M Venkaiah Naidu
The ongoing speculation on the likelihood of a new political front in the wake of the spectacular showing by the Bharatiya Janata Party in Assam and improvement in its vote share in other States, clearly indicate that alarm bells have started ringing not only in the Congress, but other regional parties too over the existential dilemma they are likely to face in the 2019 election.
By scoring a landslide victory along with its allies in Assam, the gateway to the North-East, and significantly increasing its vote-share in Kerala, the BJP has scripted a new milestone in the country’s political landscape. It also showed that despite the negative politics indulged in by its political rivals against the BJP, people are sagacious enough to separate wheat from chaff.
The attention-grabbing victory in Assam is not a simplistic outcome of anti-incumbency due to the 15-year misrule of the Congress. It would be naïve to pin down the success to a single reason. Its seeds were sown many years ago. Thanks to the relentless hard work of committed cadre of the BJP, the electoral strategy chalked out by party president Amit Shah and the people-centric policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the lotus has bloomed in the pivotal north-eastern State.
Of course, the youthful Sarbananda Sonowal and Himanta Biswa Sarma played a stellar role in steering the party to a resounding victory.
It would be relevant to note that, while the total tally of the alliance is 86, the BJP’s score has rocketed from five in 2011 to 60 seats now. Its electoral partners – Asom Gana Parishad’s went up from 10 to 14 and that of Bodo People’s Front remained more or less constant at 12 – also did well. These numbers put in perspective the remarkable success achieved by the BJP.
The Assam result has also unequivocally repudiated the false theory propagated by the BJP’s detractors that the party is anti-minority. The BJP is a nationalistic organisation, which never believed in discriminating among the people in terms of ‘minority’ and ‘majority’, and has always believed that every citizen of India has equal rights as enshrined in the Constitution. With Muslims comprising 34 per cent of the population in Assam, BJP candidates have won in several Muslim-dominated constituencies, clearly vindicating the party’s stand – that people want development and better living conditions and are not interested in the politics of appeasement.
The electoral alliance stitched by the Left Front and the Congress in West Bengal failed to carry conviction or credibility with the people, who obviously saw it as a self-serving, opportunistic tie-up to grab power. The communists and the Congressmen have apparently failed to read the minds of the voters and thought that a Bihar-type experiment would yield rich dividends.
The foes-in-Kerala-and-friends-in-West Bengal strategy not only showed the moral bankruptcy of the communists and the Congress, but also their desperation to come to power by hook or crook. But the voter, who smartly outwitted them and rejected their marriage of convenience, had the last laugh.
As mentioned earlier, one of the biggest takeaways for the BJP and an eye-opener for others is the support extended to the party by minorities in Assam. By getting 10.2 per cent vote share in the recently concluded election in West Bengal, the party bagged three seats and made its presence felt in several other constituencies across the length and breadth of West Bengal, holding out the hope of a rosy future.
In Kerala, the BJP created history by making its debut, with party veteran O Rajagopal winning the Nemom Assembly constituency. The vote share of the BJP and its allies went up to 14.4 per cent in Kerala, while there was a marginal increase in Tamil Nadu from 2.2 to 2.8 per cent. However, the party’s nominees were in second place in four seats and in third place in 30 constituencies, pushing the People’s Welfare Front led by Vijayakanth to fourth place.
As the BJP expanded its footprint to pan-India scale from Kerala to Assam, the Congress has been virtually reduced to a regional party. The Congress, which was dominating the national political discourse, has become totally marginalised even as the BJP has taken the centre-stage. It should be noted that while the BJP is ruling across 45 per cent of the geographical area and 35 per cent of population, the Congress is ruling over a mere six per cent of the population as it lost all the important States.
Victories in Andaman, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Kanyakumari and Jammu & Kashmir shows that the BJP has acquired pan-India status and is truly a national party. It was always recognised as a nationalistic party.
All the talk of cobbling up a disparate group of parties to form a new front shows the anxiety in the Opposition ranks over the electoral success of the BJP, which is conquering new territories under the inspiring leadership of Modi and the savvy strategy of Shah.
Though it would be premature to comment the 2019 election, I am sure that any attempt to bring together different parties with the sole aim of defeating the BJP would end in failure like all such previous experiments.
It should also be remembered that no other leader in the country has the pan-India appeal or charisma of Prime Minister Modi, who, the people have realised, does not believe in mere slogans but in delivering on promises to significantly transform their lives. Jan Dhan, free LPG connections to the poor and Mudra Bank are a few examples of how the schemes of the NDA Government are making a difference and lighting up the lives of millions of people across the country.
As more and more success stories of the common man emerge from across the country, the march of the BJP would be unstoppable,
irrespective of the formation of a front or a coalition.
