Why did Prime Minister Narendra Modi go ballistic about Muslims between the first and second phases of voting in the ongoing general election? He allowed the Vishwaguru (world statesman) mask to slip after the first round of voting, and it was back to ugly basics with a frontal attack on Muslims. Moreover, this was not only dog whistling, as the word Muslim was actually uttered by the Prime Minister.
Such statements obviously seek to make the atmosphere communal. It also works as a call to the faithful to come out, vote, and be inspired to ensure a higher voter turnout, which was low in the first phase in areas dominated by the BJP.
Indeed, several layers of feedback began troubling the BJP after the first phase of voting on April 19 in an election that the party has pitched as one that would take its tally past 400.
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First, the conquest of the South proved more challenging than what its hype had claimed. The party cannot realistically hope to shore up its numbers from Tamil Nadu and Kerala, while reports suggest that even Karnataka could be more challenging than it was in 2019.
Missing momentum
More worrying was the feedback from Bihar and Maharashtra, after the second phase of polling. The two large States were swept by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in 2019, but 2024 is a different story. The BJP’s allies are not believed to be performing up to its expectations, and the BJP itself is missing some momentum.
Add to this the fact that even in a Hindi-belt State like Rajasthan, local issues have risen to the fore, with the Congress-led opposition reportedly putting up a fight in some seats. Even the constituencies that voted in the first phase in Uttar Pradesh saw some odd twists, such as the Rajput community turning against a high-profile Jat candidate and organising a mahapanchayat against the BJP. They claimed they were doing so to save their caste brother, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, from the machinations of the “Gujarat lobby”. All this happened in an area where Jats had clout and Jayant Chaudhary’s Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), which joined the NDA, had been allocated two seats that the BJP would have anyway won.
Embedded in all these stories, from Maharashtra to Uttar Pradesh to Bihar, is the fact that the BJP is also dealing with inner-party resentment against new entrants and against enemies turned friends. This extends to the RSS, whose cadre is dedicated to the fight but resents it when corruption-accused figures and workers with other ideologies join the party’s ranks and are given space that the faithful believe is theirs. In Rajasthan, for example, a question that comes up is whether the eruptions could have been managed if the BJP’s traditional State leadership had not been sidelined for unknowns at New Delhi’s behest. All these strands are playing out now.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath (centre) with Arun Govil (right), the BJP candidate for Meerut, at a campaign rally on April 23. | Photo Credit: PTI
In the Hindi heartland, there is no anti-Modi sentiment, but the passion and tempo of the 2014 and 2019 contests are missing. There is a certain ennui with the endless speeches of the Prime Minister, but among some social groups the matter is settled anyway in favour of the BJP. Among the caste groups that are not traditional BJP supporters, the counter-question who if not Modi is still doing the rounds. Or, as a group of Jatav Dalits in Uttar Pradesh asserted, why vote for someone else when we get free rations and the BJP will win anyway in Uttar Pradesh?
Yet, the questions remain, given that the party is seen as having peaked in these parts. At this point, it is hard to see the BJP winning more seats than the 303 seats it won in 2019 (272 is the halfway mark for a majority in the Lok Sabha), especially if there are losses in Bihar, Maharashtra, and Karnataka.
The BJP’s instinctive position when challenged is always the communal stance. But most Hindutva promises have been delivered, and Muslims are really in no position to snatch anything from anyone. Therefore, for all the fulminations, the scene seems to be missing a spark.
Highlights
- The conquest of the South proved more challenging than what its hype had claimed. In Rajasthan, local issues have risen to the fore, with the Congress-led opposition reportedly putting up a fight in some seats.
- Even the constituencies that voted in the first phase in Uttar Pradesh saw some odd twists, such as the Rajput community turning against a high-profile Jat candidate and organising a mahapanchayat against the BJP.
The curious case of Meerut
Take Meerut, a sort of urban centre in Uttar Pradesh that would typically have been delirious about Hindutva. The banners on rooftops and in markets celebrated Ram Lalla’s installation in the temple in Ayodhya, and Hanuman Jayanti was being celebrated with food distribution at every corner. Meerut also had cardboard cut-outs of the BJP candidate, the actor Arun Govil, dressed as Ram, the character he played in the popular 1987-88 television series Ramayan. He joined the BJP in 2021.
Besides this, Yogi Adityanath has come to campaign on four occasions. He picked up Modi’s cue against Muslims when he said that the Shariat would be imposed if the opposition won. Every attempt has been made to stoke the Hindu-Muslim fault line in a constituency that has a 35 per cent minority population and where vicious riots took place in 1987 (leading to the Hashimpura massacre of Muslim males). In recent years, too, many communal tropes have played out in Meerut. Yet, this was until the second phase in an election where some BJP voters confessed to not being particularly motivated to vote.
What could be missing in atmospherics is sought to be compensated for with structural depth and reach. After Narendra Modi’s win in 2014, there was a phenomenal investment and upgrade in the BJP’s physical infrastructure in Uttar Pradesh. Today, it is the only State that is divided into six zones, each overseen by committed cadres and full-time staffers who work with teams that monitor constituencies, sociocultural programmes, booth management, and electoral messaging. The BJP headquarters for western Uttar Pradesh is in Meerut. The party works out of a relatively new multi-story building with a lift, communication facilities, and state-of-the-art CCTV cameras from the room of Abhay Kumar Singh, an RSS activist who worked as a journalist before returning to serve the party full time. He is currently in charge of western Uttar Pradesh. While taking note of the low turnout in the first phase, he asked if the opposition could still reach the threshold to defeat the BJP.
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After all, he said, in Uttar Pradesh the BJP was the only party in which the candidates’ task was only to campaign; the entire task of booth management and voter outreach was done by the sangathan, or organisation. Singh also reminds me that the term panna pramukh, used loosely by the media for RSS members, actually comes from the Hindi word panna, or page, of the electoral roll that individual workers are given to do outreach work and bring voters to the booths.
In contrast, opposition candidates work on the model of generating or riding on a sentiment and using their own resources and clout to put the structure in place for campaigning and voting. At the Samajwadi Party (SP) office in Meerut, I am told that a pressing issue is the names missing from electoral rolls, with many petitions submitted but nothing ever done. The facilities in the SP office are rundown compared with the BJP’s, but then, as a party worker said, they (the BJP) have electoral bonds and all that money. Despite this, the workers believe there is a fight, as the public is bored with the Prime Minister and disillusioned with their own economic condition.
Saba Naqvi is a Delhi based journalist and author of four books who writes on politics and identity issues.
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