Whatever may be the result of the parliamentary election of 2024 the fact remains that unlike the 2004 this time the top guns of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party appear to be exposing their panic and nervousness. In desperation, they are speaking something which is further harming their party’s poll prospect. This development prompted several independent political observers to conclude that the saffron party is in trouble, and may even lose the election. Though it is also true that the ruling party camp rejects all such views and are still hopeful of winning the electoral battle.
Wrong prediction
Exactly 20 summers back hardly any public opinion maker predicted that the then Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance government would lose power. A prominent magazine even claimed that it was going to win 351 seats, though the BJP ended up getting only 139. Interestingly, till now political pundits are still wondering why the Vajpayee government lost when everything was in its favour.
The difference between that election and this one is that then none of the BJP bigwigs gave any signal of desperation during the election campaign. They were brimming with confidence and sure that the slogans of Shining India and Good Governance would yield positive result. On March 10, 2004 the then deputy prime minister Lal Krishna Advani set off for 33-days 8,500-kms long Bharat Uday Yatra, from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu which concluded in Puri in the middle of election.
True during the electioneering NDA echelon was dismissive of the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, and would even ridicule her foreign origin, yet they never raised the issue of Hindu-Muslim relationship so blatantly as now. Needless to suggest Advani was the hero of the Ram Janambhoomi movement and was ably assisted during the campaign by the likes of Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharati, Vinay Katiyar and other hardliners. The then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi had during the December 2002 Assembly election in his state did indulge in rabble-rousing. But in the Lok Sabha poll held 16 months later he was not so venomous in his attack on Muslims.
Alliance partners’ approach
In Maharashtra, the BJP had the support of Bal Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, which during the campaign also took credit for the demolition of Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992. In West Bengal Mamata Banerjee was there to make vitriolic attacks on the Left Front, while in Bihar Janata Dal (United)’s Nitish Kumar and his band were quite busy in making fun of RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav.
Chief Minister Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, Chandrababu Naidu of Telugu Desam in Andhra Pradesh, Naveen Patnaik of Biju Janata Dal in Odisha and Prakash Singh Badal in Punjab would target the Congress-led opposition conglomeration.
But none of these leaders ever showed any sign of losing the election. At the same time, nobody from Vajpayee to the last man in the BJP ever boasted about a 400-‘paar’ target.
On April 7, 2024, badly-shaken Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar during the election campaign in Nawada with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the dais claimed that this time the NDA would win more than 4,000 (repeat 4,000) seats. He then publicly went to touch the PM’s feet. Modi dropped Nitish like a hot potato from his subsequent election rallies on April 16 in Gaya and Purnea.
Tight grip on partners
In 2004 the BJP allowed the alliance partners more freedom to campaign and speak according to the situation in their respective states. Today one hardly listens to what Ajit Pawar or Eknath Shinde in Maharashtra or H D Kumaraswamy or his father former PM H D Deve Gowda are speaking in Karnataka. They are addressing election meetings but hardly get any national media attention. Even the regional Press gives little space.
Curiously, the BJP star-campaigners are not dragging the name of Pakistan and China during the electioneering. Whether the Congress-led opposition wins or not, the latter has certainly set the agenda compelling Modi and company to react without applying any mind or attention.
For example, he raised the issue of mangal sutra in Banswara, where the BJP is locked in a tough battle not with the Congress candidate but with the nominee of Bharat Adivasi Party. The Bhil tribes are metaphorically-speaking up in arms against the BJP. One wonders why the PM chose to raise this issue against Muslims when the community has very small presence in this Adivasis dominated region. The very choice of the place reveals the nervousness within the BJP rank and file. The problem with the multi-phase election is that it can both harm and favour a particular party. It is to be seen which way it goes this time.
In the eight-phase West Bengal poll of 2021 the BJP had paid dearly. In the first three phases the party did very well but suddenly lost the plot when none other than Modi derailed the campaign by carrying out personalized attack on Mamata Banerjee. When the result came out on May 2 it was found that the chief minister lost from her own Assembly seat of Nandigram by a slender margin to Suvendhu Adhikari of the BJP. Needs to be noted Nandigram went to poll in the second phase on April 1.
Anyway, countrymen and women would be waiting much more eagerly for the result to come on June 4, even when many of them showed little interest in casting their votes.
| 
