Nobody can be surprised that the latest pre-election survey has predicted a sweep for the Bharatiya Janata Party in Gujarat. But add to that the findings of the survey from Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and you have a cocktail of three states with a common thread of high growth. One of them is a former BIMARU state but it has swung upward on various indicators towards the top of the table on agricultural growth and GDP. Gujarat and Maharashtra are both highly urbanised states, all three are highly aspirational states, with an enthusiastic young electorate. And while Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh will see an overwhelming wave in support of the BJP, Maharashtra is veering in that direction too.
The findings of the Lokniti-IBN Election Tracker survey seem to suggest that the high growth states are particularly prone to the Modi factor. The Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh results may be no-brainers, but Maharashtra, where the Congress-NCP government that has been in power for three consecutive terms is battling a crippling double anti-incumbency against the UPA and the state government, is showing a rising Modi wave too. The lacklustre response to Narendra Modi's much-publicised December rally in Mumbai notwithstanding, the Modi wave in Maharashtra is undeniable, the survey findings show.
They suggest a clear rise in projected voteshare and seats for the BJP in the second biggest state in terms of the number of Parliamentarians it sends to Lok Sabha. The seats projection shows the Congress and NCP managing 12 to 20 seats, down from 25. The BJP and it's allies could win 25 to 33 seats of Maharashtra's 48. Is all of aspirational India warming up to Modi as their Prime Ministerial candidate?
Speaking during CNN-IBN's debate on the Lokniti survey's findings, columnist Swapan Dasgupta pointed out that while the data for these states suggest that they are a large catchment area for Modi, large parts of Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand are going the BJP way too. "Modi is being interpreted differently in different parts of India," Dasgupta said. The Telegraph's national political editor Manini Chatterjee also pointed out that it is in states where the BJP has a presence that there is a massive MOdi wave -- not witnessed in West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Assam or Kerala where the BJP is a non-entity.
Others on the panel disagreed with the contention that high growth and support for the BJP coincide, stating instead that each state is unique. For example, the lowest rating for Modi is in Kerala, the most educated state, while backward and rural parts of Rajasthan have seen rising support for the BJP leader too. "We still have to understand it," said sociologist Dipankar Gupta. "It's not simply aspirational and urban. Why is Kerala, an aspirational and urban state, so against Modi?"
Narendra Modi. AFP.
Having said that, there are five takeaways from Maharashtra's tilt towards Narendra Modi, and they are also incidentally important state-of-the-nation lessons for the Congress.
One, the vote for Modi in many parts of the country, as in Maharashtra, will be a vote-out of the Congress.
Maharashtra is perhaps the prime example of this -- three chief ministers in five years, a Congress MP himself taking on Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan over policy paralysis, pending projects across the state, mounting debt and now, me-too populism over electricity tariffs despite the hefty subsidy bill. "Maharashtra suffers from total inaction... No action on any front, no new idea no new project, the Congress-NCP government is only sitting on its old laurels," said senior journalist Kumar Ketkar, adding that the dependence on the success of Mumbai as a business powerhouse is counterproductive for the rest of the state and its backward regions.
Maharashtra has also bucked the trend of the BJP growing in stature in regions where it already has a strong base. Despite its lack of organisational strength in large parts of the state, the BJP will see an eight percent rise in its popularity.
According to Ketkar, globalisation, the free market economy and the 'mall culture' have had the maximum impact in Maharashtra with its more urbanised middle classes, migrants with a clean electoral slate, younger voters and voters with larger disposable incomes. The neo middle classes, even in rural regions like Satara, Sangli, Latur and Nanded with their children living in New York or London, are also hugely disappointed with Congress.
As Gupta put it, there is a middle class, a neo middle class and a knocking-on-the-door middle class. And they are voting for Narendra Modi because they feel let down by the most archetypal right-winger, Dr Manmohan Singh, the man closest to the US. Their vote for Modi is not a vote for Hindutva. "They are voting for Modi because they are not voting for the Congress."
Two, the anti corruption vote is a real thing.
