If elections were to be decided by mind games, the BJP would have been declared winner already and Narendra Modi would be ensconced in Lok Kalyan Marg again. That is the hype and the hyperbole. But the honest truth is that more than 900 million voters are yet to cast their vote for what will be the 18th Lok Sabha. For Modi though, it seems a foregone conclusion. By declaring that his party and its allies would return to power with more than 400 seats in May, as against 350-odd in the outgoing Lok Sabha, the omnipresent prime minister has dictated the numbers narrative. He has ensured that the entire electoral story revolves around the numbers he gets and not about governance and performance.
Also, by creating hype about the margin of his likely victory, he has made an attempt to demoralise his opponents and enthuse his core constituents. If the BJP wins 370, the Congress would be left with less than half the 54 seats it won to the 17th Lok Sabha. Seemingly assured of a historic third term, Modi has even convened the last meeting of his cabinet early next month. The agenda: to consider the plan for the first 100 days of his next government. But is his confidence misplaced? A look at the possible mathematical calculations.
Make-or-break states: Maharashtra, Bihar and Karnataka are the most significant states for the ruling party to not only retain the 303 seats it won to the 17th Lok Sabha, but also to inch towards its incredible target of 370 seats. The BJP and its allies currently have 106 out of a total of 116 in these three states.
The outcome of the Lok Sabha elections in Bihar and Maharashtra has acquired significance because of the multiple political twists and turns. In Bihar, in which both JD(U) and the BJP fought together in 2019, the duo swept the polls by winning 39 out the 40 seats. Then Nitish Kumar broke away from the NDA briefly to form a government with the RJD led by Lalu Prasad, only to return to the BJP fold. It has immensely eroded the credibility of the chief minister and his commitment to the lower castes.
During 2019, while the BJP won all the 17 seats it contested, the JD(U) lost one and won 16. Their other ally LJP also won all the six seats it fought against the Congress and its allies in the state. Now the questions being asked are: can Nitish Kumar deliver the same number of seats? Can the LJP under the leadership of Chirag Paswan deliver a strike rate of 100 percent? The jury is still out. But the BJP is confident of ensuring 100 percent victories. What happens if both the JD(U) and LJP lose a few seats? Pollsters have found an imaginary answer as well. They argue that the BJP has a better strike rate than its allies, so it would compensate for the losses the others may incur. It assumes that the BJP would contest more Lok Sabha seats than it did in 2019. Again it depends on the magnanimity of the chief minister and the budding young Dalit leader Chirag Paswan.
Similar doubts have been raised in the case of Maharashtra and Karnataka. Both the BJP and the undivided Shiv Sena and their allies won 41 of the 48 seats from the state. Now, with multiple defections and splits in both the Shiv Sena and the NCP, the final contours of the electoral results aren’t clear. Will the Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde ensure the return of 18 MPs? Or will the BJP contest more seats so that the NDA tally goes up? In Karnataka too, the Congress seems to have an advantage as it has just won the assembly elections, and the BJP state unit is yet to put its house in order.
Turning-the-tide states: Perhaps the prime minister is aiming to deliver the impossible. During 2019, in 10 states and UTs, the BJP couldn’t win a single seat out of a total of 92. These include 25 in Andhra Pradesh, 20 in Kerala and 39 in Tamil Nadu. According to the party’s own research, the BJP has rarely won in around 175 constituencies all over the country, which include not only three of the Southern states but also most parts of the Northeast and the West.
Union Ministers who are not contesting the elections along with other senior Rajya Sabha members have been camping in these seats for the past year and promoting the Modi mantra of Viksit Bharat. The BJP has convinced itself that it could claim at least 100 seats from these states for the first time. The top leadership has convinced the people that its target of 370 would be achieved with a huge success in Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Kerala. The party expects to win over 40 of the 101 seats in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra and Telangana, besides retaining 25 seats in Karnataka.
With the marginalisation of the AIADMK, the BJP is planning to contest more seats than all its other allies together. Modi himself is going to address the maximum number of rallies in these states and will forge caste-based alliances with smaller parties and field local celebrities instead of the ideologically-committed karyakartas.
The BJP’s magical target is also connected to its confidence of winning more than 18 seats in West Bengal. It is convinced that there is huge anger against the TMC in the state and the current agitation in Sandeshkhali will be the game-changer.
Majority-making states: Before the BJP hits its target of over 370, it will have to repeat its nearly 100 percent strike rate in the North and some parts of the West. For example, in the eight states of Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Delhi and Jharkhand, the BJP won 121 seats out of the total of 127. It defeated the Congress in all the 26 seats in Gujarat, 25 in Madhya Pradesh, 10 in Haryana (one vacant now) and seven in Delhi. To begin its march towards 400 with its allies, the BJP has to win the same number of seats in all these states. With the INDIA bloc taking shape in some of these states, the BJP will have to put an extra dose of Modi to repeat its victory.
These, however, are not numbers that numb. Never before, except in 1984, has any party along with its allies ever crossed the 400 mark. It was only after Indira Gandhi’s tragic assassination that the Congress won 404 seats. But 2024 isn’t 1984. There are no emotional issues at stake. The only reason for Modi to exude confidence appears to be faith in himself and his magic mantras. But omniscience does not always guarantee omnipotence. His detractors ask the BJP, ‘Do you remember the India Shining slogan of 2004?’ But there was no Modi in 2004.
(prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com)
(@PrabhuChawla)