Hindustan Times (Lucknow)

BJP pays price for agrarian distress, employment crisis

- ▪ Kumar Uttam letters@hindustant­imes.com ▪

NEWDELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is disappoint­ed with Tuesday’s results to elections in five states but it hasn’t lost hope.

The party’s disappoint­ment stems from the fact that it has lost three chief ministeria­l chairs to rival Congress. It is for the first time after Narendra Modi’s coronation as Prime Minister in 2014 that Congress has snatched a state – three in this case – from the BJP.

But the party remains hopeful of a better show in the general elections next year when people vote to decide whether Modi remains Prime Minister or not. Assembly elections, party strategist­s insist, have different dynamics and are fought mostly on local issues.

The strategist­s admit they failed to anticipate the impact of Congress’s farm loan waiver promise in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisga­rh and Rajasthan. “The Congress managed to sway the rural population,” a senior BJP leader in Delhi said on the condition of anonymity.

“It had a huge impact in Chhattisga­rh. Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan were impacted, too.”

In Madhya Pradesh, unrest among upper castes over chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s strong pro-reservatio­n line, a tussle in the aftermath of the Supreme Court judgment diluting the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, and the killing of protesting farmers in police firing had an impact on the voters, according to election strategist­s.

As for Rajasthan, it was lost from day one, two other BJP leaders said, attributin­g this to the unpopulari­ty of chief minister Vasundhara Raje.

It was for the first time in a long time that the Centre and the states (Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisga­rh and Rajasthan) were aligned, said Neelanjan Sircar, senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, but voters felt not much had been done on the developmen­t front. “The BJP surely was without an excuse. We saw frustratio­n among farmers during the Gujarat assembly election, which has now spread

 ??  ?? ▪ End of long reign: Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Vasundhara Raje, Raman Singh were affected by anti-incumbency, among other factors.
▪ End of long reign: Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Vasundhara Raje, Raman Singh were affected by anti-incumbency, among other factors.
 ??  ??
 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from India