Game of guarantees

With its hectic campaign in poll-bound states, the BJP is focused on finding a winning mix of populism and pragmatism ahead of the Lok Sabha polls

- PRATUL SHARMA

The current round of assembly polls in five states has the BJP and the Congress engaged in a direct, gladiatorial contest of differing approaches. They have no allies in the battle for the three Hindi heartland states (Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh), and both the parties are part of larger, triangular contests in Telangana and Mizoram. The five states together have 83 Lok Sabha seats, of which the BJP had won 65 in 2019—around 21 per cent of its overall tally.

With the announcement of the Lok Sabha polls due in around 100 days, the BJP has been ditching conventions, reinventing strategy and setting changes in motion. The party has turned the current round of elections into an extension of the Lok Sabha polls next year, and centred its messaging around Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bid for a third term. “In my third term, I will make the country’s economy the world’s third,” Modi said in a rally in Madhya Pradesh.

In poll-bound states, the BJP is banking on the credibility of such “Modi guarantees”, and has relegated its regional satraps to the back-ground. The Congress, meanwhile, is betting on its old warhorses—Kamal Nath in Madhya Pradesh, Ashok Gehlot in Rajasthan and Bhupesh Baghel in Chhattisgarh. The party’s victory in the three states in 2018 was Rahul Gandhi’s best moment as Congress leader. But the BJP still managed to improve its Lok Sabha tally in the 2019 elections, riding high on the Balakot airstrikes and Modi’s charisma.