AUTHORS: Ms. Shatarupa Dey is available @shatarupadey95 and Dr. Prashant Kumar Choudhary is available @edition_indian
The BJP’s spectacular victory in four of the five states in the general election is a testament to the public’s confidence in the party because it defied the anti-incumbency in all the four winning states. Election results suggest that issues such as inflation (rising oil prices), medical mismanagement during the corona spike, rising unemployment, and peasant protests did not do much harm to the party. Party’s electoral victory can be attributed to its well-crafted electoral strategy which it has mastered over the years with the support of its parental organization RSS (the RashtriyaSwayamsewak Sangh) which assists the party in terms of providing thousands of cadres to canvass for the party. Along with it, the party benefitted immensely from Modi’s strong popularity. The prominent strategies applied by the party to maintain its electoral dominance in most elections seem to be in favor of the party.
Right-wing Populism
The party refined its ideology to meet the needs and desires of the country’s massive poor population. This means it did not religiously adhere to an open market economy under which the state refrains from implementing welfare programs for those who are left out and could not sustain themselves under the capitalistic system. The party realized the need to alter its electoral stance by implementing welfare programs to attract the poor. It did so through programs such as Kisan Samman Nidhi, Ujjwala Scheme, PM AwasYojna, and by providing free rations to millions of poor. On the one hand, the central government followed the norms and traditions of disinvestment and privatization, while on the other, the electoral compulsions compelled the party to resort to populist politics.
The ideological divide facilitated the party in both gaining the trust of the capitalist class as well as the votes of millions of poor people. In the post-COVID scenario, the Indian government invested heavily in providing free rations and other welfare benefits, which ultimately assisted millions of Indians in fending off the pandemic’s attack. Therefore it can be deduced that the beneficiaries of these programs/policies voted for the party in recent assembly elections, indicating the popularity of right-wing populism.
Majority Appeasement
Indians are no strangers to appeasement politics. We all know how the Congress and other self-proclaimed secular parties fuelled minority appeasement by offering them policy preferences, whether it was Rajiv Gandhi’s Shah Bano moment or Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Muslim appeasement. The 2014 elections, which put BJP’s Narendra Modi on the throne as Prime Minister, were supposed to put an end to this trend. However, eight years into the Modi administration, not only has the practice changed, but the positions have also shifted.
In 2014, the BJP ratcheted up its anti-minorities rhetoric. While in power, the party enacted legislation like anti-conversion laws, beef bans, renaming places, CAA, and other measures that helped the party project a pro-majority image. The implementation of these laws bolstered the party’s image as one capable of reclaiming the Hindus’ lost pride and respect, which had been tarnished during Mughal and British rule. The party also created the narrative that the majority had been treated unfairly throughout these years and had been victims in their own country, even though they were the majority.
The party’s election success was aided by its constructed pro-majority image. i.e. Hindus allied with the party and voted for it in both general and local elections.
Free covid vaccine
The Saffron party had been fast to launch its political campaign nearly as soon as the second wave’s impact began to fade. Alongside this, a “Thank You Modi Ji” campaign began centering around a “free vaccination drive”. The Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan requested its schools to put up “Thank You PM Modi” posters and hoardings on their premises for free vaccines, just days after controversially urging pupils to tweet “Thank You Modi Sir” for canceling CBSE board examinations. The University Grants Commission (UGC), the higher education nodal organization, also ordered all government-funded colleges and universities to display posters that read, “Vaccine for All.” Delhi University was one of the first universities to display such posters on campus, on its website, and social media.
The public relations campaign, which is perhaps unprecedented given how the same template is being used to “thank” the prime minister by the Union and BJP-led state governments and institutions funded by them, is aimed at countering the opposition’s criticisms, which have had a visible impact. The saffron party has put Modi back in the driver’s seat to perform the heavy lifting.
Manipulated Media
The media plays an important role in the dissemination of information, the creation of attitudes and ideas, and the motivation of people’s behavior, including voting decisions. Print media, which includes newspapers and magazines, broadcast media, such as television and radio, and new media, which provides for Internet news portals and websites, are the three categories of mass media utilized for visual political communication. All of these contribute to the creation of critical political messages that can inform, educate, and persuade the target audience. In both print and new media, photographs and still images play an essential role.
Photos, when utilized strategically, can not only enhance a message but also compel people to receive it, because photographs attract more attention than plain text, regardless of how convincing the argument is. The strategic use of images in political campaigns may play a key role in increasing the visibility of the leader and generating public interest in the leader.
All of this contributes to increased audience retention, which leads to increased party participation. Greater media visibility’ is an important key theme. It can be deduced that the BJP was pushing for a higher number of images for both the party leaders and the entire party. Narendra Modi received a lot of photo coverage, and he received more than 20% of the newspaper’s strategic placement—that is, on the front page—to ensure maximum exposure. The following diagram depicts the model of enhanced visibility at work in the BJP’s communication in the newspapers during the 2014 election campaign. The party continued to rely heavily on media (manipulated) for creating a positive and favorable image during these assembly elections and seems to pursue the same in near future.
Case Studies of UP, UK, Goa, and Manipur
Graphs show that the party was able to maintain its substantial presence in most of the states where the election took place. It is evident that in three states the party increased its vote percentage compared to previous assembly elections.
However, the party witnessed a slight decline in the number of seats won in three states but still was able to cross the 2/3rd majority on its own. The case of Punjab is not a worrying sign for the party as it had been a major political party in the state and always contested earlier elections in coalition with SAD.
Conclusion
Recently concluded state assembly elections bolstered the view that the BJP is the most dominating force in India’s electoral democracy. The party not only managed to win the majority in four states but was able to successfully counter the allegations and negative perception created around the party for the mismanagement of the pandemic and economic crisis thereafter. It is also true that the party benefitted from unorganized and dejected opposition political parties and seems to continue having an edge over them. If this is the case, the party looks to win the votes in the upcoming assembly elections and the general election in 2024. The feel-good effect that the party was able to create with the help of the media appears to last for the upcoming years. Furthermore, with powerful election machinery in place, such as money, cadres, power, and manipulated media at the disposal of the BJP, it appears to be well-positioned to form the government in the upcoming general election. Issues such as the Hijab Ban, the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, and anti-Pakistan rhetoric would further help the party to unify the voters and these emotive issues would benefit the party electorally.
*“The views expressed in the article are author’s personal and are not endorsed by the Global Policy Consortium (GPC) or assumed by their members”
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