The result from Haryana suggests that this is the moment when the turnaround of the BJP, led by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, begins after the 240-seat disappointment in the 2024 national election. At the very least this result confirms that within the arc of losses and defeat, we still live in a BJP-dominant age. Now the question is, will the narrative of decline be arrested and setbacks shrugged off as its cadre gets a steroid shot?
Here are the big takeaways. First, the cadre worked hard in Haryana, and there was none of the “staying at home” sulking in the Sangh structure that this columnist saw during the Lok Sabha election in Uttar Pradesh. Having achieved the task of humbling Prime Minister Narendra Modi somewhat, the cadre and party worked efficiently in unison to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat as it were. After all, the last thing an ideological cadre committed to Hindutva would want is to actually defeat the BJP!
This has implications for the upcoming battle in Maharashtra, where the BJP was seen to be somewhat out of joint after the entry of some regional players such as the Ajit Pawar faction of the NCP. That mood has passed now, and in the State where the RSS is headquartered, the party and cadre will put up a gritty fight in the Assembly election—with too much at stake in the home of big capital.
Political management must also get a mention. Much of the success in wresting seats in the first-past-the-post system also came from the fact that the BJP was in power in Haryana and could transform a slender edge in a close contest into a win. The BJP got 48 seats with a vote share of 39.9 per cent, and the Congress got 37 seats with a vote share of 39.3 per cent. In Maharashtra, too, the party is in power, in an alliance. However, election-bound Jharkhand is ruled by an opposition alliance.
Keeping a ear to the ground
Classic BJP-RSS election management entails collecting constant feedback on each seat from the cadre and the government machinery, and involves the mapping of localities. This is something RSS workers do efficiently when they are motivated and when they can work with the administration. The Congress, on the other hand, seemed clueless about the shifting realities on the ground and the possibility, flagged by a handful of observers, that the party’s perceived closeness to one dominant caste group, the Jats (who constitute 27 per cent of the population), could alienate the OBCs (who are 40 per cent). Besides, even the Scheduled Castes make up nearly 20 per cent of the population.
The fact that the Congress marginalised its own veteran Dalit woman leader Kumari Selja, not letting her contest or even get seats for her supporters, certainly damaged the party. Indeed, this raises the larger point about words not matching deeds since Rahul Gandhi has positioned himself as speaking for marginalised social groups. That in Haryana the Congress could not get its dominant regional Jat leaders to accommodate a woman, who is also a Dalit, spoke volumes.
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In contrast, since it came to power in Haryana in 2014, the BJP has worked on the social calculus of building support among the non-dominant castes. On getting reports of anti-incumbency, the party changed the Chief Minister, placing the relatively young Nayab Singh Saini on the chair in March this year. He is a pleasant and personable figure from the Saini community that is categorised as OBC in Haryana but is not numerically dominant.
It is worth pointing out that two Chief Ministers with the longest careers in contemporary history are Nitish Kumar in Bihar and Modi in Gujarat. Both are from small OBC groups against which there is less scope for counter polarisation. That is one strand that must be understood when one gets into contests in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar where the BJP has worked on consolidating privileged castes and non-dominant OBCs. The formula faltered in the recent national election, but the party seems to have got into stride again in Haryana.
Fewer Modi campaigns this time
What also changed in the BJP narrative in this election was projecting Saini as Chief Minister, something unusual in the Modi-era BJP until 2024. Until the general election, the Prime Minister was positioned as the be all and end all of State campaigns, and State leaders had to either fade away (such as former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje) or adjust to new roles in the party under the firm hierarchy of Modi and Shah (such as Shivraj Singh Chouhan, former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister and now Union Agriculture Minister).
In this round in Haryana, Modi not only campaigned less but even the campaign material marked him only notionally. This could possibly be the template adopted in forthcoming State elections. Still, Modi’s post-result address on October 8 from the BJP headquarters shows the party’s natural inclination to revert to the leadership cult. He began speaking after 8 pm and ended promptly at 9 pm in time for prime-time television news. After months, there was good news for the party to spin.
The mandate from Jammu and Kashmir is being seen as a loss for the BJP even though it has done remarkably well in Jammu against early projections. True, the party was not able to achieve the ideological goal of anointing a “Hindu” Chief Minister in Kashmir. Preparations had been made to facilitate that goal by increasing the number of seats from Jammu, encouraging Independents to cut the votes of regional parties in the Valley, and putting out a line that even the National Conference would ally with the BJP.
If not polarisation, then counter-polarisation
The BJP has not achieved its goal to rule Srinagar. Yet, Hindutva is the undercurrent in the Jammu mandate and even in parts of Haryana. The sight of separatists contesting from the Valley and traditional parties generating great emotion on events unfolding in Gaza and Lebanon would have contributed to the counter polarisation in Jammu. Hence, on balance, the “Hindus in danger” psy-op still works for the BJP. To nuance it more carefully, while outright polarisation may flop, as it apparently did in the Lok Sabha election when the BJP lost the seat of Faizabad that includes Ayodhya, counter polarisation might still work in certain contexts.
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The BJP held on to Jammu with smart political and ideological management. The Congress was tipped to do well in Jammu but was reduced to just one seat. It will be part of the National Conference-led alliance but this again reiterates the point that regional parties fare much better than the Congress in fighting the BJP in direct contests.
If there is one message from these elections, it is about balance for the BJP, which had to modify its approach even in Haryana to retain the State for a third term. The Congress has to recognise that infighting in State units bears a high cost, be it in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh a year ago or in Haryana now. It should also learn from the BJP that handing out a few seats to defectors, Independents, and smaller parties is often smarter than not accommodating them, for they have the capacity to cleave off a few hundred votes.
Saba Naqvi is a Delhi-based journalist and author of four books who writes on politics and identity issues.
