By Sanjay Thapa Jeet
The Modi Tsunami in UP is not only historic but comes as anunprecedented eyeopener in Indian polity. Firstly, it has undonevarious dogmas of political pundits, who had written off the Modiwave after his 32 months stint at the center and particularly after the8th Novemberfiat. Secondly, it also marks anunprecedented departure in the vote-bank polity in India, which has pivoted around caste, religion andpopulist freebies. It has also, among the many firsts, shown that a’faceless’ candidature, can gross votes riding on the popularity of acentral figure.
Despite the tie-up and frittering away of public money on free laptopsand mobiles, SP-Congress alliance could not hard-sell itself. Voters today, have become wary and have clearly decidedto remove the grain from the chaffby not gettingswayed by irrational ‘jumlas” as can be witnessed in UP.A major worry for the BJP had been, the after-effects of demonetization, particularly on those who could not understand the intricate economicphilosophy. But then, there has been a massive support from the masses, particularly from the BPL and rural vote-bank, despite problems faced inand over 50 days interim stipulated by the Prime minister.
[su_pullquote]The polarization logic has worked against SPand the BSP by splitting up votes, which has in fact, helped BJPto gross over 300 seats.[/su_pullquote]
Another major eyeopener that the UP verdict displays is the fact that neitherthe Dalit vote-bank nor the Muslim polarization worked in dividingthe votes in UP. Instead, the polarization logic has worked against SPand the BSP by splitting up votes, which has in fact, helped BJPto gross over 300 seats. This has perhaps been beyond the expectations of Modihimself, who had openly bidden for only about 200 seats.
It has further revealed that two wrongs do not make a right. Even the tie-up of the young-bloods, Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav, could not sway thevote-bank. The twosome could not rally up issues like inflation,demonetization and the lackof development in Varanasi – an issue, that itself was largely left unaddressed in the aftermath of the 2014 elections.
Infact, it is also for the first time that BJP has grossed both theRae Bareilly and Amethi seats – the base of the Congress camp withmore than 7 seats out of the 10 seats.
It has rocked the caste- religionvote cards and proved wrong many pundits of Mayawati’s social engineering, placing it on a back-foot. It has instead, replaced the existing social engineering formula to be thenew Modi mantra in the coming days.To cut matters short, the UP verdict has given a clear green mandateto Modi for 2019 and rendered top marks to him in the mid term polls of 2017.
Sanjay Thapa Jeet is an alumni of Cambrian Hall Dehradun and has worked with The Indian Express and India Today.
Featured image: The Free Press Journal
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