BHUBANESWAR: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first major political rally after the electoral reverses suffered by BJP in the three Hindi heartland states stood out on two points. One, he refrained from a direct attack on his rival. Two, he juxtaposed the development agenda of the BJP Government at the Centre and its contribution to Odisha with the State Government’s performance on various fronts.
Not for once in his entire speech at the Swabhiman rally in Khurda, Modi made mention of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik nor his party BJD that BJP is aiming to dislodge in the 2019 polls. All through his address, he took on the State Government, without naming BJD, on issues from poverty, corruption, basic development, farmer’s problems to health and education etc while listing out the achievements of the BJP-led Central Government and the steps taken by it for Odisha’s development and welfare of its people.
The departure from his earlier tenor and rhetoric in speech making was unmissable and has already set the political mills abuzz in attempts to decipher the sudden change. There again are two possible reasons behind Modi’s mellowed down approach.
One, the need of friends in these times when the going is not evidently good for the BJP. Two, lessons learnt from the huge setback in the three states that focus on issues concerning people and not personal attacks on rivals are key to reaping electoral dividends. The loss of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan is no doubt a massive blow to the BJP going into the 2019 polls. While the defeat has emboldened the Congress and Opposition, the BJP is fast losing friends with allies deserting it one after the other. With signs of diminished numbers in the general elections next year, it is in dire need of new friends. And, who better than Naveen Patnaik!
The BJD, an erstwhile partner though estranged, has not adopted a completely opposition approach to Modi. In fact, Naveen Patnaik though professing equidistance from both the BJP and Congress has been more inclined to the former as evidenced in his support on various crucial issues from demonetization, GST to election of President of India and the Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha.
Modi and Patnaik too are not bitter adversaries in the lines of Mamata, Mayawati or Chandrababu. The cordiality between the two has been quite evident, and visible in the function at IIT too when both were seen smiling and talking to each other in congenial manner. Modi’s change in tenor, thus, could be deduced to be a well-calculated one, to keep Naveen in good stead so as to reach out to him when the moment arrives.
The other contributing factor to emerge from the recent election results where Modi was outdone by Rahul Gandhi in campaign and its yield. Modi no longer can boast of the unassailable strike rate in election rallies as BJP lost more than 50 per cent of seats where he had campaigned in the three states.
One observation is that Modi’s hard-hitting approach with personal attacks on the Gandhi family and loss of focus from core issues of Government’s achievements and actions for people’s welfare did not go down well with the voters. While Rahul Gandhi along with taking up national issues like Rafale did highlight local issues and problems of the people. And, he did establish connect with the people.
Modi’s speech can been seen in that perspective. From attacking rivals, he seems to have switched to the issues and problems. The manner in which he criticised the State Government while flagging the efforts of the Centre for Odisha’s development could possibly be the template that he will be following across the country as election campaign picks up.
Meanwhile, the change in Modi’s approach will definitely be confusing for the party leaders and workers in the State. Buoyed by his direct attack on Naveen only three months earlier and followed up by Amit Shah, the party had gone all aggressive on the BJD. Will the Odisha BJP tone down itself or continue full steam is a thing to watch. In a related development, an opinion poll released on Monday has shown BJP sweeping Odisha with 15 seats in Lok Sabha elections in 2019 with BJD getting only six.