Northeast verdict

This is with reference to the editorial, “Message from Northeast” (March 5). No doubt the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has reason to celebrate, but to hype it up as if it were a barometer of the national mood appears to verge on misplaced enthusiasm and euphoria. How the Assembly results qualify as saffron surge or saffron sweep, standout performance or conquest of northeast, is not quite clear.

With this round of elections, the north-east, hitherto “outside” the mainstream of Indian politics, has been mainstreamed. But to say that the results resonate far beyond the states and herald major shifts in Indian politics is to misread the dynamics of political change in India. The BJP tapped anti-incumbency to the hilt, consolidated all anti-Left votes, co-opted disgruntled Congress heavyweights and made an opportunistic alliance with the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) to win in Tripura which is predominantly Hindu, unlike Nagaland and Meghalaya which are Christian-majority. To what extent the Assembly results can be construed as an endorsement of the Central government’s vikas and acche din is a matter of opinion. It should not be forgotten that polls to Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh precede the 2019 general election.

As the political arm of the RSS, the BJP is now a formidable election machine, ever battle-ready. It is noticeable that the party tones down its core Hindutva ideology whenever it becomes necessary to make inroads into virgin territories. More importantly, it has been successful in making the impoverished masses into believing that it is a party for them, even if not by them. Its campaign style is not the same as it is in the Hindi belt. The BJP fancies bagging a substantial number of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the north-east in 2019 and doing a Tripura in Kerala, West Bengal and Odisha. Time alone will tell if they are attainable goals or just wishful thinking.

G David Milton Maruthancode