pundits wrong because here after every five years the government is changed. But this time, she has reversed the age-old notion.