After the elections in 2014 and 2019 when BJP obtained majority, one did expect a certain level of anti-incumbency. The opposition had come together in an intelligent manner. There were no contentious issues that could have helped or harmed BJP. Abrogation of Art 370 and Ram Mandir inauguration gave BJP some talking points. Yet the results were such that the debate was, the opposition, especially Congress had won. The mood created by media and BJP supporters within themselves was one of despondency and defeat. The opposition, especially Congress and Rahul Gandhi carried the day even if BJP had been the victor. How true is this perception?
For long Congress leaders kept talking of how more than 60% of India “rejected” BJP because the vote share of BJP was between 30 to 40 %. This same logic when applied to Congress, it had been rejected by 55% of the voters in the first election held after independence. Even in 1977 when everybody had come together to cobble up the Janata Party, they got a measly 43 % vote share.
There was a mathematical madness in this - except that what it needed was not coming together of disparate elements in a cause, but for someone to sacrifice BIG for the cause. I did touch upon this aspect in my earlier blog.
First, lets look at the number of seats contested by BJP and Congress.
In the last 10 years BJP increased the number of seats it contested by 3.3% but even at the lowest 427, it still contested 79% of the seats. The Congress on the other hand kept reducing and in 2024 dropped by a whopping 30% compared to 2014. In short Congress decided to sacrifice itself politically just so that Modi could be defeated. That strategy apparently worked since Congress ended up with 30% of its candidate’s winning elections. Of course there were many other factors, but this was key. But, did Congress really win? 2014 is used as the benchmark for this analysis.
The first figure in the
bracket is the average seats won in the last 2 elections and the second figure
is the gain/ drop in 2024 for the BJP. We find that 6 states have had an impact
in different ways.
Bihar, Haryana, Maharashtra – these were known to be challenging states to win big:
- Bihar analysis is difficult given the political gymnastics of Nitish Kumar.
- The farmers strike did have an impact in Haryana.
- The Shiv Sena that had IP rights over Hindutva and the family patriarch called Hindu Hriday Samrat (Emperor of Hindu Hearts), but the son flipped 180 Deg and dumped the Hindutva ideology bag and baggage. The BJP split the Shiv Sena and one did not expect big benefits.
- Given the history of Karnataka, both parties have stayed largely in their average positions.
- Odisha was the gold lining for BJP, they won big and this was unexpected given the reputation of Naveen Patnaik.
- Congress had various political challenges in Rajasthan and one expected BJP to do far better but this was a much lower than anticipated result for BJP.
In short the score card here read a drop of 20/ 28 seats though Rajasthan was the only state where the performance was not as expected.
Uttar Pradesh:
This was the sixer that Congress hit by their sacrifice. That made the contest almost a 2 party one. Given the level of activity, scorching pace of infra development, improvement in law & order, leadership, the end result sounded the deaths knell of BJP for even a simple majority. This was totally unexpected. Even the maths was not supposed to hurt BJP given its work and reelected in the state. BJP lost a whopping 34 seats which nobody anticipated, including those who visited the state multiple times over the last decade.
For all the arguments by the critics of BJP, fact is there was no negative change in any state, across India and ALL results were in-line with expectations, except Uttar Pradesh. Supporters of BJP need not feel despondent as the entire nation has maintained its support to the party. The UP blimp hurt BJP badly is fact. In the end, whatever the results in the other states, Uttar Pradesh was the key which BJP needs to ponder deeply and correct quickly.
When you consider that BJP won 312 seats in the 2017 UP assembly elections and dropped by 20% to 251 in 2022, a red flag should have gone up internally which in hindsight seems to have been missed. The euphoria clouded the slippery slope ahead and at least when Congress contested just 328 seats after talking of 255, alarm bells should have been sounding loud in BJP which apparently they did not.
The performance of Congress across India has seen improvement in Haryana, Rajasthan and Maharashtra but has remained static across India including Uttar Pradesh where they sacrificed in favour of Akhilesh Yadav. The maths combined with the sacrifice gave them 99 seats which is no cause for credit since that undermines the Congress as a national party. But the numbers are what ultimately matter. Congress in Jan'24 had indicated that they would contest only 255 seats, a drop of 45 % and if that decision had been implemented, who knows what could have been the outcome of the 2024 elections.
