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By protecting the Sanatana Dharma row alive and including the Ayodhya temple consecration scheduled for January 22 and including the free darshan promise from 4 polled states to all the nation, the BJP might have a self-fulfilling concoction, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
IMAGE: Bharatiya Janata Social gathering chief Narendra D Modi shakes palms with a baby as BJP supporters attempt to take selfies on the social gathering headquarters in New Delhi, December 3, 2023. {Photograph}: Shrikant Singh/ANI Picture
Whether or not the impression was actual and direct or not, campaigning for the current five-state meeting elections did in truth carry out the very best and worst in southern Tamil Nadu’s Dravidian politics, nay, what the ruling DMK within the state has titled because the ‘Dravidian mannequin’.
Thus you had the primary victor Bharatiya Janata Social gathering taking up Tamil Nadu Minister and Chief Minister M Okay Stalin’s son, Udhayanidhi Stalin, on his criticism of ‘Sanatana Dharma’ Hinduism and on the similar time adopting the state authorities’s social welfare measures with out acknowledging them, that too after none aside from Prime Minister Narendra Modi calling all of them revdi, or freebies, when it’s not election time anyplace within the nation.
In a method, the BJP’s victory within the three Hindi heartland states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan with the social gathering snatching energy from the Congress rival in two states in what primarily was a one-to-one combat has a profound that means for the Lok Sabha elections.
After the Janata Social gathering victory of 1977, there may be proof on the bottom which you could rule India on legit grounds and thru democratic elections with the backing of the Hindi heartland.
IMAGE: Congress cutouts on the social gathering’s Vijayabheri Sabha at Tukkuguda in Rangareddy district, Telangana. {Photograph}: Mohammed Zakir/ANI Picture
It turns into much more important after the Congress rival taking again Telangana after ten years of Okay Chandrasekhar Rao’s rule.
Going again in time, if the BJP had initially supported the demand for a separate Telangana, which in the end the Congress authorities of then prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh granted nearly in a single day by a midnight declaration of then Union house minister P Chidambaram, there was a method behind it.
As per the BJP calculations of the time, after a time period or two for the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, since rechristened as Bharat Rashtra Samithi underneath KCR, the state might develop into theirs, given the substantial Muslim presence and the ‘inevitable domination’ of anti-Muslim sentiment amongst majority Hindu voters.
The election outcomes now have proved in any other case. By dilly-dallying on corruption points referring to the BRS leaders, and particularly giving the impression that it was utilizing the case in opposition to KCR’s daughter Kavitha, to arm-twist the social gathering than to carry it accountable, the BJP gave away the state to the Congress on a platter.
By taking a transparent stand in opposition to the BRS, in contrast to the BJP, the Congress made it regardless of not having one too many robust leaders within the state.
This additionally opens up potentialities in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, the place meeting polls are due earlier than the Lok Sabha polls. It can now be left the Election Fee to determine on holding it individually or together with the Lok Sabha election.
IMAGE: Modi welcomed by Andhra Pradesh Governor former Justice S Abdul Nazeer and Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy on his arrival at Tirupati. {Photograph}: ANI Picture
The BJP doesn’t have any authorities or early hopes throughout south India, barring being the junior associate within the Union Territory of Puducherry, the place the NR Congress of Chief Minister N Rangaswamy holds sway.
The NR Congress broke away from the Congress guardian a decade or so in the past, and nobody is considering a patch-up now or ever. That will go away the BJP really feel secure.
Previous to the BJP’s electoral victories within the three northern states, the NRC may need thought of selecting a ‘secular’ path to contest the Lok Sabha polls by itself however now it may need misplaced the urge for food to take action.
However then, nobody is speaking concerning the BJP and the ruling YSR Congress of Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy doing a back-handed deal for the approaching elections regardless of all of the unconditional assist it has supplied the Modi authorities within the two Homes of Parliament.
