Decoding the BJP’s victories: Trends of continuity with some significant change

In Gujarat, the BJP has been the dominant force of the past two decades, which the Congress could not dislodge. This continuity notwithstanding, the outcome presents complexities. The BJP has scraped through — down 16 seats from 2012, and with only a small majority — but its voteshare has actually gone up by one percentage point. This is no mean achievement for a party that has been in power for so long — especially taking into account the social turmoil and deep popular disappointment with its claims of development.

A vote of, and for, Modi

So, how was the BJP able to buck anti-incumbency and retain power in Gujarat?

The short answer: Modi. Such is the BJP’s dependence on him that it could not have won but for the campaign by the Prime Minister, and voters’ connect with him. The Congress tried hard to keep the campaign to the state level and question the BJP’s claims of development, but Modi upended that narrative, pitching the election as a test of his personal popularity and of his policies as PM. Two weeks before voting began, 11% respondents in the CSDS survey said Modi would be the most important factor in deciding their vote, not any party or candidate. The PM’s concerted — and controversial — campaign in the last two weeks is likely to have swayed voters in the final stage; indeed, of those who made up their mind during that period, 53% voted BJP, the survey showed.

Missing: a Cong organisation

At the end of November, the Congress looked very close to successfully leveraging the disenchantment that often hurts a long-term incumbent. But from that point onward, it lost the plot. The absence of organisational depth meant the party could not encash the anti-incumbency sentiment. The Congress had no popular state-level leader whom it could project. Moreover, its fight wasn’t against the local incumbent government — it was against Modi. It is one thing to tell voters to vote out a state government, it is quite another to convince them to vote against a party whose leader is the Prime Minister. The Congress did put up a fight and managed to make an impression, but it was unable to overcome those formidable odds.

Coalition-building side-effects

By 2012, the Congress in Gujarat had been reduced to being a party of only Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims, though it did retain a smattering of Kshatriya and Koli support too. It sought this time to broadbase itself through alliances with young leaders from the Kshatriya and Patidar communities. But the Kshatriyas remained divided between the two parties — and the Congress’s attempt to win over Patidars by extending support to the demand for reservations did not produce results. The euphoria generated by the speeches of Hardik Patel notwithstanding, the larger proportion of Patidars chose to stay on with the BJP. Had they moved away, political configurations in the state would have been altered fundamentally.

At the same time, the Congress lost some crucial support among Dalits and Scheduled Tribes. Thus, while the party failed to add new social sections in order to create a broader social coalition, the efforts that it made in that direction ended up alienating in part its supporters. So, while the Adivasi vote was split almost equally between the two parties, among Dalits, a sizeable section voted for the BJP. Even in its truncated victory, then, the BJP may have gained for the long term — its base has become broader than before. As a typical dominant party, the BJP can now claim to represent an umbrella coalition of most sections of society. Barring Muslims, of course.

While the BJP does not seem to have made any effort to win Muslim votes, its share of the vote among Muslims has, in fact, increased marginally — one Muslim in every four now votes for the party. The Congress did not make an effort to retain and consolidate its base among Muslims, which is likely to have resulted in a relatively low turnout in the community. In constituencies with a relatively large Muslim presence, the overall vote share of the Congress has actually gone down.

An odd class equation emerges

Just as this election has upset social equations in Gujarat, it has upset class equations, too. Most notably, as a result of the anger in the trading community, the Congress has suddenly emerged as a party that is supported more by traders and the middle-income groups rather than the poor, while the BJP has fairly uniform support across all social classes.

As the campaign and the surveys indicated, behind the outcome of the Gujarat election lies a strong churning in Gujarati society. The BJP’s truncated majority and the Congress’s newfound strength are but intermediate stages in this churning. Both the new government and the opposition will be watching the emerging faultlines in society.

The double victory notwithstanding, the outcome in Gujarat would surely make the BJP uneasy. It has failed to convert its high voteshare into seats, and the winning coalition that has so far backed it solidly, is crumbling.