In the end, any election when based on first past the post system, any political party, however well meaning, will work towards dividing the voters, dividing the votes, and consolidating the votes. Which brings us to the clarion call of the opposition – caste census.
Caste Census:
Lets face facts – no political party is interested to address poverty and helping the poor, since they are the very basis for their political survival. There was a time when the word poverty was an award-winning with champagne word. The word has been flogged to death over decades. The west is cancelling the existence of gender itself to create a new paradigm for winning awards.
India started the reservation system and however well-meaning and essential, since the castes were equated with poverty, lack of opportunity and obvious discrimination, fact also is that it has over time deepened the fault lines in society. However rich, wealthy, powerful, the folks who were beneficiaries of the reservation system, they simply refuse to give up those perks. What has happened is that within the reserved class, the level of power some members wield is significant and this has caused fresh fissures within that group and a new “caste hierarchy” within this group.
Some who feel left out of this gravy train, clamour for being included in the reserved category so they can stake claim for power. Others within the reserved class feel the benefits have accrued to a few and the development lopsided. One oft repeated demand is to increase the 50% limit but that needs a constitutional amendment which is not easy. States have already crept way past this 50% in real terms with sleight of hand tricks. This move officially can bring about a conflict between the reserved and unreserved classes across the entire society.
Another option is to bring the private sector into this rule, but monitoring this would be a nightmare, capital will fly from the nation and the economy can collapse. Our politicians are NOT that stupid.
Reality is that, the so-called general class is hardly 30% of the population. 70% of the population based on how they identify themselves (as per a PEW research), are covered under this policy. Being a reserved class has become aspirational. Any idea to address this is fraught with serious risk of the reservation system itself being debated and that can hurt politically. What is the way out?
The 70% of population now eligible for reservation are one large group of about 1 billion people (out of 1.4) and the easiest way to break down the "hierarchy" in this is by doing a caste census. This will help identify smaller subgroups who are large enough in number to be wooed, cultivated and given primacy in political discourse. What the reservation system sought to end in society at large – the hierarchy of caste identity – is now a strong reality within the reserved category. They now need a “reservation” system within the "reserved" category to break these newly created hierarchies. The caste census is the only way this can be achieved. Note that poverty is no longer an argument.
The danger in this is a confrontation within the reserved class once a caste census is done and people clearly know who is getting what share of the pie and the perceived emotional losses. This is why even states who have got such surveys done are loath to publish it. They know the minefield in the numbers. Maybe it affects those in power themselves, their existing vote bank, those who run the party on the ground – in short we don’t know what we don’t know – because we have no access to the data and information on how these combine together to affect each political dispensation.
The impact of this if pursued seriously is a major caste conflict within the reserved category and we have seen enough and more incidents on what the consequences could be, when caste wars break out, though, it is the conflict with the general (upper) caste that is widely reported. The general category is seemingly out of this whole potential mess, and many could vicariously enjoy the outcome of such wars. But then such violence is never rational and for a large class fed on the story of exploitation for decades, the target of such violence could well be the general category who are in no way involved in the caste census or its outcome. Political parties could well find it expedient to direct this "internal" anger against the "external" general class by painting them as the devil as always.
The devil is in the details, and one way or other, this caste census can seriously derail the growth and economy of the nation. We are seeing how western nations are in turmoil with real or perceived issues related to sexual orientation, gender, colour of skin, identity, climate change, environment, religion, political ideologies, etc and even the developed nations are seeing ever increasing conflicts, protests resulting in violence. The social, economic and political policies being implemented by some of the most developed nations leave one gasping to understand the logic and rationale behind many such decisions. Every western society is now on simmer.
India could be hurt by the caste census conflict since India and Indians don’t seem to have much interest in the kind of issues which are keeping the western nations simmering. Whether a class of politicians and other powerful entities are actively stoking this fire to derail India's growth and development is a question that must be asked, even if the answers look like conspiracy theories.
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