The BJP leadership, thought process about elections is a political, ideological, organisational, and personal project — a project that deserves respect, self-correction and deep investment. For the only leader who matters in the Congress, polls are an object of disdain and the electoral process is a distraction from an abstract ideological battle — a project that deserves little respect, self-reflection, and engagement. And for the AAP leadership, elections are purely instrumental and tactical exercises without ideological underpinnings — a project to help expand the leader’s national brand, with ambition often not matched by either organisational ability or a local face or a larger message to underpin it. These approaches offer clue to the strengths and weaknesses of parties in the run up to 2024.
Gujarat shows that the BJP’s code of success rests on two pillars. One, on an everyday basis, build and sustain trust levels in Modi’s intent, integrity and ability to deliver. Recognise that he remains the party’s single most important campaigner. Use him at every single opportunity to expand the party’s presence. Find any source of emotional connect that Modi has with the state — and in Gujarat’s case, this connect is of course unique — and leverage it. And deploy one round of success to build momentum for the next. Just as UP set the stage for work in Gujarat, wait to see how the BJP will use the Gujarat momentum in its campaign in the next set of state elections and for 2024. BJP weave all sources of the party’s strength — ideological, financial, organisational — with a single-minded focus on elections. Take elections seriously for they are not just the only instrument to win State power but also add democratic legitimacy to the BJP’s power and agenda. And use polls as an opportunity to tackle the weaknesses that have crept it into the party, expand the party’s footprint, and maintain Modi’s connect with citizens.
Amit Shah emphasises on the politics of polarisation was to both consolidate Hindu votes and to win legitimacy for the ideological agenda that the BJP believes in. And the reason Modi was campaigning relentlessly in Gujarat was not because he thought BJP would lose, but to maximise gains and reconnect with his home state during the only opportunity he gets to spend a sustained period of time in the state during his prime ministerial term.
The policy of BJP to keep Modi at the centre of every campaign; energise workers and monitor them; ensure the party machine can leverage Modi’s popularity; take radical, even high-risk, decisions to ensure local factors can’t neutralise the strengths of the machine; and then use every poll to reinforce Modi’s connect and win power — helps the BJP in all states, in varying degrees, and makes it a national hegemon. The strategy falters only in state elections — the only site where politics is still competitive in India, for the national stage is unipolar — is when Modi’s national appeal is not a factor, the BJP’s local leadership is weak, the Opposition has a credible local machine or strong local leader and local factors prevail. This was the case in Himachal Pradesh in 2022. And this was the story in West Bengal and Delhi in 2021. But don’t be surprised if the same states throw up a completely different outcome in 2024 when Modi is on the ballot, as they did in 2019.
Opposition parties with aspirations for a national role have adopted two models. At the cost of being simplistic, term it as the self-righteous purist model and the opportunistic pragmatist model. The problem is that neither model is working on the national stage — or working on a consistent enough basis on the state stage to be able to pose a challenge to the BJP. Arvind Kejriwal strategy is Based on the political understanding that the Right of Indian politics can be defeated only by adopting a Centre-Right platform, this translates into what has been described as “soft Hindutva” but is better understood as ideological pliability to the framework already set by the BJP — support for Hindutva causes, silence on minority rights. Arvind Kejriwal strategy can work in states where there is a political vacuum and the AAP can take an ideologically aggressive position since the BJP isn’t a factor like in Punjab where there is a deep political vacuum. But it is hard to replicate in a state where Hindu voters are perfectly at home with the BJP and don’t need the AAP, and Muslim voters don’t trust the party enough to shift allegiances from the Congress. This level of ideological ambiguity, on the back of the absence of a pan-Indian organisation, will also pose a challenge for AAP when the need to scale up and build a national campaign.
The other Opposition model is based on specific local circumstances. In states where non-BJP parties have a strong regional leader and ideological and regional connect, and the BJP lacks both a leader and regional connect, the national hegemon struggles.
the cards are so heavily stacked in favour of Narendra Modi presently as India heads toward the 2024 elections cycle.