As Dipankar Gupta said, the anti-corruption feeling in Maharashtra is very strong, and the NCP is a dysfunctional crutch, actually bringing down the Congress in the state. While about half of the respondents had not even heard of the Adarsh scam, indicating that the scam that cost Ashok Chavan his job as CM and possibly his political career too does not have much traction in rural Maharashtra, two thirds of those who knew about the scam believed that the government erred in rejecting the inquiry commission report indicting senior politicians and bureaucrats of misusing their position.
The NCP's apparent support to it's own men embroiled in the irrigation scam has tainted the junior partner in the coalition too.
Who gets the anti-corruption vote?
Lokniti's Prof Sandeep Shastri said, "In Mumbai, close to 15 percent of respondents said they would vote for AAP. This is just 10 percentage points less than the BJP and Congress." The anti-corruption mood in Delhi that led to AAP's success at the Delhi Assembly election may manifest differently in Maharashtra, perhaps as the anti-builder lobby sentiment in Mumbai, but the vote against corruption could cause an upset for the Congress in several critical Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra.
Three, the decimation of the Congress is clear.
If Kumar Ketkar's projections are to be believed, then all ten seats in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra -- a Congress stronghold for years, home to a serious agrarian crisis and high rate of farmer suicides -- could go against the Congress-NCP. Marathas are drifting away from the NCP even in its stronghold of Western Maharashtra. In fact, the Marathas' eroding support for the Congress-NCP is another sign of the party's slow demise in the state. Caste is no longer relevant, that Marathas are moving away from the Congress-NCP is a reflection of that. A young voter, possibly a migrant, with a clean slate as far as his politics is concerned, is not weighed down by historical political leanings of his caste.
"This is not an anti-incumbency," said Gupta. "That is too mild. It is a strong antipathy to the ruling combine," he said of the sense of gloom and doom within the Congress. Not only has the Congress not been able to recover from the defeats it suffered in December, but it's slide continues even in other states, including for example Maharshtra which could have been its last big bastion and chattisgarh where the congress and the BJP were neck and neck on counting day in December.
Dr Ramchandra Guha, author and historian, added that the nepotism in the NCP is a contributing factor to the decline of the Congress in Maharashtra. And with Sharad Pawar preparing for what could be a swansong, that too in the Rajya Sabha, no revival of the NCP is possible, the panelists suggested.
Four, AAP is not really the B team of the Congress.
In state after state, the Election Tracker has found that the AAP is cutting into the vote share of the Congress, belying the suggestion of the BJP that the debutante party is a Congress creation fielded to rob the BJP / NDA of a win. The anti-Modi vote is moving to AAP, which is replacing Congress as the platform for anti-BJP sentiments, according to Prof Shastri.
Of course, in every state where the Number 2 party is eroded by a new entrant, the Number 1 party is the "phenomenal beneficiary" as Dasgupta said. What's more, AAP is most likely to play spoiler, emerging not as a winner of seats even in Mahrashtra where its prospects are considered bright, but as one of the smaller players whose vote share would cut into that of prospective winners.
One thing AAP in Maharashtra will have to look out for: As Dr Guha said, "language is critical" and the party simply has no orators who can speak in Marathi. "you can't speak in HIndi or English and expect to win seats in Maharashtra, not even in south Mumbai," he said. Besides, AAP doesn't have a face in Maharashtra, something it will be mulling over the coming days.
And five, the country wants doers, not just clean and decent men.
If Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan is being called the Manmohan Singh of Maharashtra, it is not just for his background as a skilled technocrat. Here is a man with an impeccable personal record of integrity, he has put in place several processes in the Mahrashtra administration to promote transparency and to replace arbitrary decision making with scientific and systematic methods. And yet, Chavan is perhaps in the country's most unenviable chief ministerial chair.
Having taken over a debt-ridden state government amid the resignation of Ashoka Chavan over Adarsh, he has has an aggressive NCP swiping at his heels and a demoralised bureaucracy looking over its shoulder and more or less refusing to take decisions on key issues. Caught in the tussle between probity and politics, his own performance as chief minister is seen as less than dazzling, according to the survey results.
Without a mass base of his own, Chavan is also no Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who could carry some non-performing ministers on his shoulders and still swing a big victory.
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