The elections are finally over and the exit polls are also out. The people and politicians are now waiting for the election results in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, to be announced on 18 December.
Himachal is expecting a clear win for the Narendra Modi-led Bhartiya Janata Party. Being a supporter of the BJP, thinking that it will lose in its strongest fort is a big thing. But there are reasons why I hold this view.
So, what is a loss for the BJP? Anything less than a big majority or getting less than the previous 115 will be counted as a loss by the opposition and will be shown as a dip in popularity of Shri Narendra Modi. Of course, if it loses the elections, it will be a huge setback to BJP and Amit Shah, who is confident of getting 150+ seats in the 182 seat Legislative Assembly.
The reasons, why I believe that BJP is losing the elections-
- No Narendra Modi in the state: The first and the biggest reason that BJP is losing its ground in the state is that PM Narendra Modi is not in the state anymore. Without him, the government does not appeal to the wide range of voters who used to see him as a father figure. It has left the Gujarat BJP unit faceless and there appears no leader to lead the people.
However, even the Congress does not have any face in Gujarat which led to a battle of RaGa and NaMo in Gujarat. - The Campaigning: The whole BJP election campaign was filled with personal attacks and emotional speeches by the Prime Minister. Wherever he went for campaigning other than Gujarat, he talked about the centre’s policies and schemes and how they benefitted the country. But in Gujarat, he never talked about them. He launched personal attacks on Rahul Gandhi and gave emotional speeches on how he is being targeted. It never felt like that a Prime Minister is campaigning. He worked as a state leader desperate to win.
On the other hand, Rahul Gandhi’s campaign only focussed on the policies of the government, asking questions to Narendra Modi and never attacking personally on any BJP leader.
History tells us that whenever a leader was targeted personally, the people have voted for him. Be it the 2012 Gujarat elections or the 2014 National elections when Narendra Modi was targeted personally by the Congress and he won both of them. In Delhi elections, Mr. Kejriwal was attacked and everyone knows what happened in the elections. It looks that the Congress has learned from this and has changed its policy of NaMo-centric to policy-centric election campaigning. - Anti-Incumbency: The BJP has ruled the state for 22 years and it has contributed to a great anti-incumbency followed by no Narendra Modi in the state. A large number of young voters have never seen the Congress in power are voting to give them a chance. This is the reason that young leaders like Jignesh and Hardik Patel have gained a huge following
The Congress had changed its election campaigning drastically as compared to other states. It is clear that if it does not win these elections, its morale will dip to a new low and it will be clear that there is no threat to the Narendra Modi and Amit Shah- led BJP for years to come.
However, if the BJP loses, it will be a huge setback for them, and the party will be forced to analyse what they did wrong and maybe then they will realize that their arrogance has probably reached too far.
