Bangalore: The Congress Firewall That Can Put To End The Urban Myth Of BJP's National Invincibility
Thursday, May 03, 2018
The general
perception in the country today is that while Congress had met with considerable
success in increasing its voter base in the countryside by successfully
exploiting rural distress, the BJP remains rock solid in the cities. The BJP todate
appear to have successfully consolidated the urban vote, where its traditional
support base in the trading community has been augmented by votes from the
upwardly-mobile city-dweller, the aspirational youth and the professionals -
all mind conditioned by BJP's vastly superior social media edge. As one article
observed:
"The
transformation of India’s cities in the last 25 years from centers of
production to consumer markets has helped the BJP. With the new urban working
class largely atomized into small and micro enterprises and petty production,
large-scale unionisation became impossible, weakening the Left. Fragmented and
scattered workers from the majority community became prey to the BJP tactic of
religious polarization, with voters being told that their interests lay in
affirming their communal identity: “only the BJP represents the Hindus"
As India increasingly
demographically urbanize, it's argued that this rural-urban divide confers the
BJP an undue advantage with the Congress apparently looking clueless how to bridge
this widening social divide that skews the electoral battle in favor of the BJP.
However, early this
year, serious questions to this paradigm emerged as a fallout of the 3 crucial
urban by-polls - Gorakhpur, Ajmer and Alwar - that suggested the urban base of
the party that provided BJP the ballast in every election since 2013 could
either be turning away and/or getting disinterested in voting.
It was simply not that
the BJP suffered losses in some of their strongest urban bastions in the
country. It was the whopping vote swings in the range of 20-30% through which
the opposition parties were able to whip up that raised alarm bells within the
BJP. It was apparent that if these tentative signals of urban apathy can gain momentum
and if combined with visible symptoms of dissatisfaction with the government in
rural areas, BJP prospects for the next
national general elections would look extremely desolate.
Within this context,
political commenters and election analysts would be keeping an extremely close watch
on how the rural-urban divide plays itself out during the forthcoming Karnataka
elections. The manner how Bangalore votes in particular would be their top
focus as the city can unleash gigantic pulses that in turn can perversely condition the
momentum of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Although it is often
said that elections are fought and won in rural Karnataka, the delimitation
exercise in 2008 increased the number of urban seats and gave the urban voter a
decisive say in choosing who rules Karnataka.
According to
Election Commission data, there are around 70 urban and 154 rural assembly
constituencies in Karnataka. Almost half the urban constituencies (28) are in Bengaluru
city and the rest are spread across seven city corporations — 43 city municipal
councils (CMCs), 65 town municipal councils (TMCs) and 92 town panchayats
(TPs).
According to the
recent LokNiti-CSDS Karnataka pre-poll survey, the Congress maintains a whopping 7%
lead over the BJP in towns of Karnataka while appearing neck-to-neck in the
cities.
That said, while
there is a general impression that the urban electorate has backed the BJP more
than any other party, a closer analysis suggests that the state's urban
electorate hasn't shown consistent preference for a single party in the past
two decades.
So two decades ago,
both the Congress & BJP were even-steven by yardstick of vote share. The highest vote share for BJP was in 2014
during 2014 viz 56%. Just a year later,
the BJP vote steeply plunged 15% to 40% and a Poll of Polls (Read goo.gl/w1iPfk) suggests they are now decisively trailing behind
the Congress.
From the vote share
analysis it is clear that the Congress by and large withstood the Modi Wave.
The BJP chalked up 56% by mainly cannibalizing the JDS & Others. It took
hardly one year for the Modi Wave to recede. As BJP's vote share plunged, the
biggest beneficiary was expectedly JDS and OTHERS.
In 2018 what has changed??
- We have a buoyant looking
JDS with the return of the Vokkaliga vote big time. This trend should further led
to the erosion of the vote share of the BJP than of the Congress. The JDS
therefore looks poised to slightly exceed their 2015 BBMP performance.
- The vote shares demonstrated by the Congress
in 2014 & 2015 shows, that most of the non-Vokkaliga secular votes
particularly the Muslims have already consolidated around the Congress. In
2015 BPMP polls, Muslim parties like SDPI, MIM ate into the Congress in
constituencies like Shanthinagar and Govindrajnagar. This time, these parties
are not contesting in Bangalore which is further advantage to them. Further the perception of a tacit
understanding between JDS-BJP strengthens the consolidation of secular votes
around the Congress. The Congress accordingly also seem poised to exceed their 2015 BBMP
performance
- The BJP find
themselves apparently hit by a quadruple whammy. On one hand they face
Vokkaligas jumping their ship en masse and also experiencing a certain degree
of erosion in their core vote bank - the Lingayat community. Meanwhile, the
trading classes, the traditional backbone of the BJP are not only disillusioned
but angry with them because of the adverse impact of GST & demonetization. Adding
to their predicament, their master trump card, the sheen of Modi's has not only
been lost but there also exists a strong undercurrent of anti-incumbency against him. The Congress
social media domination in the campaign effectively curbed BJP from communally polarizing
the elections. The Congress succeeded in largely neutralizing BJP's communal
appeal by pointing out that they too share Hinduism, albeit an inclusive
version of the faith, rather than a bigoted one. They also succeeded to a large
measure to shifting the campaign debate from a communal one to basic
necessities that urban voters lack like city transport, pothole-free roads. Within this context, the
BJP looks poised to most likely underperform their BPMP showing of 2015.
So looking at the
pre-polls again, the Cfore vote share projections may appear at first glance as a statistical
outlier but don't be surprised if it is most likely to actualize. Even if we go
by Poll of Poll yardstick, the Congress should be able to find itself at least in the 17-20 seat range.
Come May 15th,
Bangalore looks to deliver an earthquake that can completely turn turtle
national politics, irrespective whether a majority or coalition government is
thrown up as a mandate
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