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| Modi wave will yield results | | |
Sanjay Kaul
National projections based on notional presuppositions
hardly erode Narendra Modi's acceptability, whatever
the gentlemen psephologists would like us to believe Going by the spate of opinion polls about election outcomes, one would believe that elections are already upon us. Going by the spate of populist bills and decisions being rushed through, one would believe they are indeed upon us. But going by the results of what the polls show, one would believe that either the Congress has some death wish, it wants executed quickly, or that the nation is wishful that the tortuous reign of the UPA end quickly, and is goading it to hara kiri.
Either way, we are not complaining. Except, it really did not need the exertions undertaken by these well-meaning research companies to come up with what they have - the message has been clear for quite some time and you could read it in Braille if you could not otherwise because, clearly, the die has been cast. However, that does not explain some of the rather fanciful summations that have followed.
First, that the mandate is definitely anti-Congress but not pro-BJP; and the second, that seeing the prominence of regional parties, a more 'acceptable' figure than Narendra Modi would be required to knit a broader, consensual NDA. It will be a matter of deep interest to sociologists (who turn psephologists every five years) for some face time on TV that subliminal angst tends to get subsumed in a variety of interlocking issues until the ratiocinative element is all but decipherable. Such is the case today.
What began in qualified terms as a specific campaign by the BJP in the end of 2010 to crusade against the Congress' legendary weakness for corruption each time it is power, almost imperceptibly slipped into a morass of popular antipathy on issues ranging from price rise, to a failing economy, to falling exports, to industrial stagnation, to growing unemployment, to internal security concerns, to external affair disasters, to injured national pride, to crony capitalism, to cost of living concerns, to communal carping and back to corruption in no particular order in one wide sweep of the horizon. Polls seldom account for that rich a template of responses and instead throw up raw numbers that can leave you numb with their coded decimals.
Fortunately there is something called the "trend", and which is captured rather broadly in the national mood, as it is in the polls so undertaken. And it tells us that the UPA is lurching towards catastrophic decimation - to the relative advantage of the BJP. Naysayers' game The favourite part for naysayers begins now. They contend that estimates exhibited by polls seem to suggest that the BJP would garner enough to fly first past the post. But the rider is that it must enter into, or prepare for, a more roundabout way of managing its leadership issue - hinting that Modi may not be the man to lead under the circumstances. But look at what they are missing. Take Uttar Pradesh. Mulayam Singh's constituency has been compromised by son Akhilesh whose leadership is showing up hollow. Communal clashes have made record entries and governance has slipped into coma. The wounds Mayawati inflicted on the people are still too fresh and the Congress' reign at the Centre has been a compelling demonstration of how you could be caught with your hand in the till and still be unable to withdraw - from habit, greed or guilt.
Considered a cauldron of caste and religious agglomerations and the graveyard of national parties, every survey in UP predicts an exponential rise in the BJP's share of votes. No campaign moves yet from Modi, not even a visit, and pollsters are already projecting that even in a middling scenario the BJP could cream off 30 seats.
This is without a single shot fired. Whether this is indicative of the smell of Modi's leadership or some other unfathomable mystery, people are coming around to the view that the BJP is providing a comprehensive reason to constituencies everywhere to be a preferred substitute to the gerrymandering regional, casteist lot, or indeed that paragon of corruption and communal polarization, the Congress. Satisfied states Thereafter, you could find more evidence in another phenomenon, called the good governance dividend. Every state presently held by the BJP is resoundingly satisfied with the incumbent government. This has to be a startling fact for observers of voting patterns for never before has there been such a level of satisfaction related to incumbency.
This does not hold empirically if you look at the BJP's recent Himachal loss but it holds well enough for MP, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Punjab. On the other hand, Congress-ruled states have no such silver lining. Delhi and Haryana are potentially anti-incumbent. Rajasthan, for even hard-nosed Congress fans is a lost cause. Kerala is barely recouping after the Chandy controversy and Andhra Pradesh has split the traditional Congress bastions in shards. That leaves the Congress with a few seats in the North-east where trouble is brewing post Telangana; a certified blank in West Bengal; ditto in Orissa; ruination in UP, desperation in Jharkhand and asphyxiation in the rest of the country.
To make matters worse, it is turning out to be the kiss of death for its allies too. Modi mascot The argument against Modi as a mascot for good governance is as flawed as it is flippant. To imagine that a personality that unifies a party and its message, and captures the imagination of his countrymen will become the impediment to a greater collaboration with other parties is illogical and inverse to any theory of political agglomeration. Regional parties that imagine the fallout of the Congress' rout coming to their kitty understand the echo of the popular desire. No party can go against the mood of the people.
No regional party is pompous enough to think that the mandate for them at the level of the state is a mandate for them at the centre.
Similarly, no party is naive enough to think that a mandate for them in the states within their sphere could be used as a mandate to bring back the Congress. A drop of almost 12 per cent in the Congress-led UPA's approval ratings is also a marker to the regional parties that have taken shelter under its roof. The antipathy towards Congress will be shared in equal parts by those that allow it to continue in office - they will be damaged by association, as we see clearly with SP and BSP in UP and DMK in Tamil Nadu. Everybody with common sense figures that this country is thirsting for stability, security and economic progress like never before; and that the BJP led by Modi is the only credible option before the nation. And if there were any doubt on these premises, there is finally also momentum, a favoured word in the study of electoral public opinion. The momentum that Modi has created for himself, the BJP and the idea of good governance is too compelling for voters to miss, and perhaps, too subtle for psephology to capture.
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