It is an undeniable fact that in the Hindi-heartland states the Bharatiya Janata Party always had around one-fifth —or even more– committed votes.
Even in the worst-case scenario in the pre-Ram Janambhoomi movement years its predecessor, Bharatiya Jan Sangh (and even Hindu Mahasabha), used to get about 15 to 20 percent votes in the cow belt. So, in the best of times, it is not very difficult to double this figure and walk away with 40-plus percent. This had happened once again in the recently held elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh and not in Telangana where, like in other south Indian states, the saffron brigade
does not enjoy this comfort.
The oratory skills of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani, and Narendra Modi only worked as a catalyst at the time of the election.
Contrary to this non-BJP parties, which obviously include Congress, do not enjoy this advantage. Their leaders and workers had to start their innings from zero and thus toil day in and day out to garner the support of even 35 or 40 percent votes. There is no Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh like cadre-based organization which not only works at the time of election, but throughout the year.
Daunting task
This task has become even more daunting for Congress as the gap between it and the BJP has increased too much since 2014. While the Grand Old Party had 44 seats in 2014 and 52 in 2019 the saffron party had 282 and 303 MPs in Lok Sabha. In contrast the BJP won only 182 seats both in 1998 and 1999 parliamentary elections against 141 and 114 by Congress. The NDA managed to cross the halfway mark of 272 then. But post-2014 the BJP alone has secured a majority.
Media persons and independent political pundits who toured the length and breadth of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh observed little anti-incumbency wave against chief ministers Ashok Gehlot and Bhupesh Baghel. Their performance was rated better than that of the BJP chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, who was confronting the fatigue factor. The BJP did not announce a chief ministerial face in these three states as its leadership, among other considerations, felt that neither Chauhan as CM nor Vasundhara Raje and Raman Singh as opposition figures had made any worthwhile contribution in their respective states in the last five years. It is only after the victory in Madhya Pradesh that some television anchors, without ever waiting for any detailed analysis to come, started giving credit to the recently launched Ladli Bahna Yojana, which covers a section of women. Bhupesh Baghel and Ashok Gehlot had done much more for the people of Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. But they did not have that 20 percent committed votes, and thus lost.
In Telangana, the BJP was facing the same music, where it has a relatively small pocket of hardcore support base. However, it is a fact that the number of seats it won had increased from one to eight so has the percentage of votes.
Strategic mistake
In the recently held Assembly election in the BJP’s traditional bastion the Congress, especially in Madhya Pradesh, made a strategic mistake of wooing the 20-odd percent of committed BJP votes by adopting a soft Hindutva line. The party failed in its move. While the percentage of votes it got had more or less remained the same the BJP went all out to create a counter-polarization. This happened even though Muslims do not have a very strong presence in these states.
Communal riots in neighbouring Mewat in Haryana earlier this year and the killing of a Hindu tailor by a Muslim in Udaipur last year were fully exploited by the BJP bigwigs in Rajasthan. The bulldozer used in Khargaon in Madhya Pradesh after the communal clashes in 2022 not only generated momentum among its old votebank but also helped the saffron party attract fence-sitters.
The tragedy is that the Congress had not learnt the lesson from the past mistake of luring the core support base of the BJP. Any such move is bound to alarm the Sangh Parivar, which started working overtime.
Another inherent advantage for the BJP is that in these three states, the upper castes hold much stronger support than in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, which have produced many backward castes and Dalit leaders. Karpoori Thakur, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Nitish Kumar, Mayawati and Ram Vilas Paswan are some of them. Madhya Pradesh had produced Sharad Yadav but he had after 1977 shifted to Uttar Pradesh and later Bihar.
The upper castes’ proclivity towards the BJP in the Hindi belt, especially since the launch of Ram Janambhoomi movement in late 1980s is very well known. Then came the Mandal factor which helped the saffron outfit exploit the situation for its own benefit.
In Uttar Pradesh, which has a strong upper castes presence, the BJP could not make a clean sweep in the 2019 Lok Sabha poll as it did in Rajasthan. Or even Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. This is obviously because the backward castes and Dalit parties still had some hold. The Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party which fought together won 10 and five seats respectively.
While the Congress has gained new grounds in Telangana (after Karnataka in May 2023) which it lost a decade ago, the BJP only consolidated its votes in the same old stronghold. As the National Democratic Alliance had already won 62 out of 65 seats in the last Lok Sabha poll there is little scope for it to further increase its tally.
In Rajasthan, the BJP had in 2019 won 24 seats while Nagaur went to its alliance partner Rashtriya Loktantrik Party of Hanuman Beniwal. But on December 26, 2020, Beniwal snapped ties with the NDA in protest against the three farm laws and openly lent support to the farmers sitting on dharna on the outskirts of Delhi. He is a prominent Jat leader of Rajasthan. This caste has about one-tenth the population of the state.
In the recently held Assembly poll Congress could not woo the Jat votes in the manner it was expected. That was because of the local factors.
Besides, some political pundits hold outgoing chief minister Ashok Gehlot responsible for it.
Notwithstanding this fact, Jats at the national level are not happy with the farm policy and the way women’s wrestlers’ issue was handled by the BJP government. Apart from this, the saffron party lacks a towering Jat leader.
Much depends on the way Congress capitalizes on this situation.
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