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Riding the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who spearheaded his party’s high-octane campaign in Gujarat, the BJP swept aside all opposition Thursday to return to power at the head of a record landslide in his home state where it has never lost an election since 1995.
Results of election to the 182-member Gujarat Assembly gave the BJP 156 seats, bettering the 1985 record of the Congress under Madhavsinh Solanki when it won 149 seats, and the BJP’s own best of 127 seats in 2002 when Modi was Chief Minister.
The Congress was a distant second with 17 seats, the AAP scored 5 on debut and Others accounted for the remaining 4 seats.
But the BJP lost Himachal Pradesh to the Congress and Chief Minister Jairam Thakur resigned after conceding defeat – the state has not returned any ruling party to power since 1985.
In the House of 68, the Congress won 40 seats while the BJP trailed with 25. The AAP failed to open its account and three independents took the remaining three seats.
Even in defeat, the BJP managed to secure a vote share of 43 per cent, marginally lower than the 43.9 per cent of the Congress – a point underlined by Prime Minister Modi and BJP president JP Nadda who, while accepting the Himachal Pradesh mandate, said the difference was less than 1%.
Addressing BJP workers, who had gathered at the party headquarters in New Delhi for the Gujarat victory celebrations, Modi said, “Gujarat ne toh kamaal kar diya (Gujarat has done wonders).”
India’s future, he said, lies in “bringing down the faultlines” not by “promoting the faultlines”. He attributed the win in Gujarat to the party’s focus on “development”.
“The BJP has got the mandate of the people at a time when India has entered the Amrit Kaal. It has the support of the poor, Dalit, Adivasi, the exploited. People have voted for BJP because it has the strength and ability to take big decisions, strong decisions… I congratulate Naddaji, all BJP workers and the people of Gujarat. I had told people to break Narendra’s record… all records have been broken. Gujarat’s people have scripted history. This is unprecedented. People rose above caste, community, all kinds of division to vote for the BJP,” he said.
Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel credited the Prime Minister for the party’s “historic victory”.
Gujarat BJP president C R Paatil said Bhupendra Patel would continue as Chief Minister and the swearing-in ceremony would be held on December 12.
Party sources said the message that the BJP will take from these elections is that it should keep the focus on strengthening the organisation, booth-level upward.
“Prime Minister, (Home Minister) Amit Shah and Nadda have been repeatedly asserting that only a strong organisation can bring the party back to power and retain dominance,” a BJP leader said.
Before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, there are crucial elections in the states, among them Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. While the BJP has been focusing on the organisation in Madhya Pradesh, it will now turn to its other state units as well, sources said. “With micromanagement at the booth level proving to be a success formula, the thrust of the party’s electioneering will be on that,” the leader said.
Modi’s message after the results also echoed that. To the party workers in Gujarat, Modi, in a Twitter post, said, “I want to say – each of you is a champion! This historic win would never be possible without the exceptional hard work of our Karyakartas, who are the real strength of our Party.”
“Thank you Gujarat. I am overcome with a lot of emotions seeing the phenomenal election results. People blessed the politics of development and at the same time expressed a desire that they want this momentum to continue at a greater pace. I bow to Gujarat’s Jan Shakti,” he said.
On Himachal Pradesh, he said: “I thank the people of Himachal Pradesh for the affection and support for the BJP. We will keep working to fulfil the aspirations of the state and raise people’s issues in the times to come.”
For the Congress, there are many takeaways. Although Himachal Pradesh is small, the party has won a Hindi-speaking state after four years – and break its cycle of defeats.
Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, on which the party is spending all its energy and focusing all its attention, has had little impact on the elections. Rather, the Himachal Pradesh verdict has proved that a localised campaign was the antidote to Modi’s highly personalised campaign.
The Congress campaign in Himachal was centred around promises to restore the Old Pension Scheme (OPS), creation of one lakh jobs to tap into the anxieties of the youth over lack of jobs and the Agniveer recruitment scheme, and financial assistance of Rs 1,500 to every woman in the state.
AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra led from the front and the party rolled out a disciplined campaign around the manifesto themes. This, despite the fact that the party did not have a charismatic face in the state. In fact, the Congress has no leader with a pan-Himachal appeal.
And the near identical vote share that the BJP has managed signal that it still has tremendous appeal among people in the state and it can bounce back in the general elections if the Congress is complacent.
The Congress’s Gujarat campaign may well become an example of how not to approach an election – in complete contrast to the party’s Himachal campaign. The decimation of the party in Gujarat shows it cannot take even the Opposition space for granted. It went into the elections without a proper narrative and campaign theme.
The lack of visibility and seriousness of the Congress helped the AAP create a narrative that the Congress was in no position to challenge the BJP. The result: AAP managed to secure 12.9 percent of the vote share and 5 seats.
