Time to explode the overblown myth of BJP’s unprecedented popularity

Lucknow: Just a handful of examples are enough to explode the cunningly-crafted myth about the so-called unprecedented popularity of the Bharatiya Janata Party under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. With Uttar Pradesh Assembly poll approaching various pre-poll surveys have once again started playing with half-baked and half-concealed data to promote the BJP which is contesting under the leadership of chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

But here one figure needs to be cited. When the Indian National Congress lost the 1989 parliamentary election under the stewardship of the then PM Rajiv Gandhi it got 39.53 per cent votes, whereas in 2019 poll the saffron party got just
37.36 per cent votes . The irony is that the BJP emerged victorious this time though it got 2.17 per cent less votes than the Congress in 1989, when it was ousted.

While the Congress could win only 197 seats in 1989 the BJP walked away with 303 seats this time. Usually much of the election results depend on whether the contest is straight or multi-cornered.

In the same way when the BJP was voted to power in 2014 it received just 31 per cent votes and won 282 seats. This is the
lowest percentage a winning party got in Indian General Election since independence. Yet such a larger than life image of the party and its leaders are repeatedly been sketched by an overwhelming section of the media and the saffron party rank and file. Thus with the help of propaganda they want to create a psychological impact.

The Congress got 19.49 per cent votes in 2019 but ended up getting just 52 seats. In 2014 Lok Sabha poll it secured 19.31 per cent of votes but ended up getting 44 seats. Contrastingly, BJP got just 18.80 per cent votes in 2009 Lok Sabha poll but won 116 seats. Thus, it got more than double the seats than the Congress in 2014 and 2019 though it received less number of votes in 2009.

The apologists of the BJP appearing in television channels are busy crediting the saffron party for receiving more than 40
per cent votes in different elections since 2014, when the fact is that it has not crossed this figure every time. It has done so in states where the contest is straight.

Several pre-poll surveys are predicting that the BJP under Yogi is going to get something between 41 and 42 per cent
votes in coming UP election and thus the party is most likely to make a comeback. They are showing that Samajwadi Party
under Akhilesh Singh Yadav is trailing about 10 per cent behind.

Here it must be noted that when the Left Front lost the 2011 election to the Trinamool Congress-Congress combine they got the same 41-42 per cent votes. The TMC-led alliance registered victory because they got seven per cent more votes.

What the champions of the BJP in the TV studios are not discussing is that much depends on the way the mood of voters
proceeds from here as full-fledged campaign is yet to generate momentum.

Judging the trend of the electorate when the battleline is yet to be drawn is not an easy job. In such a situation the party
in power generally has an advantage. Not only that, most of the pre-poll surveys often end up showing BJP as the victorious party–the latest example is that of West Bengal Assembly poll early this year.

As Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party is witnessing erosion and most of its leaders are heading towards the Samajwadi Party
independent UP-watchers are of the view that Akhilesh may be the main beneficiary. Those who wanted to jump to the BJP bandwagon had already done so much earlier and have been duly rewarded.

So Now onwards the BJP is not going to get any further converts. It also depends on as to how much the Congress under Priyanka Gandhi cuts into the BJP upper caste votebank.

It is generally found that neutral and undecided voters end up voting for the main challenger to the ruling party. These voters do not disclose their preference in pre-poll surveys and take final decision only at the time of voting. This had
happened in West Bengal where the BJP was caught completely off-guard by the change in voting trend at the 11th hour.

Conducting pre-poll surveys months before the actual start of election campaign is a meaningless exercise. They may be done to whip up an environment in favour of the ruling party–the BJP in this case. But with the passage of time the voters too are becoming matured and they are not going to be much influenced by such surveys. At times they even proved
counter-productive.

The manner in which Prime Minister hurriedly conceded the farmers demand–though his government kept rejecting it for a year–has exposed the chink in the BJP’s armour. It has made a big dent into the image of PM itself.

So any move to promote the BJP through electronic channels is not working so much now as it used to till a couple of years back. – India News Stream