The Hindu : BJP sweeps Hindi heartland

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 05, 2003

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BJP sweeps Hindi heartland

Congress retains Delhi; Anti-incumbency trend in three states
Two new women chief ministers; Hindutva card not played

By Harish Khare

New Delhi Dec. 4. The Bharatiya Janata Party today scored a morale-boosting victory when it crushed the Congress in the Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh Assembly elections. Its juggernaut, however, halted in Delhi where the Congress comfortably retained its majority, defying the anti-incumbency pattern. These States had gone to the polls on December 1 and the counting of votes was taken up today.

The BJP's margin of victory in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan not only astounded the party's central leadership but also revived the talk of an early Lok Sabha poll, at least among the second-rung leaders.

In Madhya Pradesh, with Uma Bharti as its chief ministerial candidate, the BJP cruised to a two-thirds majority, bringing to an end Digvijay Singh's decade-long inning as Chief Minister. The BJP inflicted a compressive defeat on its traditional rival, the Congress. Its "no roads, no electricity, no votes" plank just managed to tap the public mood of disenchantment with the Digvijay Singh regime.

Sheila Dikshit in New Delhi.

Similarly, in Rajasthan, with Vasundhara Raje as its chief ministerial mascot, the BJP bucked history and crossed the 100-seat mark. The party had made an issue of the Government's drought relief management in the last five years. The incumbent Chief Minister, Ashok Gehlot, and the Congress eventually paid the price for incessant factional fights, which even the "high command" could not tackle. The unsettled Jats versus Gehlot dispute enabled the BJP to poach on this traditional Congress vote bank.

But the BJP's most satisfying victory came in Chhattisgarh where it found itself pitted against a resourceful rival in the Chief Minister, Ajit Jogi, and where the Dilip Singh Judev episode had threatened to upset all electoral calculations. The BJP was handicapped insofar as it had not projected any "chief ministerial candidate" against Mr. Jogi; but the party benefited from the strong undercurrent of resentment against Mr. Jogi and his son. Even the pre-poll survey and the post-voting exit polls were not able to capture the voter's sullen mood.

However, in Delhi the BJP magic failed to dislodge the Sheila Dikshit Government, despite the electorate's physical proximity to the Central Government. The Prime Minister and other Central Ministers had tried to impress upon the Delhi voters that the National Capital Region would experience better "development" if they were to vote for the same party that ruled at the Centre.

Vasundhara Raje in Jaipur.

But the BJP's old warhorse, Madanlal Khurana, failed to excite the cadre and his politics of negativism did not cut much ice with the voters.

The decisive victory notched up by the BJP on the "development" agenda (to the exclusion of what it calls its traditional emotive issues such as the Ayodhya dispute) is already being hailed as a triumph of the politics of development preferred by the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The saleability of this "development" theme is likely to be picked up by the second-rung leaders in the BJP who are keen that the party should opt for an early election (sometime in March/April, 2004).

Unexpected victory: PM

The Prime Minister, who left this afternoon for Nigeria to attend the Commonwealth Summit, conceded that the three-out-of-four win was unexpected. He told the accompanying mediapersons that the results were "unprecedented" and "unexpected".

"The Congress was in power in four States. Power has both advantages and disadvantages, but it appeared before the election that the Congress will win two States and the BJP will get two States," he said.

Mr. Vajpayee said the BJP had stressed issues that concerned the people such as electricity and roads and these became the biggest talking points. "Nobody made any reference to mandir or masjid," he added.

Uma Bharti in Bhopal.

Before the Prime Minister left for the airport, jubilant BJP leaders thronged his residence.

In particular, Mr. Vajpayee heard detailed reports from Pramod Mahajan, in-charge of Rajasthan, and Arun Jaitley, who had masterminded the party's campaign in Madhya Pradesh. After a brief conclave of the party managers, the BJP president, M. Venkaiah Naidu, told reporters that there had been no discussion about an early Lok Sabha poll.

For the Congress, the loss of the three States, especially Rajasthan, has come as a total shock. Its leadership was at a loss to explain away the comprehensive defeats in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

Raman Singh, BJP Chhattisgarh unit president, who could become chief minister.

The victory in Delhi in no way compensates for the loss in the other three States.

The drubbing it received should start the process of re-alignment of the non-BJP/NDA forces.

The victory in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan has restored the BJP's national political sustainability, which had become suspect after the collapse of the Mayawati (BJP-supported) Government in Uttar Pradesh.

The BJP's victory is expected to cast its shadow on the precariously-held Congress-ruled States such as Punjab, Maharashtra and Karnataka, as also it will have considerable bearing on the Andhra Pradesh poll in 2004.

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