It doesn’t make electoral sense as nearly all YSR Congress voters are wedded to the normal Congress ideology as Maharashtra’s Sharad Pawar as soon as discovered himself in, after breaking away from the Congress and regarded shifting nearer to then ruling BJP on the Centre underneath Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Kishinchand Advani — however gave up the concept.
The quick query for electoral interpretation is that this: Contemplating that the Congress continues to be weaker in Andhra Pradesh than even in Telangana and the forgotten TDP of former chief minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu hoping for a comeback, how far might a weak and non-existent BJP affect the election outcomes, and which method?
Zilch is the reply at current, however then, the Telangana elections would have proved for the BJP that it can’t hope to hunt with the hounds and run with the hares, a minimum of within the south if it needed to make an electoral impression even when solely the distant future in thoughts.
Does it imply that the BJP-ruled Centre would as soon as once more unleash companies just like the ED, IT and CBI on the YSR Congress within the run-up to the dual polls in Andhra or maintain it again for parliamentary assist for a number of the essential legislative measures it could wish to perform earlier than the Lok Sabha polls?
Moderately, after the BRS’s ‘Trishanku politics’ in Telangana, would Jagan wish to be seen as backing the BJP in Parliament even whereas attacking it on the streets?
The query applies equally to the ruling Biju Janata Dal in Odisha, the place Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has made a fine-art of the identical, however might come unstuck a while.
IMAGE: Congress staff have a good time their social gathering’s victory within the Telangana meeting election at Gandhi Bhavan in Hyderabad, December 3, 2023. {Photograph}: ANI Picture
The five-state elections grew to become extra attention-grabbing and difficult after the BJP because the ruling social gathering misplaced the Karnataka meeting polls to the Congress, earlier this yr.
Right here, the BJP had snatched the federal government from the Congress-Janata Dal-S ally which had shaped a coalition after the meeting polls 5 years earlier.
It did the identical trick in Madhya Pradesh too. Thus, the Congress had hoped that the individuals of MP, like these in Karnataka, would punish the defectors and in addition the social gathering that had engineered these defections. It didn’t occur that method. That was to not be.
If nonetheless, after the meeting polls the BJP and the JD-S which have been daggers drawn, have unexpectedly shaped an alliance for dealing with the Lok Sabha polls within the state collectively, it’s not with out electoral logic.
The mixed vote-share of the 2 events, 46.29 per cent (BJP: 36, JD-U: 13.29) is greater than the ruling Congress’s 42.88 per cent within the meeting elections.
It’s one other matter if such arithmetic calculations alone are sufficient to upset the Congress apple-cart within the state that’s recognized for the BJP’s success in engineering defections, post-poll.
Thus will stay the destiny of the Congress authorities till after the Lok Sabha ballot, in Karnataka and possibly Himachal Pradesh, if not in Telangana — the one three states the place the social gathering is in energy after the lack of three north Indian states.
IMAGE: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Okay Stalin feeds a pupil on the launch of the free breakfast scheme on the Adimulam Faculty in Madurai. {Photograph}: ANI Picture
Thus, the dye might have been forged for the Lok Sabha elections, or so it appears.
Initially, the ruling BJP on the Centre has solely to tweak its electoral guarantees, constructing on the premises adopted for the profitable meeting polls within the North this time spherical.
The socio-political combine has proved excellent, going a minimum of by a UP Congress chief who attributed the BJP rival’s victory within the three north Indian states.
By protecting the Sanatana Dharma row alive and including the Ayodhya temple consecration scheduled for January 22 and including the free darshan promise from the 4 polled states to all the nation, the BJP might have a self-fulfilling concoction.
If that’s to deal with the voter’s emotional quotient and successfully so, social welfare programmes, promise of the more moderen money doles for (all) girls as MP’s BJP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan had performed, to all girls throughout the nation is one thing that the BJP could also be tempted to take up.
Going by the velocity and dedication of the Modi dispensation, they might promise it early on and in addition implement it nicely earlier than the Lok Sabha polls. This might be along with extending Modi’s free meals grains programme for the entire nation by 5 extra years alongside the cash-transfers of each different sort.
