By Kashif-ul-Huda, TwoCircles.net
In India, all politics is electoral. If you can not translate your politics into votes then you are an activist but not a politician. Narendra Modi has come to Delhi with his prime-ministerial ambition on the strength of his third straight victory in Gujarat Assembly elections in December 2012. But a closer look at his victory shows that this is anything but impressive.
Narendra Modi was made Gujarat’s chief minister in October 2001. He came in to the scene as people were not satisfied with Keshubhai Patel’s rule in Gujarat. Patel’s handling of earthquake relief put serious question marks on BJP’s ability to govern. Losing Sabarmati Assembly seat in September 2001 to Congress with a margin of over 19,000 votes and that too a seat that Congress has not won since 1985 suggested a clear shift in voters preference.
Modi’s electoral performance is far from impressive. [TCN file photo]
Narendra Modi who was the National General Secretary of the BJP was sent to Gujarat. Indian Express report on the oath-taking ceremony of the new chief minster laid out the difficult political task ahead. “Modi is left with 500 days to revive the flagging fortunes of the BJP in Gujarat as the next Assembly polls are due in early 2003. He has said it will require tough decisions and instant results as in a One-Day Cricket International.”
But before he could deliver “instant results” he had to win the first election of his life. Modi decided to contest from Rajkot-II Assembly constituency, a safe BJP seat that the party has won every time since 1985 with more than comfortable margins. Modi won the seat in the by-election held in February 2002 by winning 57% of the votes.
Congress was hoping to win this seat and score a major political upset. The intense campaigning forced BJP to put all its resources in winning the seat for Modi. Result was that Congress won comfortably from other two Assembly seats that also went to polls in Gujarat at the same time. In fact TOI headline of Feb 26, 2002 said it all: “Modi wins, but party loses in Gujarat”.
Two days later S-6 coach of Sabarmati Express was burned in Godhra killing 58 Hindu passengers. In the aftermath, violence directed at Muslims, who were believed to be behind Godhra train burning, over a thousand (government figure) people lost their lives.
In December 2002, when tension was still high and hundreds of thousands of Muslims still displaced, Gujarat went to poll. Narendra Modi delivered BJP’s biggest ever victory in Gujarat with 127 seats winning 49.85% of votes. This was an improvement over BJP’s impressive 1998 win of 117 seats with 44.81% of votes.
Modi was to complete his hat-trick performance by winning for BJP 117 seats and 49.12% of votes in 2007 and in 2012, 115 seats with 47.72% of votes.
One thing that is clear from these numbers is that BJP’s popularity is on a downward slope though not that steep. But it requires a swing of just few percentage points to bring down a government.
Current debate about Modi centers on his role in the Gujarat genocide of 2002 or his image as the man for the development but if we let voters of Gujarat speak their mind through their ballots then we can begin to see if Modi has been successful at his stint as the Chief Minister.
BJP gained 10 seats and 5% additional voters in December 2002. Given the short-time that Modi was in office till that time we have to attribute that electoral success to post-Godhra violence.
Five years later when Modi has been in office for one full-term and able to project himself as the “development man” he loses 10 seats but was able to hold on to BJP’s vote share by losing just 0.63% of votes.
In the latest election, BJP was to lose 2 more seats and, this is significant, lost more than 2% of the votes from the high of 2002. So people who have seen and experienced Modi’s development agenda from up close for the last 10 years are retuning fewer BJP MLAs to the Assembly with each passing election.
Narendra Modi’s electoral performance can be summed up thus: He has lost BJP two seats since 1998 elections and gained about 3% of votes. If this performance makes Narendra Modi BJP’s choice for the prime ministership then Congress need not worry.
Related link:
Did Gujarati Muslims vote for the BJP?