BJP wins Gujarat & HP without shine & bragging rights

 

  

• BJP winning (1) Gujarat six times in a row and (2) winning Himachal Pradesh, ousting Congress, with a 2/3 majority is by no means a small achievement for Modi but what is lacking is its shine and bragging rights.
• With 49.1% of the vote, the BJP lost 10 percentage points from its 2014 Lok Sabha tally.
• NOTA grabbed over 5.5 lakh votes, or just under 2% of the votes polled.
• Gujarat voters have handed the BJP its sixth straight victory, but tempered the win by reducing its majority to 99 – its lowest tally since 1995.
• The ruling BJP won 36 of the total 40 seats spread in six major cities and that saved the day for the BJP in the tight contest between PM Modi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi.
• CM Vijay Rupani and DyCM Nitin Patel won their seats while five serving Ministers and Assembly Speaker Ramanlal Vora were defeated.
• The PM Modi’s 20-minute speech reflected his worries and the party’s vulnerabilities despite the victories.
• Though BJP has won despite the anti-incumbency factor, the State polls turned into a photo finish unlike the landslide and much below the BJP’s target of winning 150 seats. Saurashtra, the BJP’s stronghold since 1995, dealt the party a big blow, as the Congress won 30 out of 54 seats in the region.
• In Saurashtra's 11 districts, the BJP got nearly wiped out in 5 districts.
• Most of Modi's speeches at rallies focussed on divisive themes. Mandir-Masjid, Mughals, Pakistan, Ahmed Patel, Salman Nizami, etc., he practised classic dog-whistle politics that might have stoked passions among some sections of the electorate.
• Whatever the BJP leaders may say, the victory by an extremely slim majority and well short of its aim of 150+ seats is a setback.
• With the kind of spirited fight provided by Congress, BJP's proclaimed goal of a “Congress-mukth Bharat” suffers severe set back.
• In Himachal Pradesh, despite the big win, the BJP faced the ignominy of seeing its chief ministerial candidate, Prem Kumar Dhumal, lose to his Congress rival.
• BJP may be tempted to believe that neither demonetisation nor the flawed roll-out of the GST regime has dented its support among traders and the middle class. But the heart-stopper in Gujarat has given enough reason for it to rethink, do a reality check and reconnect with the remoter parts of India.

Notwithstanding the fact that BJP won Gujarat elections 99/80 defeating Congress, the truth is that Modi has addressed 34 rallies & 97 road shows campaigned like a CM not as a PM, never mentioning any of his development schemes but relied entirely on divisive & religious polarisation, Pakistan, Mughals, Muslims, Mandir-Masjid, abusing Congress leaders and arousing passions etc. Modi did everything like a street politician to win elections forgetting that he is holding office of PM and is oath bound to uphold its dignity and sweated like never before. On other hand Rahul Gandhi, in the company of 3 young turks, was at ease engaging people questioning ruling party of its failures, visiting temples, raising concerns of agrarian distress, unemployment, failed demonetisation and GST etc. While Modi was assisted by his entire central cabinet & several other BJP leaders from other states Rahul Gandhi was virtually alone. Modi put Gujarat above nation by postponing parliament's winter session and condensing its duration so that he could campaign more in Gujarat. Modi subverted EC by influencing it in delaying announcing poll schedule to enable his announcing sops to Gujarat. The kind of money spent for BJP's campaigning and liquor flowing in this dry state has dented his claim as crusader against corruption and black money. Modi's spectacular show in riding the sea plane (specially flown from Karachi for this show) a day before campaign ended is in violation of his own security protocol. Modi’s penchant for style and no substance has a chilling similarity with Mussolini’s Fascist Italy with less concerns for efficient governing of people in solving their economic problems but focused more on the spectacle of power, on the visual and impressive display of symbols, myths and rituals. With BJP winning 99/80 against Congress Modi diminished himself while Rahul Gandhi stood taller posing as a challenger for 2019 general election while his dream of  “Congress-mukth Bharat” stands buried. Like any other programmable computers, tampering EVMs is neither easy nor very difficult and its alleged tampering by BJP will never be known. The talk of the town is that many Modi's cabinet colleagues silently wished defeat of BJP in Gujarat so that he starts learning to walk on the ground. In order to preserve our democracy it is necessary to have a narrow & rigid election campaigning code and also prohibit constitutional office bearers taking up any assignment for a period of two years after retirement.