Gujarat Elections: Will the Voter Distinguish between the Good, Bad & Ugly?
KS Muralidharan
Every election decides the winner, but for perhaps the first time, the Gujarat Assembly elections will decide who will end up as the runner-up: Congress or the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
For all the energy and enthusiasm that AAP is investing — real, perceived and fake — the return of the BJP to power is a given, and the only point of contention is whether it will break all its previous records, or whether it will come up with a hassle-free, factory-grade victory.
The conventional logic holds that AAP will be a vote-splitter and divide the anti-BJP vote. But the larger question is, will it bankrupt the Congress vote and reduce the grand old party into a rump.
In the 2017 assembly elections, the Congress got a solid 41% of the vote. How much of it is going to be swayed by the Kejriwal factor is going to be the story of this election.
Another related question is, will AAP also eat into a slice of the BJP vote? It cannot be ruled out, for there will always be a churn in voter preferences when a party is in power for over 3 decades.
The short history of AAP reveals that when people fall for its promise, they fall big and flat out. Consider how Delhi and later Punjab gifted it historic mandates. Adding to this enigma is the fact that very few pollsters could correctly read the tea leaves and foresee its magic working with the people.
AAP’s success requires a political vacuum, which was there in Delhi, followed by Punjab and now in Gujarat, so far as the opposition space is concerned. In Delhi, AAP’s resurgence coincided with the rapid decline of the Congress. The story repeated itself in Punjab, heightened by the TINA (there is no alternative) factor.
In Gujarat, while the BJP is in fighting mode and not giving an inch, the Congress has more or less surrendered without even a semblance of a fight.
For a party that has consistently got nearly 40% of the vote, this is nothing short of political hara-kiri. A BJP-like effort or at least the kind of fight it put up in the previous assembly election would have at least kept AAP in the margins, and helped it mount a respectable challenge to the BJP.
This was also very much needed for the Congress, considering the forthcoming electoral battles it has to face directly with the BJP in Rajasthan and Chattisgarh, the only States where it is ruling on its own, followed by Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh.
Still, the Congress preferred to give a free pass to the BJP in Gujarat. It has preferred to be reduced to a potential non-entity by virtually strengthening the AAP by default, and vacating the main opposition space.
The question baffling political analysts is, is the Congress so devoid of strategy that it deliberately chooses to abdicate is responsibility as a political alternative and run away from the battle? Has the party’s brains trust completely surrendered to Rahul Gandhi? Is it not a national joke that Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra is missing in the electoral battlefield of Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, while meandering along elsewhere?
Since this level of stupidity is not expected from a 137 year old party, one has to give the benefit of doubt (!) and presume that there is a method in this madness. But the penny drops here.
Does the Congress want to defeat the BJP, not on its own, but by hiding behind AAP?
It is clear that Congress is desperate to see BJP defeated before the Lok Sabha elections in 2024, at any cost. Since it knows that it is past its expiry date as far as winning against the BJP is concerned, it is perhaps pinning all its hopes on a black swan like AAP victory in Gujarat, and at its own cost!
Recent history shows us that only AAP can pull off a black swan kind of win — like in Delhi and Punjab.
And imagine the optics of a BJP defeat in Gujarat — the unquestioned bastion of Modi-Shah. As black a swan as it can get.
If Modi-Shah can be defeated in Gujarat, then 2024 can turn into a real f(r)ight for the BJP.
If indeed such is the thinking in Congress, it must be said that it is firmly under the grip of Rahul Gandhi, for it is his idea to keep his Bharat Jodo Yatra out of the electoral road, and give up the fight to the AAP against the BJP.
However, just like how the BJP’s voter appeal is more often than not underestimated by the pollsters, the AAP too is now in that enigmatic position. Recall that few pollsters if any saw its tsunami coming in Delhi and Punjab.
So, AAP cannot be taken lightly in Gujarat. And the reason for that is two-fold. While the Congress is certainly its hidden pall-bearer, its trademark freebies card should not be treated with disdain.
Irrespective of the demographic of a state, there is a sizable section of the voters which is vulnerable to such incitement.
AAP leaders are going around literally promising the moon to the voters by distributing written assurances like a promissory note, and offering as much as a ridiculous sum of Rs 30,000 per month to each family! To say that people will not fall for it is in all probability ideological stickiness masquerading as touching faith in the voter. Money talks loud and deep, and irresponsible and over-ambitious leaders like Arvind Kejriwal know this.
A BJP win in Gujarat is good for the country, because it will prove that people are not as irresponsible and greedy as leaders like Kejriwal.
On the other hand, if AAP even does well enough to position itself as the leading contender for BJP in 2024 and in Gujarat in its next assembly elections, it will be bad news, for it will show that the Indian voter is vulnerable to the freebie culture.
But if the Congress miraculously holds its ground in Gujarat, even though ti can’t deter the BJP, it will come as a huge relief. For it will show that Indian democracy, warts and all, is mature enough to distinguish between the good, bad and the ugly.