Title: BJP’s Finest Hour

Author: Swapan Dasgupta

Publication: India Today

Date: February 10, 2003

Introduction: The Mood of the Nation poll points to a decisive victory for the BJP-led alliance in the event of a snap poll. What explains this dramatic turnaround and the total decimation of the Congress?

Among the unwritten rules governing contemporary Indian politics-at least for the past three decades-is that a government loses its way midstream and becomes vulnerable to a rising tide of anti-incumbency. Till a year ago, this seemed to be the predestined fate of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA Government. The BJP and its allies were worsted in the key assembly elections of Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Uttaranchal. The Congress under Sonia Gandhi was staging a dramatic comeback.

Fortunately for Vajpayee, democracy is not governed by the laws of inevitability. Since the Godhra carnage in February last year and its bloody aftermath in Gujarat, the BJP appears to have rediscovered itself. A narrow win in Goa and a resounding triumph in Gujarat have set the stage for a wider recovery. Last week, as if to drive home the point, Vajpayee effected a Cabinet reshuffle with an eye to the next round of assembly polls. The talk of a snap poll any time between October and February next year is doing the rounds.

The country's most exhaustive political tracker, the India Today- ORG-MARG Mood of the Nation poll last August (it, August 26, 2002) detected the first signs of the anti- incumbency tide being rolled back. Nearly six months later, the trend has crystallised quite dramatically. The January 2003 Mood of the Nation poll suggests that the popular vote for the NDA may touch 42 per cent, giving the ruling coalition a clear majority of between 310 and 320 seats in the event of a snap poll. If the BJP and the BSP strike a poll alliance in Uttar Pradesh, the NDA tally may even reach 340.

On the face of it, the shifts are small. In just 12 months, the BJP and its allies have gained an extra 0.8 per cent votes; in the same period the Congress combine has lost 2 per cent votes. Today, the ruling combine has 0.2 per cent more votes than 1999 and the Congress-led alliance 0.1 per cent less. Yet these small shifts are enough to increase the NDA majority remarkably from 32 to 48. If the BJP continues its advance even modestly, the outcome could be a landslide.

Most heartening for the BJP is that the surge is most marked in its traditional strongholds and, particularly, in the Hindi-heartland states where assembly elections are due later this year. The opinion poll suggests that the BJP is comfortably ahead of the Congress in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Delhi. It has recovered its position in Jharkhand and is on a roll in Assam. Together with its allies, it is also well placed in Orissa and Haryana.

However, the BJP is still nowhere close to realising its party President M. Venkaiah Naidu's dream of winning 300 seats on its own. The improvement in its support is still concentrated in its traditional areas where it is almost reaching saturation point. The BJP has to perform much better in states like Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Punjab and Bihar before it can increase its tally.

Reeling from the after-effects of Gujarat, the Congress seems to be in a state of disarray. According to the poll, the Congress and its allies (for the purposes of consistency, it includes the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu) will lose nearly 25 seats, thereby shrinking their 1999 tally further. This means that the Congress will actually be reduced to double digits and descend to an all-time low. Apart from Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Uttaranchal where it is holding, the Congress has lost ground in the past 12 months.

What in shorthand is often referred to as Moditva or the Gujarat effect has played an important role in shoring up the BJP's support. As much as 43 per cent nationally-a very high figure-is elated over the Gujarat verdict. Yet, reduced to specifics, the jubilation is concentrated in the North (48 per cent), the West (46 per cent) and the youth. In other words, Moditva has galvanised the party in its core areas and even energised it. Read with the pattern of support for the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya and the support for a law to ban religious conversions (another VHP demand), they suggest that the BJP would find it difficult to abandon the Hindutva tag during any future election campaign.

In Gujarat, a militant Hindutva was tagged with a hardline stand on national security and terrorism. The poll suggests that the importance of these as top-of-the-mind issues has diminished over the past year. In other words, unless war clouds intervene or terrorists strike in a dramatic way, jingoistic rhetoric will not determine the way people vote. However, if Pakistan and terrorism return to the political agenda-and this may well happen in the event of a war in Iraq leading to wider Islamic unrest-the BJP's shrillness would correspond with popular thinking. The poll shows quite clearly that those who support the BJP and other NDA parties are significantly more likely to be swayed by anti-Pakistan rhetoric than those who support the Congress. National security and anti-terrorism have come to be more closely identified with the BJP than with the Congress. For a party that once screamed about the "foreign hand" from rooftops, this amounts to losing an important political plank.

