Draw lessons from defeat

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Draw lessons from defeat

Friday, 14 December 2018 | Navneet Anand

Never mind the loss, the BJP must course-correct itself. Instead of launching barbs, it must articulate its policies better and study the voting patterns

Every cloud has a silver lining and, therefore, results of the Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram need not be seen as a major jolt for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Instead, it is an opportunity for the party to learn a few lessons for the upcoming battle of ballots. The BJP did quite well in Madhya Pradesh, and to some extent even in Rajasthan, but its performance in Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram points to the fact that people’s taste in electoral politics (people’s political preferences) have now gone beyond perception — they want concrete results. Any disconnect between words and their anticipated positive impact on the people’s well-being proves counterproductive in competitive electoral politics.

It was the collective aura of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and outgoing Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan that brought the BJP so close to victory in Madhya Pradesh. Unfortunately, the party missed the bus by a whisker despite the fact that the Congress had been in a bad shape in the State for years. The BJP may have wasted too much of its time in ridiculing Congress president Rahul Gandhi instead of vigorously sharing the details of good work done with the people. In Chhattisgarh, too, the BJP may have had a disconnect with ground realities. It spent considerable time on managing optics. While the Raman Singh Government did a lot of work, perhaps it was not good enough. The issue of farm distress, which the Congress cashed-in on, as reports suggest, was something that the BJP should have sniffed and acted upon. Many are also of the view that the BJP may have pinned more hope in Ajit Jogi than its own good work to retain power which did not work.

An important factor that damaged the BJP’s prospects was the party’s approach towards the farmers. It is true that the Modi-led NDA Government did a very good job by promising to double the farmers’ income by 2022 and also increased the minimum support price (MSP) for their produce so that they get remunerative returns, but increasing farm distress failed to draw the BJP’s attention towards the States where the party was in power. Farmers in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh were on the streets. The Union Government’s concerns for farmers were rarely reflected in concrete actions at the State level. Going ahead, addressing farm distress and challenges in agrarian India will be vital for the BJP.

Instead of focusing too much on rallies and indulging in individual bashing, the BJP needs to highlight its agenda of good governance under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi. There may be a sense of fatigue among the people seeing similar set-up of a huge stage and battery of candidates. Therefore, the party can consider combining large-scale rallies with customised meetings with a smaller audience. This will not only make for good photo-ops but also give a greater sense of engagement. 

BJP has worked very hard on articulating how some of the key policy initiatives driven by the vision of Narendra Modi have been bearing fruits. However, it looks like these narratives, when interlaced with a high dose of criticisms and barbs, are getting lost in a noise. There may be merit in reviewing the strategy. While Modi and party president Amit Shah should speak only of the Government and party’s work for progress and development, other leaders, including Ministers and regional satraps, should be given the task of attacking the Opposition. The BJP must note that good works do not fetch votes if these are not properly packaged and marketed among the masses in the language and dialects they interact and understand.

While one would be naive to accuse the BJP of bad publicity, it certainly needs a revisit. Communication is a tricky art and it’s important for the party to design ground-level campaigns. The rigour the party shows on social media, managed by an efficient team, should be replicated in ground-level campaigns and communications. Most importantly, the party must moderate its leaders from getting too flamboyant on social media. In these columns, I have argued earlier too that all political parties must work hard on creating a set of norms that their leaders and workers should follow on social media. By now the parties must have realised that barring the gain of some curious eyeballs, social media activism barely translates into goodwill, and even less into votes. All it does is to vitiate the atmosphere, which causes considerable cacophony. BJP and all political parties must act on this expeditiously.   

(The writer is a strategic communications professional)

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