BackDecoding Verdict 2014
For the first time, Congress is not at the centre of Indian politics, and Narendra Modi realizes this
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New Delhi: On 17 May, the home page of India272.com, a platform created to help the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) win at least 272 seats—a majority in Lok Sabha—in the 2014 parliamentary elections bore the simple legend: Mission Accomplished. With a gigantic picture of India’s prime minister in-waiting, Narendra Modi.
The people behind the website were driven by a desire to help their favoured political grouping win the minimum number of seats it would need in Parliament to drive a progressive agenda, and encouraged by the fact that between 1996 and 2004, a period that saw four elections, the BJP had represented 286 constituencies in all.
As things turned out, the BJP alone won 282 seats; and the NDA, 336. The secret sauce: a favourable constellation of circumstances, an inspirational leader, and a smart campaign that pushed all the right buttons. Or, as one BJP ideologue succinctly put it: Vikas pe Hindutva ka tadka (development garnished with a dose of Hindutva).
The initial impetus for a change was provided by the governance vacuum created by the non-performance of Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA), even as the administration was repeatedly buffeted by the alleged acts of commission in public office. The evidence of a vacuum was sufficiently established by the success of the anti-graft agitation led by Anna Hazare—which set the base for the launch of the Aam Admi Party (AAP).
It was only natural that this would be exploited by an adroit politician. The AAP did take advantage in the Delhi assembly elections in December 2013, but the real damage was done after Modi claimed the leadership of the BJP in a palace coup.
If the 430-odd election rallies addressed by Modi—he focused on development and aspirations in each—proved one point, it was that people wanted to hear a positive message. Sure, they also proved that his own brand was becoming bigger than that of the BJP.
The response to Modi’s political ascendancy from his opponents was predictable.
They emphasized their own brand of secularism, which the BJP claimed was nothing but a strategy focused on appeasing minority communities. Worse, bursts of localized communal violence were beginning to fray the social fabric. The Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, riots polarized voters, but even in that state, it was evident that people were disappointed with the Samajwadi Party—elected to power in the state in 2012 and especially the party’s inability to meet their aspirations.
Not surprisingly, the traditional narrative of social identity did not hold up, especially in case of Uttar Pradesh, which sends 80 representatives to the Lok Sabha. The BJP and its allies won 73 of these (the party alone won 71 seats). The obvious casualty of this re-configuration was the carefully scripted social identity formula of parties such as the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party. While the former ended up winning five seats, all pocket boroughs of the Yadav family that rules the state, the latter drew a blank.
If the BJP’s message worked, it was also because the bulk of India’s population is young. Voters aged between 18-24 years (first-time voters) accounted for 120 million of the 815 million electorate.
It may have well been the number of young voters that turned a massive anti-Congress tide into a pro-Modi wave with the resultant outcome. The subtext of this election has been the devastating defeat suffered by the Congress party.
Humiliatingly, the Congress did not even win enough seats for its leader in the house to be accorded status of the leader of the opposition.
For the first time, the Congress is no longer the centre of Indian politics, which obviously sets stage for a fundamental reordering of the polity. Modi realizes this. At his victory speech in Vadodara, he said that he saw in the verdict the foundation of a fundamentally new India.
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