Assembly election results 2022: Making sense of the 'waveless' BJP sweep

Many had not seen the ‘wave’ of BJP that has hit four of the five states that went to the polls recently. It was being said that the Samajwadi Party, which had woven a string of backward caste alliances, could upset the BJP in Uttar Pradesh, a state that sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha.

It was also widely believed that Uttarakhand would stick to the trend of unseating the party in power, particularly when the BJP had to replace two chief ministers in quick succession to beat anti-incumbency.

However, the results surprised all such analysts. On a TV channel, I heard commentators say that no wave in favour of the BJP was visible in UP. The results were a shock for observers.

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The key takeaway from the present election is that the phase of BJP waves that can be sensed is over. The reason: a wave is sensed when there is change. One could sense a wave of the Aam Admi Party in Delhi a few years back. So could one sense a wave of Narendra Modi in 2014, when settled trends of voting for a few decades were reversed and the BJP swept states across the north, western and central India.

However, there comes a time when a party becomes a default choice for significant sections of voters. When this happens, no wave is felt even by the most astute of observers.

In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP seems to have attained that status in its fourth consecutive victory, if we put both Lok Sabha and Assembly elections together.

A significant section of voters may seem disgruntled or not display enthusiasm. But when it comes to casting their votes, the BJP comes to their mind as a default option.

Consider western UP, a term loosely used for the sugarcane belt and the potato belt, if we take out parts of Ruhelkhand, which are also technically in western UP. There was a perception in the run-up to polls that the agitation against the farm laws, which saw the Ghazipur border between Delhi and UP being blocked for a year, would sink the BJP in the so-called Jat belt of the state.

Yet, the Rashtriya Lok Dal, a party that sees the late Chaudhary Charan Singh as its icon, won just eight of the 33 seats it contested. It seems that votes of the Jat community split in favour of the BJP, and the SP-RLD alliance could not deliver in western UP. Once the farm laws were repealed, old memories of the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots seem to have returned to haunt Samajwadi Party. And another point of convergence between the BJP and the Jats, who are known to join the armed forces in large numbers, is the pitch of hyper-nationalism that the BJP has made on its own in recent years.

Similarly, Akhilesh Yadav’s roping in of nine MLAs from small OBC castes, who quit the BJP months before polls, could also not work wonders. Samajwadi Party did increase its tally and vote share, but not to an extent that could damage the BJP much. The old logic that Samajwadi Party when in power catered only to the Yadavs while talking about OBC empowerment came back to haunt the party. The lower OBCs, a string of castes that were till years back not committed to a single party, seem to have become a stable vote base of the BJP irrespective of which party prominent political faces from this block join. There seems to have been some shift of these votes from the BJP to SP, but not to the extent that the SP could storm to power.

What are the reasons for the BJP becoming a default option for a significant section of voters?

This seems to have worked in Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur, where the BJP has retained power, and also in UP. Voters seldom want to cast a wasted vote, and the belief that the BJP will retain power in 2024 makes many vote for the party even in assembly elections.

In Uttar Pradesh, an additional factor also seems to have worked for the BJP. The BSP is on the decline and most of its voters, barring the Jatavs to an extent, are no longer seeing it as a viable option. In such a context, they had to choose between the SP and the BJP, the only two contenders for power.

However, memories of the adversarial relations with SP since the 1990s — in 1995, Mayawati herself was attacked in a guest house in Lucknow by members of the Samajwadi Party — seem to have made significant sections among Dalits choose the BJP over SP. Apart from the split among Jats, this seems to have balanced the demographic advantage that the SP-RLD alliance had in western UP, where the BJP has surprised most observers to do well.

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With the infighting within the Congress costing it Punjab – after the ill-timed move of the party to side with Navjot Sidhu in his agenda to unseat Captain Amarinder Singh, after which Sidhu trained his guns at Charanjeet Singh Channi – the Congress seems to be going into a terminal decline and may witness more leaders quitting the party. The more the Congress degenerates, the more powerful will the perception of the BJP as a default option for voters grow. For, it will take a long time for a party like AAP or TMC to be able to build a solid vote base across multiple states. And even as they try to do so, they will only nibble at the dwindling vote base of Congress across the country.

In the intervening period, till Congress is either replaced or somehow tries to regain its lost charm, the BJP will stay a default option and is likely to repeat its performances, particularly in Lok Sabha polls. And the longer this pattern holds, there will be no visible pro-BJP wave. The country will go back to the 1950s when Congress easily swept poll after poll without a discernable Nehru wave.

Waves mark changes. What we are settling for as a polity is a prolonged status quo.

The author is a political commentator and media educator

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