By Sanjay Thapa Jeet
The Modi Tsunami in UP is not only historic but comes as an unprecedented eyeopener in Indian polity. Firstly, it has undone various dogmas of political pundits, who had written off the Modi wave after his 32 months stint at the center and particularly after the 8th November fiat. Secondly, it also marks an unprecedented departure in the vote-bank polity in India, which has pivoted around caste, religion and populist freebies. It has also, among the many firsts, shown that a ’faceless’ candidature, can gross votes riding on the popularity of a central figure.
Despite the tie-up and frittering away of public money on free laptops and mobiles, SP-Congress alliance could not hard-sell itself. Voters today, have become wary and have clearly decided to remove the grain from the chaff by not getting swayed 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 economic philosophy. But then, there has been a massive support from the masses, particularly from the BPL and rural vote-bank, despite problems faced in and over 50 days interim stipulated by the Prime minister.
[su_pullquote]The polarization logic has worked against SP and the BSP by splitting up votes, which has in fact, helped BJP to gross over 300 seats.[/su_pullquote]
Another major eyeopener that the UP verdict displays is the fact that neither the Dalit vote-bank nor the Muslim polarization worked in dividing the votes in UP. Instead, the polarization logic has worked against SP and the BSP by splitting up votes, which has in fact, helped BJP to gross over 300 seats. This has perhaps been beyond the expectations of Modi himself, 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 the vote-bank. The twosome could not rally up issues like inflation, demonetization and the lack of development in Varanasi – an issue, that itself was largely left unaddressed in the aftermath of the 2014 elections.
In fact, it is also for the first time that BJP has grossed both the Rae Bareilly and Amethi seats – the base of the Congress camp with more than 7 seats out of the 10 seats.
It has rocked the caste- religion vote 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 the new Modi mantra in the coming days. To cut matters short, the UP verdict has given a clear green mandate to Modi for 2019 and rendered top marks to him in the mid term polls of 2017.