At the same time it is intriguing that despite the BJP being on the right side of an emerging ideological mood, Vajpayee's own popularity has not increased. There is a significant rise in his performance ratings but no corresponding rise in those who perceive him as the prime minister of their choice. This mismatch is significant. It suggests that unlike in 1999, Vajpayee's ability to secure an incremental vote for the NDA has diminished. Today, but not for the first time, the combined vote tally of the NDA exceeds the prime minister's own popularity. At the same time, it is significantly more than the support for the BJP. This implies that Vajpayee's indispensability persists, less as an inspiration and more as a reassuring coalition-builder.

This leads on to what is perhaps the most interesting finding of the poll. If the appeal of Hindutva is confined to the BJP's core areas-which has, of course, expanded in the past two decades-and Vajpayee's popularity is static, what has helped the NDA to cling to its 1999 vote?

The answer lies in a combination of performance and hope. The poll show a small (3 per cent) rise in the number of those who feel they are better off and an equally small (2 per cent) decline in those who think they are worse off. At the same time there is a jump, from 21 per cent in August 2002 to 27 per cent now, of those who think they will be better off in the next six months. Likewise, the corresponding figure of those who believe they will be worse off has fallen from 24 per cent in August 2002 to 21 per cent. Curiously, the expectation of better times is most marked in poor states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal and Jharkhand.

A discernible feel-good mood is complemented by a feeling that there has been an all-round improvement in services where the Centre has a role to play. Good roads and better telephones-solid middle-class issues-are paying dividends. Good governance or su-raj may still be a distant dream but the NDA can at least hope to benefit from a visible improvement in living standards.

As the next general election, due before October 2004, draws nearer, the Vajpayee Government will firm up its strategy. The fine-tuning will depend on political exigencies but Vajpayee is certain to be comforted by the knowledge that he starts with the advantage of an energised support. And without an anti-incumbency mood to counter.

Which party will you vote for?
Lok Sabha Projections	Total Seats - 543
BJP+(TDP, JD(U), INLD, Shiv Sena, BJD, DMK, PMK, MDMK, Samata, TMC, SAD)
Poll Jan 2003	Seats 310-320	Vote% 41.9
Poll Aug 202	245-255	41.3
Poll Jan 2002	260-270	41.1
Actual 1999	304	41.1
Swing	0.2 Over 1999	0.6 Over Aug ‘02
Cong+(RJD, Kerala Congress (Mani), RPI, AIADMK, IUML, RLD)
Poll Jan 2003	Seats 110-120	Vote% 36.8
Poll Aug 202	190-200	39.3
Poll Jan 2002	155-165	38.8
Actual 1999	140	36.9
Swing	-0.1 Over 1999	-2.5 Over Aug ‘02
Others (Primarily Left Front, NCP, Samajwadi Party and BSP)
Poll Jan 2003	Seats 110-120	Vote% 21.3
Poll Aug 202	95-105	19.6
Poll Jan 2002	110-120	20.3
Actual 1999	99	21.5
Swing	-0.2 Over 1999	1.7 Over Aug ‘02

REGIONAL BREAK - UP

NORTH Total seats: 151
	BJP+Allies	Cong+Allies	Others
January 2003	75-85	25-35	34-45
August 2002	50-60	45-55	45-55
January 2002	56-64	32-40	51-58
Actual 1999	80	30	41

SOUTH Total seats: 132
	BJP+Allies	Cong+Allies	Others
January 2003	68-78	35-45	17-23
August 2002	65-75	55-65	0-5
January 2002	72-80	42-50	8-12
Actual 1999	73	49	10

EAST Total seats: 142
	BJP+Allies	Cong+Allies	Others
January 2003	68-78	20-30	40-50
August 2002	55-65	35-45	35-45
January 2002	61-69	35-43	35-43
Actual 1999	72	32	38

WEST Total seats: 118
	BJP+Allies	Cong+Allies	Others
January 2003	83-93	15-25	8-12
August 2002	60-70	35-45	7-12
January 2002	62-70	37-45	8-12
Actual 1999	79	29	10
North: Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh South: Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala East: Assam, Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal West: Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh

In the past two years, the quality of life...
		Aug 2002	Jan 2002
Has become better	20	17	22
Has become worse	24	26	24
Remained the same	55	57	54
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don't know/Can't say

Which issue are you most concerned about?
		Aug 2002	Jan 2002
Unemployment	39	38	32
Rising Prices	37	38	38
Government corruption	10	10	10
Law and order	5	4	4
Stability of Centre	2	2	3
Religious and caste issues	3	3	2
National security	4	5	10
The national mood is highly uneven. A sense of relative prosperity in the North and the West is offset by dejection in the East and the South

