The results from four states “ West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Assam show that the Congress is still in decline. Two years have passed since the BJP, headed by Narendra Modi, won a decisive mandate at the Centre and his dream of a ‘Congress mukt Bharat’ appears to be rumbling towards fruition.
In Assam, the BJP won a decisive victory, thus opening its account in the north-east. Here the party found an emotive issue “ migration from Bangladesh and an electorate worried about being swamped by ‘outsiders’ gave the BJP a chance to freeze the demographic picture and hopefully reverse this trend. That the Congress government failed to do this in the
last five years helped the BJP. In West Bengal it was Didi all
the way and those who thought the Left would make a dent
in her support base had to eat humble pie. Mamata Banerjee
and her All India Trinamul Congress was expected to win, but
not is such a grand fashion. She is now the undisputed leader
of the state. In Tamil Nadu the
Jayalalithaa led AIADMK bucked
the trend of no government ever
being given a second mandate, to
romp home. This makes her the
only chief minister, since MGR, to
be given a second term in office.
The DMK-Congress alliance did not
do too badly, but will have to sit in
the opposition. In Kerala, the BJP
managed to open its account with
one seat. But the fact that the UDF was booted out by the LDF
is a consolation prize for the Left parties which suffered major
defeats in the last round of state elections when they lost West
Bengal and Kerala where they had a sizable footprint.
For the BJP, the writing is on the wall. It wins as long as the
Congress is the main opponent, like in Assam. In Bihar, Delhi,
West Bengal and Kerala, where it faces regional parties, the
BJP has no answer. And this is probably because it has always
talked about a ‘Congress mukt Bharat’ thus making the Congress
its chief enemy. But, there is no doubt that the party’s national
footprint continues to grow while the Congress shrinks.
If there is a lesson to be learned from these elections it is the
limitations of using Modi as the lead vote getter. The faux pax
in Kerala brought the party only ridicule and the Assam elections
were essentially driven by a single issue. In West Bengal,
Modi was no match for Didi. The question facing the BJP is,
will Modi be a deciding factor when UP, which is dominated
by regional players, goes to the polls in 2017?
The Congress, clearly, faces larger problems. It is losing
States to the BJP and the Aam Aadmi Party is snapping at its
heels, threatening to fill the vacuum left by its withdrawal. The
Congress is facing a crisis similar to the one faced by the BJP
in 1984 when it won a measly two seats in the Lok Sabha. The
journey back to a commanding political is going to be an arduous
one unless the BJP makes some huge errors. The Congress
has to transform itself from a lumbering giant into a robust
entity powered by the youth instead of veterans. Sometimes a
mighty loss can become the impetus for major change. If the
Congress does not learn now, it never will.
