Regional Boss As Challenger

With Congress hopelessly weak, it’s local leaders who are resisting an ‘opposition-mukt Bharat’

- Sagarika Ghose

In 2014, soon after taking over as BJP party president, Amit Shah declared his goal was a ‘Congress mukt Bharat’, a phrase that reflected BJP’s drive to decimate Congress as its principal adversary. Seven years later as four states and a Union territory await assembly election results, Congress and its allies govern only five states. But the narrative of these 2021 elections has shown that BJP’s dominance is not unchallenged. There are other adversaries still definitely resisting: India’s regional bosses.

In Kerala, giant hoardings of CM Pinarayi Vijayan dominate verdant green landscapes. He is the principal focus of these elections, described by locals as “Modi in a mundu”, positioning himself as Kerala’s “Irattachankan” or big-chested strongman. In Tamil Nadu, the two Dravida parties remain principal competitors and high voltage rallies across the state reflect a strong local ethos, with culture, language and symbolism shaping the universe of Tamil identity in which north-Indian-style Hindutva or the Hindi language have very little space.

Even within BJP, regional chieftains are key campaigners. In Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma is barrelling around, surrounded by swarms of supporters. A BJP leader and state minister, he’s far from being Delhi’s man, instead trying to project himself as a local boss rooted in the Assam milieu. He may be with BJP today but he was in Congress six years ago, and for a popular state leader who knows what tomorrow may bring.