Politics: How India was painted saffron?
India has just finished her mammoth task of electing a leader. In the recently concluded elections, the NDA alliance led by Mr.Narendra Modi has won with a spectacular majority. Modi’s political rivals bit the dust with many regional satraps clueless on what had happened. BJP has won a majority on its own. It has been almost three decades since there was a government with an absolute majority.
Now let us see what has caused this phenomenon.
i) Planning and Preparation
ii) Execution
iii) Allegations without evidence
iv) Modi factor
i) Planning and Preparation:
BJP and its President Mr.Amit Shah started the groundwork for 2019 right from late 2017. This was evident from BJP’s ‘Look East’ policy where the part strengthened itself in the North-East. BJP didn’t have any base in the North-East before 2014. Aided by RSS and storing regional alliances, the party made storing inroads. Tripura which was once considered as a Left bastion fell into the BJP kitty. The latest addition to this is Arunachal Pradesh.
ii) Execution:
The execution was bang on during the campaigning phase. Different states were dealt differently. The party’s Hindutva image was reserved for few states and the development message was reserved for many other states. RSS was effectively mobilised in all the areas.
If we take a look at the campaigning strategy of Modi, we could observe that the focus was more on regions where the regional parties had strong presence. The plan was to grab a lion’s share from these states to compensate if Uttar Pradesh doesn’t add to the tally as expected. (Later, it turned to be that the BJP fared very well in the Uttar Pradesh too)
iii) Weak propaganda by the Opposition:
The Opposition was not able to bring a good propaganda (or) allegation against the Government. All they could do was make issues out of thin air. Rahul Gandhi to some extent tried to step up the attack against the Government but he didn’t get enough support neither from his allies nor from his own party.
iv) Modi factor:
Last but not the least, Modi factor played a very important role in blowing away the Opposition strategies. When corruption charges were levelled against Modi, it didn’t go well with the wider audience. They considered Modi as an aam aadmi who even kept his family at arm’s length away from power and luxury that he wielded right from the days of his Gujarat term.
All these factors in a resounding victory for the National Democratic Alliance.