There isn’t a denying the socio-electoral impression of such schemes. Given nonetheless the decades-old Tamil Nadu expertise, the Indian voter has the behavior of forgetting no matter is already of their kitty and anticipating extra of the identical.
These flows from the conviction that whoever is elected to energy dare not withdraw the welfare schemes already in drive. This means that if the political Opposition can persuade that they might add extra welfare schemes than already, they might stand an opportunity.
The checklist might embody free breakfast scheme — as mid-day meals is already there in most states — free bicycles, free laptops, and so on, all of which Tamil Nadu had innovated as part of their tireless efforts at social uplift with continuous deal with the trickle-down impact.
IMAGE: Durga and M Okay Stalin greets their son Udhayanidhi on his birthday. {Photograph}: ANI Picture
What does all of it imply for the DMK’s Dravidian mannequin and Minister Udhayanidhi?
As Udhayanidhi has been claiming Modi has been ‘making my title recognized’ throughout the nation by taking over his (controversial) views on Sanatana Dharma in his marketing campaign speeches in Rajasthan (and in addition Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana).
It’s true of senior BJP leaders Rajnath Singh and Amit A Shah, who had began off the Sanatana Dharma marketing campaign and had additionally sought to hyperlink the Congress in these states to its DMK ally in Tamil Nadu.
In a method, it was a particularly unlikely campaign-theme for the DMK in Tamil Nadu, to start with.
The millennium youngsters that the social gathering is focusing on now by all these welfare measures together with these for his or her parental and grandparental generations simply don’t relate to the theme, come what may.
Moderately, in the event that they relate, it pertains to their perception in god, if not faith. For many, the difficulty doesn’t exist as they have no idea about it, and in addition don’t care about it, come what may.
Two and much more private, Udhayanidhi’s mom Durga Stalin is thought to be a religious Hindu, who doesn’t miss providing worship in temples throughout the state and out of doors.
She has thus been visiting the Balaji temple in Tirupati and the Sri Krishna temple in Guruvayur, Kerala.
Durga Stalin additionally travelled to Varanasi to carry out sure final rites for her father-in-law M Karunanidhi weeks after the latter’s loss of life in 2018.
It’s one other matter that satirically, or in any other case, Udhayanidhi has been focussing near-exclusively on defending himself and the social gathering’s perceived views on Sanatana Dharma that belonged in his late grandfather Karunanidhi’s decades-old political profession to the exclusion of the optimistic aspect of the Dravidian mannequin that the BJP has been adopting, just like the Congress predecessor on the Centre.
It’s one other matter that barring Udhayanidhi, no different DMK chief is taking over the trigger.
Extra importantly, the social gathering has by no means ever severely pointed to the adoption of the state’s welfare schemes by the BJP elsewhere within the nation now, both for straight implementation or as themes for ballot marketing campaign.
But, all of it has made Udhayanidhi’s title and face recognition simpler and sooner than the 50 lengthy years that father Stalin needed to wait.
Even at the moment, within the nationwide capital and all state capitals, Stalin is named the incumbent Tamil Nadu chief minister. In villages elsewhere within the nation, his title won’t be as acquainted as ought to have been, given his being presumably the longest-serving politician within the nation in his age group.
Thanks now to social media, in each language in each state, and in addition the normal media that retains telecasting and re-telecasting the criticism of Udhayanidhi and his views on Sanatana Dharma, by Modi (the most well-liked individual within the nation at the moment) and his senior aides, has given an edge to the previous.
It’s one other factor if it could be an electoral boon or a curse for the INDIA mix, as it could evolve within the aftermath of the five-day election outcomes, particularly in the event that they undertake the caste census, as in Bihar, for his or her nationwide manifesto — and the DMK does sufficient work to assert possession of reservations, courting all of it again to 100 years of the ‘Dravidian mannequin’ and up to date by the post-Independence a long time, starting with the First Modification to the Structure, as early as 1951.
N Sathiya Moorthy, veteran journalist and writer, is a Chennai-based coverage analyst and political commentator.
Function Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com
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