While addressing a buoyant audience at the BJP headquarters after the party won in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi clearly said that the youth of India wants development to be the driving agenda. His address underscored the importance of ensuring that our politics revolves around questions of development and not other distractions. It would be wise if the Congress and their alliance partners paid heed to this advice and ceased to be divisive, parochial, casteist and communal in their politics. If they continue in the same course, they will slide to even further irrelevance.
BJP workers celebrating as the party’s victory in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh assembly elections. (ANI)
Let me begin with the Opposition’s most recent folly first. As soon as it became clear that the Congress was getting routed in the northern states and was just about winning in Telangana (more thanks to the anger against the BRS as opposed to any love for the Congress), Congress leaders and strategists tried to make it a “North Versus South” debate. This is not only preposterous but also factually flawed — the BJP has more MPs from southern India than the Congress. The BJP is also a part of the government in Puducherry. At the start of the current calendar year, the Congress had no government in South India. In Telangana, the BJP has doubled its vote share and established itself as a key player in over 60 seats in the state, a marked improvement from 2014 and 2018. For the record, the Congress has zero MLAs in Andhra Pradesh and has been out of power in Tamil Nadu for the last five decades.
But, one should not be surprised at this negative politics of the Congress. Throughout the campaign, the Congress brought out the absolute worst in themselves, lowering electoral discourse to a point that can’t be imagined. Thankfully, the wisdom of the people ensured that their lies had no takers.
The Congress tried to play a very dangerous game of creating caste wars in India, especially in northern India. Their leaders suddenly started speaking about injustice to the Other Backward Classes (doesn’t matter that Congress was the one opposing the Mandal Commission) including concocting facts that never existed. The OBC community naturally had better wisdom: The fact that Narendra Modi is from an OBC background was not missed by the people. They also saw through the inability of the Congress to give any respect to OBC leaders in their party.
In parallel, the Congress began to talk about the caste census as a ploy to provoke even more social tensions. Unfortunately for them, the people of India trusted PM Modi, who said that if there is one caste that needs attention it is poverty. The numbers indicate the comprehensive rejection of Congress’ casteist politics — the BJP scored big in SC and ST seats. In Bastar, Chhattisgarh’s ST belt, the Congress faced a defeat.
The Congress was working on another strategy as well — to abuse sanatana dharma. They used one of their ally’s shoulders to fire from. Their ally also fully obliged, abusing and mocking sanatana dharma. As a proud Indian, it was disgusting to hear this but the anger to such statements spread faster than one can imagine. People began to condemn the statement but more than that, they were questioning the silence of the Congress on these statements. People were seeing this silence as support and decided that we would punish such devious communal politics.
There are other lessons as well. The success of the BJP, powered by PM Modi’s connect with the masses has shown that one does not need to make unreasonable promises to succeed. In his entire political career, PM Modi has never made promises that are unbelievable and undeliverable. For instance, in the 2012 Gujarat elections, the Congress came up with a housing scheme, made demo houses and distributed forms. PM Modi refused to get drawn into such discourse. He won the elections. When Congress came up with the fiscally unreasonable Nyay Scheme, PM Modi did not take the bait, preferring to focus on his track record in office. He won in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls too.
The people are not believing the fake promises of Congress — the people of Chhattisgarh, MP and Rajasthan saw how the promise of a loan waiver was never fulfilled between 2018 and 2023. Today, the people of Karnataka are suffering thanks to the exaggerated guarantees of the Congress — power bills are up, so are power cuts, and infra projects are suffering. Within six months, the cookie has crumbled. In contrast, the people of India fully trust that Modi’s guarantee is that he will fulfil all the promises he has made. The people of India believe that when they lose hope from others, that is where Modi’s guarantee begins.
Today’s India is an aspirational society. It is aspirational because the nation finally has a government that is not bogged down by the constraints of the past but is looking ahead towards creating a brighter future; there is a government that is betting on India’s youth and Indian talent. Gone are the days when those in power would take guests on poverty tourism. Today’s India engages with the world as an equal and is eager to contribute to global well-being. In such an India, the Congress’ politics is outdated. And, that is also the reason the Congress is getting extinct in state after state. It is also the reason why Congress is unable to get its governments re-elected. 2024 presents another opportunity for them to course correct and if they don’t, it will be too late. India has moved on and it prefers the Modi way of working.
Kiren Rijiju is Union minister of Earth Sciences. The views expressed are personal
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