The reverberations in the Uttar Pradesh branch of the BJP are a stark reminder that regardless of the return to power in 2024 for a third successive term of the Narendra Modi government some things did change as the Lok Sabha poll numbers came in.
The ruling BJP may have emerged as the single largest party with more seats than the entire 28-party INDIA bloc put together, but it was forced to forge a coalition government. This calls for a reset to thinking in a cooperative alliance mould to face a new reality after 10 years of single party dominance and decision-making.
The Lok Sabha elections did not shock or surprise in throwing up results that were in line with the universal trend in the crucial universal polls year of 2024 in which the basic dissatisfaction of voters with the old order was apparent. This was witnessed in the European and British verdicts, too, that saw the right being ditched with change being the most decisive option.
The BJP bucked that trend to an extent but only with deep lessons to be learnt on what did not work this time, which were the harping on religion and the Ram temple, the stoking of communal divisiveness for votes and the seeking of a brute majority for bringing a promised big change even as there was too much emphasis on the hounding of Opposition leaders by Central investigating agencies.
With UP being the electoral key to ruling in New Delhi thanks to the numbers — 80 seats out of 543 — the BJP may have to crack the whip to bring the house back in order after discontent turned into dissent with the deputy CM pushing for a change at the top while aiming the gun at Yogi Adityanath.
The time for a full reset of priorities is now and there is no better time than now to begin with the presentation of the Budget early next week through which the BJP can demonstrate that it is willing to go back to basics and look at overall development of the nation, switching back to “vikas” as the plank that brought them to power in 2014.
Not much may have taken place since June 4, 2024, to show that the BJP may have read the signs of the public mood of general disenchantment thoroughly enough, but July 23 might be a better date to mark a day of change as the guidelines to fiscal management and development are laid down. This is the time to show that all of India matters to the ruling dispensation.
It is just a political line of argument that the numbers suggest the BJP has lost the moral right to rule. Far from it, but it must show its readiness to gather the reins once again and demonstrate that the people it rules over matter. Shaky infrastructure into which trillions have been poured, trains that run off the rails and systemic faults in the administration as well as in the crucial conduct of examinations do not add up to an attractive picture of administrative efficiency.
It is not in how the BJP is going to tackle an increasingly loud Opposition in the daily grind of politics or how it is going to fare in the next set of Assembly elections that it will be judged. The BJP’s test from here will lie in what it can do for all the people who pay GST for each little thing that they buy and who have elected it a third time. Will Prime Minister Modi and his coalition government rise to the challenge of reducing the disenchantment?