Who is your choice for prime minister of India
		Aug 2002	Jan 2002
A.B. Vajpayee	34	33	28
Sonia Gandhi	19	20	19
L.K. Advani	4
Mulayam Singh	3
Sharad Pawar	2
Mayawati	2
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don't know/Can't say
Sonia Gandhi's popularity seems to have plateaued even as Vajpayee's has not improved markedly. For the second consecutive poll, the leadership ratings of the contenders for the top job lag behind the vote share of their formations. If this trend persists, it would mean that the next election may not be as presidential as 1999. If inspiration is indeed at a discount, ideology, performance and identity will assume greater importance. Yet, keep in mind that in moments of crisis Vajpayee's ratings improve sharply.

Methodology and Findings

-Vivek Kumar, Research Director, ORG-MARG

The Mood of the Nation poll covered a total of 17,653 interviews among eligible voters spread across 98 parliamentary constituencies. The sample was spread over urban/rural, male/female and age groups. The assembly constituencies were sampled on the stratified systematic random sampling basis. Within a selected assembly constituency, house-to-house, face-to-face interviews were done on the basis of quotas using the right-hand rule of field movement. Our salient findings are:

The BJP alliance is expected to get 310-320 seats. There are major gains for the party in the West.

Unemployment continues to be the issue that causes the most concern (39 per cent) and surpasses rising prices (37 per cent) in this respect as compared to August 2002 when both issues were at par. The criticality of unemployment is particularly high in the North and the East. Rising prices are more important in southern states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and in Gujarat and Orissa.

The Congress and the BJP are almost neck-to- neck in perceptions of being the best party to solve the country's problems.

Performance of the current prime minister is rated as average to good by a majority. Performance of the current Central Government is also rated as average to good by 67 per cent.

Nearly 44 per cent expect status quo on own economic front. However, 27 per cent are optimistic and expect to be better off-an increase as compared to the previous round where only 21 per cent expected to be better off.

A hard-line military solution to the problem of terrorism in Kashmir is favoured by 37 per cent. About 23 per cent endorse a policy of discussions and talks with Pakistan. This is in line with the position in August 2002. However, the segment looking for negotiations to solve the problem has risen from 18 per cent to 23 per cent.

Building a Ram temple at the disputed site is the way to resolve the Ayodhya problem according to 39 per cent of the respondents. The segment favouring this solution has gone down as compared to August 2002.

Narendra Modi's victory in Gujarat has been appreciated by a majority (43 per cent). A perceptible shift in position is seen from August 2002 when 34 per cent felt that the Modi government should have been dismissed after the riots.

Largely favourable perceptions of the performance of all public services-sizeable sections feel that they have improved. Somewhat ambivalent view on garbage collection-30 per cent feel it has improved, 27 per cent feel it has deteriorated and another 30 per cent feel that it has remained the same.

Rate the performance of the primeminister
Good	Outstanding	DK/CS	Poor	Average
40	9	12	11	28
Net Approval Rating: 38
Good	Outstanding	DK/CS	Poor	Average
37	8	11	14	30
Net Approval Rating: 31
Net Approval Rating in per cent calculated by deducting negative ratings from positive. DK/CS: Don’t Know/Can’t say.
Although Vajpayee's standing in the prime ministerial sweepstakes has remained constant, he has begun to score in terms of performance. The past six months have seen his Net Approval Rating (NAR) soaring by seven points. Indeed, his NAR is now three points higher than it was in January 2002, in the aftermath of the attack on Parliament. In electoral terms, this means that the BJP and allies are not seriously burdened by an anti-incumbency mood-the mid-term curse for all governments. More to the point, Vajpayee's NAR is high in many of the Congress-ruled states. This augurs well for the BJP. What should, however, be of concern is that in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the prime minister is not seen to the performing. Fortunately for the BJP, the Congress is not in a position to take advantage in two of the three states.

Who is the best leader for the Congress is Sonia is replaced?		Cong Voters	Aug 2002	Cong Voters
Priyanka Gandhi	24	26	24	30
Manmohan Singh	14	13	11	4
Rahul Gandhi	11	12	11	3
Digvijay Singh	3	3	3	3
Others	8	-	-	-
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don't know/Can't say
Congress remains a party decisively wedded to dynasty. Priyanka is the favoured successor to Sonia and non-Gandhis hardly get a look in.

