A vote for reforms

The principal implication of the BJP’s extraordinary victory in the critical State of Uttar Pradesh is the establishment of the ruling party’s hegemony in the Indian political arena. The BJP now is what the Congress was in India during the 1960s and a better part of the 1970s. It is expanding geographically — besides being the largest party in the Lok Sabha, it is now a serious political player in hitherto unchartered territories of Kerala, West Bengal, the North-East, and Jammu and Kashmir. Simultaneously, it is consolidating its base in the Hindi heartland States of UP and Bihar as well as Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Haryana. After the latest round of elections, nearly two-thirds of India’s population now lives in NDA-ruled States, the percentage having gone up from 46.2 per cent to 61.1 per cent. Besides its geographical expansion, the results are also a continuation of the BJP’s social transformation from being a party of the elite castes to one that attracts all social groups. In UP, 41 per cent of SCs, 42 per cent OBCs and 44 per cent general castes voted for the BJP. It has snatched the constituency of the poor and downtrodden from the Congress with the party successfully marketing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s social welfare schemes such as the Ujjawala Yojna and maternity benefits to the poor. The other larger trend that follows is the continuing weakening of the Congress and the irrelevance of its vice-president, Rahul Gandhi, who had very little to do with Punjab, Goa and Manipur where the old guard delivered. And in UP where he was solely responsible for the mid-way change in strategy to forge an alliance with the Samajwadi Party, the Congress had its worst showing. Finally, in terms of a national alternative in the 2019 general election, the possibility of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Arvind Kejriwal emerging as a serious challenger in any meaningful fashion has significantly reduced.

Equally significant are the implications for the economy and reforms. The results have to be seen as a positive referendum on a drastic policy measure such as demonetisation. The voter trusted the Prime Minister despite having endured hardship and it gives the Government enormous political capital to implement second-generation economic reforms without being wary of their political implications. The rolling out of the GST becomes easier, with the ruling party being able to smother popular fears of the confusion it will create or the anxiety over the price rise that is expected to follow.

The next general election thus seems set to be a contest between a towering Narendra Modi and a strong BJP versus a grand alliance of all regional players with the Congress playing the tail-ender. But electoral arithmetic alone will not work. The Opposition will have to come up with a meaningful counter-narrative to Modi’s developmental pitch, something it has not managed to do so far.

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