The BJP survives an electoral scare in Gujarat by resorting to its time-tested politics of communal polarisation, but the verdict destroys the Modi-Amit Shah combine’s aura of invincibility.
The message between the lines in the results of the Assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh was writ large on the office of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Delhi, the national capital, in the early hours of counting on December 18. In stark contrast to the normal atmosphere that has prevailed in the central office over the past two decades on the day of counting in any election in Gujarat, there was no festive mood that morning. All the ingredients of the festivity that used to be on display on such days, such as animated slogan-shouting, incessant bursting of firecrackers and periodic distribution of sweets, were conspicuous by their absence. The mood was pregnant with disquiet and a sense of apprehension.
The early trends, wherein both the Congress and the BJPwere alternately taking the lead, added to this mood.Even when it became clear, around noon, that the BJP would retain Gujarat for the sixth term and capture Himachal Pradesh from the Congress, party workers gathered at the headquarters had to be goaded into celebratory demonstrations.
The reasons for this uncharacteristic diffidence was not far to seek. As some of the workers revealed to Frontline, the triumph in both the States was not up to the expectations generated in them by the projections of senior leaders, including party president Amit Shah, both during the campaign and even after polling was over. Amit Shah had proclaimed that 150-plus seats were a reasonable target for Gujarat and for Himachal Pradesh it was 50-plus.
“We had expected at least 120 seats in Gujarat and a minimum of 50 in Himachal Pradesh. But the Congress has performed much better in comparison to these expectations. Of course, a victory is a victory, but we are not able to gear ourselves into a high celebratory mood,” a party worker who had come from Noida in Uttar Pradesh told Frontline.
This story is from the January 5, 2018 edition of FRONTLINE.
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This story is from the January 5, 2018 edition of FRONTLINE.
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