By Dr. Gyan Pathak
BJP has just coined this attractive slogan to its gullible constituency – Teesri Baar Modi Sarkar, ab ki baar 400 paar. Some national and international political analysts are declaring “almost an inevitability” of PM Narendra Modi’s win for the third time, supporting the first part of the slogan, while PM Modi’s supporters are going with deafening assertion of the second part of the slogan, cleverly not mentioning that out of 437 seats BJP had contested, it had lost its deposit in as many as 51 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Thus, the second part of the slogan is just a far-fetched idea far away from the ground reality. As for the first part of the slogan, the term “almost” just veils the doubts in the very propaganda of “inevitability.”
It is worth recalling that BJP had won 303 seats in the Lok Sabah election 2019, and was main contender in 72 seats. There were only 224 seats where BJP was able to bag over 50 per cent of votes. In every election thereafter instates across India, BJP’s vote share has been declining fast, except in Manipur that has been undergoing a worst kind of violence under the double engine BJP government for the last few months impacting political fortune of the party in entire northeastern states, as the recent Vidhan Sabha election in Mizoram has revealed. Given the ground political reality, a group within the BJP was for a target of 350 seats, which was just overruled by the BJP leadership.
The sharp decline of vote share of BJP across the states sufficiently indicates that neither PM Modi’s so called charisma is working not the RSS-BJP clan was able to put a break on the decline. Then there are many states – where BJP had already reached its maximum, and there is no chance of gaining any seat because there are no more seats to win – such as in Haryana, Gujarat, Delhi, Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Chandigarh, and Daman & Diu. Given the sharp falling of BJP’s share of votes in subsequent Vidhan Sabha election, PM Modi has reasons to be concerned, not only on account of falling support base but also on account of anti-incumbency and coming together of all anti-BJP, anti-Modi forces in the society and emergence of INDIA alliance of opposition political parties.
There are also a second category of states where BJP is believed to have reached their maximum win. These states include Assam where it had won 9 out of 14 seats, in Karnataka 25 out of 28, in Bihar 17 out of 40, in Jharkhand 11 out of 14, in Rajasthan 24 out of 25, in West Bengal 18 out of 42, in Uttar Pradesh 62 out of 80, in Madhya Pradesh 28 out of 29, in Chhattisgarh 9 out of 11, and in Maharashtra 23 out of 48.
In all these states there are not much seats to be won by the BJP even in best of its time which can increase the party’s tally more than it had already won in the Lok Sabha election 2019. If falling vote share in every Vidhan Sabha election is an indication, then hoping to retain the seats won by the BJP in 2019 will not be a cakewalk, but a serious challenge for the party. In Assam, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Uttar Pradesh, either INDIA alliance may finally be able to put joint candidates against BJP or the states will undergo a shift in opposition vote bank to the party that can defeat RSS-BJP’s design. BJP hopes to gain from division of anti-BJP votes to disunited opposition political parties while ignoring the shifting of vote bases from one political party to others. Since Lok Sabha election 2024 is quite different as it is make or break point of constitutional democracy in the country affecting all, even those in the BJP camp, including its leaders and supporters, who are just used and thrown by political leadership if found to be threatening to their political career.
Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan are latest example when old guards of the BJP were used to just win election and thrown out. There are widespread resentments against this attitude of the Modi-Shah duo in almost every state. It would still remain a challenge for PM Modi, though he hopes to overcome this in the Hindutva hype of Ram Temple in Ayodhya, and other Hindutva stratagems.
The political ground reality suggests that the General Election 2024 will be highly tense and highly sensitive. Such a situation may be advantage for dominant political party in a constituency, and there were only 224 Lok Sabha constituencies in the country where BJP had emerged as dominant political force in 2019. Similarly, it would be advantage opposition where they had emerged as dominant political force in the Lok Sabha election 2019 or in subsequent Vidhan Sabha elections.
Falling vote share of the BJP is a fact, though it won the recent three Vidhan Sabha election in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan on the basis of which political pundits are predicting “almost inevitable win” of PM Narendra Modi for the third time. It they are not part of the political propaganda of the BJP, they have surely failed in noticing the fact that the fall in BJP’s vote share was just not enough for its “inevitable defeat”, but surely has reach to a cliff where winning margins have considerably narrowed. From here there are only two possibilities – first, BJP may reverse its decline in share of votes; and second, a further decline could be its ultimate fall in 2024.
PM Modi’s political challenges thus lie everywhere, even in those states in North India that gave it maximum number of MPs. That is why he has been trying his best to penetrate in the South India. The party had got 25 seats from Karnataka and 4 seats from Telangana, but its losses in recent Vidhan Sabha election in both states, where Congress has emerged as dominant political force now, is a bad omen for the party. Moreover, from Kerala and Tamil Nadu, BJP can not expect any seat.
BJP’s another challenge is that its many old alliance partners, having considerable support base had already deserted NDA, while majority of its new partners have little support base on the ground barring in Maharashtra, where it cannot hope to increase the party’s tally on account of seat-sharing. The new slogan “Teesri Baar Modi Sarkar, ab ki baar 400 paar” has thus little worth. (IPA Service)
The post BJP’s Crossing 400 Seats Slogan Is A Hype, Far Away From Ground Reality first appeared on Latest India news, analysis and reports on IPA Newspack.
