By-Election Results : Is the Modi Magic Vanishing ?

By Deepak Parvatiyar

August 28, 2014

The reversal of fortune for the BJP in the Assembly by-elections in four states – Bihar, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab – is a shocker to the party after its splendid show in these states in the last Lok Sabha elections.
How can one explain the fact that the BJP and its allies could win only eight of the 18 seats in these states within three months of their conquest of New Delhi? Or rather, shouldn’t these defeats be perceptibly disturbing for Prime Minister Narendra Modi in particular for more than one reason?

Is the Modi Magic Vanishing ?

Already doomsday sayers have started attributing these defeats to the waning Modi magic – that the prime minister has seemingly lost his Midas touch as ‘achchhe din’ remain elusive!

We remember the way the Modi tsunami had swept away the Opposition including the Congress at the Centre and regional parties such as the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh and the Janata Dal (United) and Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar, and the Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra, to name a few.

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Yet, the recent by-polls’ outcome offers fresh scope to the anti-BJP forces to regroup after they were devastated by the Modi blitzkrieg in General Elections – even in Madhya Pradesh, a BJP stronghold, the Congress managed to wrest the Bahoriband Assembly seat from the ruling party!

In Bihar, obviously the results have enormous symbolic value. They have infused new energy in RJD, JD (U) and even the Congress after they received severe drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls where the BJP in alliance with Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party and Upendra Kushwaha’s newly formed Rashtriya Lok Samata Party had won 31 out of 40 seats in the state. RJD which had then fought with the Congress and the NCP had won seven, while JD (U) which had gone solo had managed only two seats in the wake of “Modi wave.”

Can we say that the fresh results will now stoke a rethink among estranged bedfellows to come together once again like the successful case of JD (U) and RJD in Bihar? Can it now propel Mayawati to reconsider Mulayam’s proposal (of course, at the suggestion of RJD’s Lalu Yadav – whose move to forge an alliance with friend-turned-foe Nitish Kumar has fetched rich dividends in the by-polls in Bihar) to tie the knot that only recently she had outrightly rejected?

September By-Elections Hold the Key

Politics is an art of the possible and the by-polls results are important from the point of analysing the prospects of the perceived ‘Mahagathbandhan’ (grand alliance) of the self-proclaimed secular forces. More so in view of the impending Assembly elections in Jammu & Kashmir (where the BJP is pitching hard for a ‘nationalist’ government in view of a troubled international border because of continuous firing by Pakistan ever since Modi assumed charge as PM), Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Delhi and Haryana. (It is significant that in Haryana, the BJP’s key ally in Punjab, the Shiromani Akali Dal, has decided to side with Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) while the BJP on its turn, is yet to decide on the continuation of its alliance with the Haryana Janhit Congress).

But more immediately, the upcoming bye-elections to three parliamentary seats including Vadodara in Gujarat, Medak in Andhra Pradesh and Mainpuri in Uttar Pradesh, and 33 assembly seats across nine states including politically sensitive UP, Assam, West Bengal on September 13 can be expected to set the trend for all future permutations and combinations.

Any resurgence of the anti-BJP forces here would undoubtedly be a direct challenge to the authority and popular perception of Modi even though the BJP seeks to downplay the by-elections results on the oft-repeated grounds that these were “local results where local factors count”. Yet, even its long term ally, the Shiv Sena, is unwilling to yield to such an excuse. “People have shown that there is a difference between Lok Sabha and state Assembly elections. This difference should be taken very seriously,” the Sena mouthpiece Samna, warned.

Activities within BJP

This brings us to the fast changing internal dynamics within the BJP. The pace with which the entire set up of the organisation has undergone a change in the BJP is in sharp contrast to the Congress that has still maintained a status quo despite its defeat. The transformation has a stamp of Narendra Modi. The new BJP president, Amit Shah, is his progeny. Shah’s predecessor Rajnath Singh – now the Union Home Minister – is largely perceived to be sidelined within the organisation. His request to have a staff of his choice was earlier turned down by the Prime Minister’s Office. As if the denial of the party ticket to his son, Pankaj, to contest Assembly by- election from Noida in Uttar Pradesh was not enough, a beleaguered Singh even had to publicly deny widespread rumours of his son being hauled up for misconduct by the PM.

Doesn’t such rumour mongering discredit the PM and suggest that all is not well within the BJP – which has a past history of bitter rivalries among its cadres and leaders?

BJP: In Transition Mode

The way the three tallest leaders of the party – the ailing former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi – the triumvirate that had catapulted the party to the position of power, have been denied place into the newly reconstituted BJP Parliamentary Board – the all powerful decision-making body of the party – too has raised many eyebrows. This has happened for the first time since the inception of the BJP that these three stalwarts are dropped from the party’s parliamentary board.

What do such developments signify? What was the urgency to show the door to the likes of Advani and Joshi – both known Modi critics and still powerful voices within the BJP, from the party’s decision making body? (An ailing Vajpayee though is out of politics for quite some years now).

Can we safely say that two opposites dot the political firmament of New Delhi at the moment – a not-so-upbeat BJP (particularly after the setback in the by-elections), and a proactively assertive Prime Minister, keen to quickly establish his authority both in the government as well as the party?

If so, then wait for the coming Assembly elections to judge its impact! A victory for the BJP there would not just make the BJP cadre upbeat again, but even cement Modi’s position as the ‘absolute’ leader. Isn’t that a good calculated risk?  Just wait and watch.