BJP stooped to conquer, Congress must not follow it

Singapore’s veteran leader Lee Kuan Yew surprised Indians and possibly displeased his host, Morarji Desai, by calling on the defeated Indira Gandhi when he visited India in 1978. While she had gone to Rashtrapati Bhavan to see British PM James Callaghan, Lee took the trouble of visiting her Willingdon Crescent bungalow. Indians had written Indira off. Singaporeans were surprised at his graciousness to someone in the political wilderness. Lee had a practical explanation for the gesture — a turn of the electoral wheel would return her to power, not necessarily because of any inherent virtue she possessed or because of any weakness in Desai’s Janata Party government but because of what is nowadays called the anti-incumbency factor. “In your system the electorate would soon get dissatisfied and would bring her back,” he told me. “Must do! You can never get what you really want. No government can deliver. So after a while, it says, okay change again.”

The results in Gujarat and, to some extent, in Himachal Pradesh have intensified that sense of electoral uncertainty, reminding us that Rahul Gandhi’s debut as Congress president wasn’t such a damp squib after all. Whether or not he won his spurs by gaining more than a dozen seats, he can’t be written off any longer as the perpetual crown prince who never reigns as king. If the Congress lost some constituencies in Himachal, so did the BJP in Gujarat. Both sides will keep up the tempo of chanting, gyrating and shoving laddoos into each other’s open mouths (and some that weren’t open since cut-outs of Mr Modi were also fed), but appearances can be deceptive. The results fell short of expectations for both parties. There are bound to be glum faces in Akbar Road, but the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth are likely to be far more spectacular behind the BJP’s victory-is-victory bravado at its Ashoka Road headquarters.

Normally, one would venture to suggest a ruling party that controls almost the entire country can afford to lose one state. But the win-some-lose-some or live-and-let-live spirit is alien to the BJP’s winner-takes-all thinking. Treated as a prestige issue, Gujarat was accorded an importance unimaginable for any other state. Of course, it’s the home state of a larger-than-life Prime Minister who can teach Donald Trump a thing or two in presidential flamboyance. The BJP has ruled Gujarat for 22 years. It’s been called the laboratory of the future, meaning the Hindu rashtra of the dreams Hindu zealots (and occasional non-Hindu soldier of fortune) visualise for the future.

The BJP leadership could hardly have invested more in the campaign. Someone counted 34 rallies that Narendra Modi addressed. Amit Shah campaigned for over two months. The entire machinery of governance seemed to be in suspense while more than 4.35 crore Gujarati voters, half of them aged between 18 and 39, were coaxed and cajoled, bribed and bullied, to vote in favour of the designated candidate. It would be interesting in this context to ascertain exactly how much money the two parties actually spent on electioneering. There was grumbling that despite some 3,000 complaints, chief election commissioner Achal Kumar Jyoti was neither seen nor heard to the extent needed to sustain confidence in the process. Presumably, allegations relating to hacking and rigging will be fully and impartially investigated to set at rest misgivings that the government has co-opted the CEC.

Any proper post-mortem examination must await the full disclosure of voting figures. Much will depend on establishing how town and country, regions, age groups, castes and communities exercised their franchise. Ahmedabad has expanded exponentially in the last decade or so. Saurashtra, where the Congress did exceptionally well, remains mainly agricultural. Demonetisation and GST will have impacted differently in these and other regions.

The Congress was accused of concentrating too much on caste and community but not, it must be stressed, of fanning communalism. Another criticism is that Mr Gandhi visited temples instead of highlighting the economy’s importance. He started late, possibly neglected micromanagement, and didn’t identify a publicly trusted local Congressman of stature who could have taken over as chief minister in the event of a Congress victory. If the party’s young hopefuls — Sachin Pilot, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Milind Deora and others of proven ability and integrity — took part in the campaign, the media didn’t adequately highlight their activities. Instead, we had the vision of a tireless Mr Gandhi canvassing morning, night and noon. That speaks volumes for his capacity for hard work and his ability to connect with and inspire people but it also seems to confirm the image of a one-man party, and that one man the heir to the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.

That is something Mr Modi, with his stinging jibes about the Delhi sultanate and shehzadas and his nasty habit of referring to Ahmed Patel as “Ahmed Mian”, will exploit for all he’s worth. That, sadly, is the most objectionable aspect of the Gujarat election. Dragging Pakistan into the campaign was dangerous. Dragging Manmohan Singh into it was despicable. It was mischievous deliberately to misrepresent Mani Shankar Aiyar’s remark.

Gujarat will be followed by Karnataka, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan before the country goes to the polls again in 2019. A resuscitated Congress under Mr Gandhi will now be fighting to win. It’s to be hoped for the country’s sake that he will do so without stooping to pander to the sectarian instincts of primeval man. Victory on those terms might win an election but can lose the war for India.