Politics of negativism has its limit

The results have thrown up a pattern that even the best of pollsters failed to visualise. In fact, their predictions went horribly wrong. In any elections of such a magnitude, there is more than one layer of factors at work. Some layers are on the surface and some under it.

There cannot be a simplistic generalisation in terms of mere anti-incumbency factor. After all, states like West Bengal, Delhi, Tripura, Orissa (ruled by BJP and its ally Biju Janata Dal), Maharashtra, Bihar, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh could by and large blunt anti-incumbency.

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Certainly, the triumphant return of Sonia Gandhi-led Congress and the defeat of BJP-led National Democratic Alliance defies any single and simplistic analysis.

But broadly, the main messages sent out loud and clear by the electoral outcome are: (1) Congress has struck the right alliances, (2) has kept its ears closer to ground socio-economic realities, (3) BJP took recourse to an artificial wave of "India Shining" campaign on the economy whose growth bypassed the vast majority. (4) used cynical methods to try and corner rivals and (5) relied excessively on the image of Atal Bihari Vajpayee that did not sell much.

The BJP, which used to take pride in roping in regional parties as allies and shedding its tag of politically untouchable, saw at least 10 of its partners parting ways with it a few months before the elections. It did little to stop them.

Congress, on the other hand, firmed up alliances with regional players. In some cases, the party did that burying its hatchet with parties like NCP in Maharashtra, which was formed in 1999 on the plank of opposition to Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin and DMK in Tamil Nadu and Telengana Rashtra Samiti in Andhra Pradesh.

It may be recalled that Congress had pulled the rug of a federal coalition government headed by H D Devegowda in 1997 on the issue of suspected links of DMK, one of the components of that government, with the assassins of Sonia Gandhi's husband Rajiv Gandhi.

When BJP chose a new ally in AIADMK it was a disastrous decision considering the fact that it was risking the prospect of double anti-incumbency in the form BJP being in power at the Centre and AIADMK governing Tamil Nadu. The poll result in Tamil Nadu showed how bad the alliance decision was as neither BJP nor AIADMK won a single parliamentary seat in Tamil Nadu.

The BJP has also realised that Hindutva and its most prominent mascot Narendra Modi, Gujarat Chief Minister, cannot override bread and butter issues. How else does one explain the party's decline from 26 parliamentary seats to 14 in Gujarat, considered the laboratory of Hindutva just two years ago?

Brand Modi also failed to click wherever he had gone for campaigning -- Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi, the states where the BJP received solid drubbing. In the vote-rich Uttar Pradesh, which has the highest number of 80 parliament seats, the party fared worse than in 1999, finishing fourth, behind even its arch rival Congress. Uttar Pradesh was one state to win which the BJP had pulled out all stops.

During electioneering, Vajpayee sang praises of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and harped on "ideological similarity" with his party in a bid to split the crucial 17 percent Muslim votes in Uttar Pradesh. It was considered as the use of a political tool out of desperation that did little to help BJP in the end.

In many constituencies with sizable presence of Muslim electorate, the BJP leadership spoke of improving relationships between communities in the context of thaw in ties between India and Pakistan. None resented the talk of communal harmony but wondered why it was placed in the context of India-Pakistan relations. This pleased neither of the two communities.

The BJP no doubt sought to woo the Muslims but the way it went about doing this had raised suspicions in the minds of the members of the community.

The BJP tried to repackage itself to the minorities first by putting its core ideological issues on the backburner and then by placing them in the larger context of egalitarianism like uniform civil code in the form of gender equality.

But one issue that has rankled not only Muslims but also Hindus is why Vajpayee government had failed to act against Narendra Modi government after the riots there in 2002.

The stunning electoral meltdown of BJP left little doubt about an undercurrent of disenchantment with the party's governance and its shrill campaign against Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin, that had often bordered on arrogance, spoke more of desperation than conviction.

The BJP spoke about seven to eight percent economic growth, mobile telecom, information technology, record foreign exchange reserve and promised to make India a super power by 2020. But a vast majority of two thirds population not only in rural India but even the urban middle class refused to buy its claims, given the ground reality to the contrary.

On the other hand, Congress refrained from making tall claims and promises but only talked of addressing the immediate basic needs of the people and shunned personal attacks. After all, politics of negativism has its limits.

The Vajpayee government announced a series of sops in its interim budget shortly before deciding to advance the elections in February that were primarily aimed at wooing the urban middle class and the corporate sector. Promises were made also for the farmers. But the results clearly indicated there were few takers for them.

It would be wrong to say that only the rural electorate went against BJP. Look at the top urban centers -- Delhi, Bombay, Chennai and Kolkata -- where the party suffered electoral rout.

In Bombay, three BJP heavyweights Petroleum Minister Ram Naik, junior minister Jayantiben Mehta as also Parliament Speaker Manohar Joshi of Shiv Sena -- were humbled by greenhorns of Congress. In Delhi, BJP lost six of the seven seats to Congress. In Kolkata, BJP ally Trinamool Congress could win just one of the four seats and in Madras, AIADMK, another saffron poll partner, could not win a single seat.

The BJP sought to vigorously push for reforms with its concomitant cost like paying for utility services and abolition of subsidies on essentials without caring to think that all these lofty talks are fit for societies with strong social security nets.

The BJP had gone into the elections as a face off between brand Vajpayee versus Sonia Gandhi and media popular ratings had put the BJP leader far ahead of the Congress chief. But the poll outcome clearly brought out that the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty magic faced up to brand Vajpayee and neutralised the issue of foreign origin.

In fact, analysts consider it as an astute move to bring Nehru-Gandhi family's youngest member Rahul into electoral fray and his sister Priyanka in campaigning in Uttar Pradesh.

The result was there for all to see. The Gandhi siblings drew enthusiastic response whenever they traveled across large impoverished tracts of the state and it was reflected in the results as Congress finished third ahead of BJP in terms of tally of seats in Uttar Pradesh. It was an impressive comeback considering the fact that Congress came back from a point of near-decimation in the previous elections in 1999.

The powerful appeal of Nehru-Gandhi dynasty was implicitly acknowledged by BJP when they paraded their own "Gandhis" in Varun and Maneka, kins of Iate Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, by roping them in the party-fold.

Interestingly, two politicians -- Narendra Modi and BJP ally in Tamil Nadu and AIADMK supremo Jayalalitha -- who most passionately tried to transform the election into a Vajpayee versus Sonia tussle were rebuffed by voters who preferred to vote on development issues.

Jayalalitha had caused strong resentment among the middle classes in Tamil Nadu by her high-handed action of dismissing thousands of government employees who had gone on strike and cutting some of their perks. Her party failed to win a single of the 39 parliamentary seats in this election in the state, an unprecedented dubious distinction.

Modi's decision to hike power tariff angered farmers in Gujarat, drew a storm of protest not only from his critics but even from RSS-backed peasants' wing.

Finally, a word about the contrasting style of campaign by BJP and Congress that also contributed in no small measure to the electoral outcome.

While BJP leader L K Advani traveled in a high-tech air-conditioned vehicle on his "India Rising" campaign across the country and BJP played Vajpayee's recorded message to the people over mobile phones and laptops, Sonia and Rahul undertook electoral road shows hitting the dusty roads of rural India establishing closer contact with the commoners. This, analysts feel, helped in a big way to take the bite off the BJP's campaign against Sonia as the "videshi bahu."

Pallab Bhattacharya is The Daily Star's Correspondent based in New Delhi