Narendra Modi’s Political Appeal Continues in India

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s ability to win state elections appears to be as strong as ever. In state-level elections held on December 9 and 14, the BJP came back to power in Modi’s home state of Gujarat for a sixth consecutive time, having won all elections there since 1995. Meanwhile, in the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh, the BJP comfortably defeated the erstwhile nationally dominant Congress Party, further cementing its control over northern India – particularly the Hindi-speaking belt. With the victory in Himachal Pradesh, all the states which have Hindi as their official language are now governed by the BJP or its allies.

Interestingly, the outcome was fairly narrow in Gujarat, long considered a bastion of the BJP and its brand of Hindu nationalism, Hindutva. The BJP, led by Narendra Modi, won huge majorities in the 2002, 2007, and 2012 elections in Gujarat. However, Modi’s move to New Delhi in 2014 may have weakened the BJP’s brand somewhat in Gujarat, as he was replaced by distinctly less charismatic chief ministers: first Anandiben Patel, and then Vijay Rupani. Modi campaigned extensively in Gujarat, perhaps saving his party from defeat; it won 99 seats, out of 182, while the main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, won 77. In 2012, the BJP took 115 seats, and the Congress 61.

The BJP faced a particularly strong electoral offensive led by Rahul Gandhi, now president of the Congress, having ascended to that role in lieu of other alternatives from his party. Gandhi is the son, grandson, and great-grandson of prime ministers, and recently became head of his party, having been handed the baton from his mother, Sonia Gandhi. Although Rahul Gandhi had previously failed to be an effective campaigner – he often seemed bored by politics – he came into his own in this election, injecting energy into a party that has recently appeared to be in its death throes. Without his support, it is unlikely that the Congress would have won so many seats, especially as it lacks a notable local leader on the popular prime minister’s home turf.

The Congress was able to increase its support from numerous social and economic groups that have been drifting away from the BJP, perhaps sensing that the BJP was beginning to feel that it could take continuous electoral victories in Gujarat for granted. One such group was the state’s rural voters. While the BJP did well in urban areas, winning 36 out of 42 urban constituencies, it did significantly worse in rural areas. In 2012, the Congress won 57 seats in rural areas, as opposed to the BJP’s 77 seats. This time around, the Congress won 71 seats in rural areas, to the BJP’s 63. Rural voters were frustrated by, among other things, the slow completion of the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada river, which took three decades to complete.

Additionally, many businesses in the state were frustrated by a new goods and services tax (GST) introduced by Modi’s government in July. The tax was designed to provide India with a uniform tax regime and weed out inefficiency and corruption; however, many small business owners perceived the bureaucratic complexity of the paperwork required by the tax to be a sign of favoritism toward big businesses. As a result, evasion of the tax has grown in the state.

Finally, the Congress was able to gain support in Gujarat due to a caste-based movement led by Hardik Patel, who is only 24 years old and a fiery orator. The Patidar or Patel caste, a prosperous caste of merchants and traders, began agitating for Other Backward Class (OBC) in 2015, in order to obtain government benefits and reservations that would have otherwise been closed to them because of their high-caste status. In an interview with television channel NDTV after the election, Patel took credit for the Congress’ strong showing, stating: “I… won seats for the Congress. Their vote share went from 33 to 43 percent… that is because of me.” Patel will likely be an individual to watch in Indian politics; having acquired a taste for political power, he is likely to continue in that line of business, though he would have to broaden his agenda beyond caste-based agitation.

Meanwhile, the BJP won handily and ousted the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh, a small state of six million people in northern India, where the party took 44 seats out of 68 in the Legislative Assembly, as opposed to the Congress’ 21. Few of the issues that impacted the Gujarat election were at play in Himachal Pradesh. Now it remains to be seen if the BJP can expand into the few remaining states of eastern and southern India where it is not in power.

It also remains to be seen if the Congress Party’s strong performance in Gujarat was a fluke, driven by feelings of anti-incumbency, local caste-based politics, and a lackluster chief minister, Vijay Rupani. The BJP has been seeking a chief minister for the state who has a strong public appeal; various names have been brought up in this context, including Smriti Irani, a former actress and model who is currently the information and broadcasting and textiles minister of India. There is no doubt that if the BJP rests on its laurels, voters will drift away. The bigger question is if the Congress can profit from this. It is unlikely, given the popularity of Modi, and the BJP’s control of most of India’s important states, that the Congress will come to power nationally again in the 2019 general elections. However, the Congress, or some other opposition party, can prepare for a post-Modi future, when anti-incumbency feeling will almost certainly work against the BJP.

Despite the fact that the Congress did well in Gujarat, nothing can change the fact that it did not win there. Whatever its other faults, the BJP government in power in Delhi has performed better than the previous Congress government of Manmohan Singh, drastically reduced corruption, and pushed through some economic reform. This is a tough act to follow.

Ultimately, the onus remains on Rahul Gandhi to provide his party and voters with an ideological reason to vote against the BJP. In urban areas, where nationalistic feelings are strong among the middle class, and in rural areas, when individuals buy into a narrative of development over caste-based politics, the BJP almost always has an advantage, whereas the Congress must work on winning various minority religious and caste-based groups over to it in order to make gains. Additionally, other than the dynastic prestige of the Nehru-Gandhi family, there is little to hold the party together; its vaguely center-left ideology is more widow-dressing than anything else at this point. However, as the dominant party throughout most of independent India’s history, the Congress has the organization and name-recognition that will continue to allow it to contest – and sometimes win – local elections throughout India in a way that no other opposition party can manage.

If the Congress leadership can use its organizational capacity to excite enough voters to vote for it in tandem with the introduction of a more inspiring ideology, then it can contemplate future victories at the national level. Otherwise, the field remains open for other national opposition parties to emerge, or for regional parties to take the lead in contesting against the BJP. The recent elections in Gujarat show that while the BJP’s winning streak is slowing down, it nonetheless continues, because no other party can offer an ideology more attractive than the BJP’s combination of development and nationalism, a pan-Indian ideology that is unencumbered by caste and regionalism.