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 fau 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.
