THE NEXT CHALLENGE: R JAGANNATHAN

The implications of the Gujarat verdict and the lessons to be learnt by both the BJP and the Congress

The narrow Gujarat win and the big win in Himachal Pradesh place the BJP in a degree of comfort for 2019, and even potential losses in the 2018 elections — in Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh — cannot change that script. Reason: In 2019, people will be voting for Modi, and not Shivraj Singh Chauhan or Vasundhara Raje or B S Yeddyurappa. This is why Gujarat was a state the BJP could not afford to lose. A loss here, even if there were wins elsewhere, would have weakened Modi more than anything else.

But the BJP has a huge challenge ahead and must learn the right lessons from the Gujarat scare.

First, it’s the economy, stupid. In the last three-and-a-half years, the central government has not been able to reverse the slowdown or enable job creation. It simply has not come to grips with this challenge. This has to be priority No 1 in 2018.

Second, the party has been taking its core Hindu and business vote for granted — which is why the PM had to tug at the Hindu chord and rush to fix the goods and services tax pain points towards the end of the election campaign. The danger is that the BJP should not now let things slide to a point where communal polarisation gets out of hand by 2019. The Congress has realised that it cannot be seen as a pro-minority, anti-Hindu party, which may push the BJP to take more extreme positions on wooing back the Hindu vote. The Gujarat vote marks a split in the BJP’s Hindu vote bank for the first time since 2002.

Third, the BJP has to learn the same lesson that the Congress has refused to learn: State elections need visible state leaders and leaders should not be imposed from above. This, unfortunately, is what the BJP did by imposing Vijay Rupani as Gujarat CM, and he has duly failed to enthuse the cadre and even came close to losing his seat. The BJP clearly needs a state leader who has the support of the local party and who looks to be his own man and does not look to Delhi for rescue every time he gets into a political jam. The state government’s inability to handle the Patidar challenge is the direct result of this lack of credible local leadership.

For the Congress, the lessons are simple.

First, as the challenger party, it has to focus on the government’s failures and not on proving whether Rahul Gandhi is a genuine Janeu-dhari Hindu or not. By shifting focus to the Hindu identity, it is playing on the BJP’s turf. The only thing it needs to ensure is to stop encouraging minority communalism to reap a bloc Muslim vote.

Second, it needs to develop local leaders even more than the BJP. This lack might be what prevented it from making a decisive dash for victory, even when ground conditions were favourable, in Gujarat.

Third, it needs to worry about new challenges to its leadership from the rise of young and aggressive leaders like Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakor and Jignesh Mewani. Like the rise of Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi, these new leaders may well find more traction than the Congress in future. The rise in the Congress’ performance is a plus, but it has ridden on the shoulders of new youth leaders. The question is why they would want the Congress to gain from their efforts when they could be gaining political muscle themselves? Hardik Patel was not old enough to stand for elections this time. But in the next elections, he could be a candidate himself.

The BJP has been taking its core Hindu and business vote for granted — which is why the PM had to tug at the Hindu chord and rush to fix the goods and services tax pain points towards the end of the election campaign