A mandate correction

Knowing that television commitments could keep one busy for a long time, I had mentally worked out two possible openings for this piece. While one was conceived as a beginning to analyse the scenario predicted by exit polls, the other was planned as an opening in the improbably event of a Bharatiya Janata Party victory or even a fractured mandate. Eventually, there was little of substance to talk on TV within two hours of the start of tallying of electronic voting machines. There was also no way that I could use either of the two intros that were planned. As the counting machines came to a halt eventually, one could not escape the conclusion that this was not so much a victory for the Aam Aadmi Party or Arvind Kejriwal as it was a defeat for the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The BJP and Mr Modi have been felled by the power of their arrogance very cruelly. For a man who never tasted electoral defeat of any substance in his political career, Mr Modi has been handed a humiliating lesson in the power of the people. For the first time he could not convince people with his rhetoric and demagoguery. This was a battle of perception that he lost. People assessed that he was all talk and no action; that all promises made during elections were mere jumlas used to gain support of the people.

Nothing hurts people more than being told that they have been taken for a ride. By casually dismissing a major electoral promise as nothing but figurative usage, the BJP president, Amit Shah, demonstrated the scant importance he gave to the aspirations of the people. (Mr Shah, when asked about Mr Modi’s promise of bringing black money back and depositing '15 lakh in the bank accounts of every Indian, shrugged it off as a “chunavi jumla”.)

No political party can raise the bar of expectations and not only not fulfil them, but dismiss them as inconsequential. This will serve a lesson to Mr Kejriwal too, in no small measure.

For several weeks it was evident that public mood was ranged against the BJP. What was unexpected was the extent of the people’s rejection of the BJP and Mr Modi. The BJP needs to ponder over what caused such a massive slide from its performance in May when it won all seven Lok Sabha seats in the national capital, besides polling more than 46 per cent of the votes. It is not that the BJP has not suffered such a huge setback in such a short period before. In November 1998, the BJP lost — what is now the first of its five successive defeats in the capital — barely months after it swept the seven seats in the parliamentary polls in February, after which Atal Behari Vajpayee became Prime Minister of the National Democratic Alliance government.

But that was because people were shedding tears over rising onion prices and not because they frowned upon a Prime Minister who wore a suit with his name pin-striped into it and whose sole aim was to promote “Make in India” and getting on first name terms with global leaders. The people felt that no government could have more than they deserved despite them not having splurged on designer outfits. For a man who was touted as the finest user of political symbolism in contemporary Indian politics, Mr Modi has got it completely mixed up this time.

But, in strategic terms, the first error the BJP made with regard to Delhi was that it was trapped in the inability to make up its mind whether it should cobble together a government or call for fresh polls. Eventually, it missed the opportunity of riding on the momentum created by the parliamentary victory and the strong anti-incumbency sentiment that was a dominant feature in Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand. When polls were finally declared in the national capital, the BJP had no anti-incumbency sentiment to cash in on and had to fall back on its achievements and a strong campaign. This was where Mr Modi failed to gauge the people’s mood.

The verdict will have ripple effects on Indian politics. For starters, it should make the BJP less belligerent regarding its plan to split the Janata Dal (United) in Bihar. Yet, the possible collapse of the Jitan Ram Manjhi-led government may hasten realignment of forces and make things tougher for the BJP in the Assembly polls due later this year. There is a danger of the anti-Modi sentiment spreading to other parts of the country. To put a halt to this, Mr Modi will not only have to reorient the thrust of his government but also give his persona an image makeover. For a man who has not faced any adversity since being banished from Gujarat in 1995, this will not be an easy process.

To start with, Mr Modi and his core team has to become more communicative with the people and within his own party. But this cannot be the top-down approach it has followed so far with excessive emphasis on one-way social media driven monologues. To start with, Mr Modi needs to accept responsibility for the electoral rout and not look for scapegoats within the party. In the last days of the campaign, and especially after the exit polls were publicised, BJP leaders argued that a possible defeat in Delhi was inconsequential because it was “too small” and “not even a full state”. Such feeble arguments will not enable the BJP’s recovery from the shock. They’ll hinder it.

The Delhi verdict also puts Mr Kejriwal in a none-too enviable position. He rightly said that the situation was scary because he senses the heat of people’s expectations. In the past few days, I argued that just as there is “market correction” after an artificial surge in the stock market, India needed a “mandate correction”. Now that this has been done it is time to temper expectations. But this can happen only when political leaders become more circumspect when making promises.

The writer is the author of Narendra Modi: The Man, the Times