Who is the best leader for the NDA if Vajpayee is replaced?		BJP Voters	Aug 2002	BJP Voters
L.K. Advani	33	41	33	39
Susma Swaraj	8	7	3	3
Jaswant Singh	3	2	4	3
M.M. Joshi			2	2
Narendra Modi			2	3
Others			7
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don't know/Can't say
After three polls, it is clear Advani is the acknowledged successor to Vajpayee. However, in the Generation Next battle, Swaraj has taken a lead and Modi has made it to the national stage.

What is your perception of Pakistan?		BJP+	Cong+	Aug 2002
An enemy	66	70	61	68
Separated brother	12	10	14	9
Friend	6	6	6	6
Future ally	4	4	4	3
Don't know/Can't say	12	10	15	14
No compromise with Pakistan is the clear national consensus. Supporters of the BJP are more equivocal on this than Congress supporters. The support of its vote bank allows Vajpayee to pursue a hard-line agenda. It also means the Congress is on the defensive in trying to be accommodating.

What is the main cause of terrorism in India?		BJP+	Cong+
Encouragement by Pakistan	41	45	38
The Kashmir problem	16	16	15
Global Jehadi movement	4	4	5
Poverty and lack of opportunities	13	12	14
Extremist Hindu groups	2	2	2

How do you feel about Modi's victory in Gujarat?
Happy	43
unhappy	12
Neither	16
Don't know/Can't say	29

SIX STATES HIGH ON MODITVA
Delhi	Gujarat	MP	Punjab	Karnataka	Maharashtra
Poll shows educated Hindus are enthused by Gujarat.	Home turf of Modi is enjoying its national fame.	Congress is trying out outdo the BJP in its Hindutva.	Gujarat verdict drew cheers from Sikhs.	Hi-tech and the southern bastion of Hindutva.	Mood seems to favour a Sena-BJP revival.

Moditva Negative: KERALA

Few assembly elections have attracted as much national attention as last December's Gujarat poll. Narendra Modi's conclusive victory brought about a dramatic change in the popular mood. In the August 2002 poll, 34 per cent felt that Modi should have been dismissed for his handling of the riots and 28 per cent opposed the suggestion. Now, 43 per cent are happy with the Gujarat outcome. In social terms, Moditva seems to have touched a chord in many circles. The strongest endorsement comes from those with medium and high education (50 per cent and 60 per cent respectively) and the 18 to 24-year-old youth (48 per cent). Adding a curious twist is the 60 per cent endorsement of Sikhs.

Solutions to Ayodhya....		Hindus	Muslim	Aug 2002
Temple to be built immediately	39	44	8	47
Courts to resolve matters	18	17	25	21
Government to initiate dialoge	17	16	26	16
Status quo to be maintained	7	7	15	4
Masjid to be rebuilt	4	3	12	4
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don't know/Can't say
With the movement dormant for a year, support for a Ram temple in Ayodhya has fallen by 6 per cent since last August. Yet, this remains the preferred solution of Hindus. More important, this is an issue where only 15 per cent don't have a view.

Should the Government ban religious conversions?
Yes	No	Don’t know/Can’t say
54	36	10

Should PSUs be privatised?
Yes	No
35	48

Willingness to have member of another community as neighbour		Urban	Rural
Yes	63	73	60
No	31	23	34
DK/CS	6	4	6
This is a poser that tests the extent of communal polarisation. The findings suggest that multi-religious societies that are not prone to communal riots are also the most ghettoised. There is also a greater sense of segregation in rural India. Not a happy message for national integration.

The quality of these public services has...	Improved	Deterio- rated	Same	DK/CS
Railways	55	14	17	14
Telephone	73	7	9	11
Mobile telephone	58	6	9	27
LPG	62	12	12	14
School education	62	19	15	4
Roads	55	25	17	3
Drinking Water	47	27	23	3
Housing	43	20	28	9
Garbage Collection	30	27	30	13
Local Transport	63	12	18	7
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don't know/Can't say

Rate the popularity of the chief minister...		Aug 2002	Jan 2002	Aug 2001
N.D. Tiwari	51	58
Sheila Dkshit	48	4	38	7
Babulal Marandi	45	-8
Vilasrao Deshmukh (Maharashtra)	39	28	29	33
Narendra Modi (Gujarat)	37	45	22
Buddhadeb Bhattacharya (W. Bengal)	36	45	35	33
Naveen Patnaik (Orissa)	32	42	24	26
Tarun Gogoi (Assam)	30	9	43	40
N.Chandrababu Naidu (A.P.)	26	3	15	7
Ajit Jogi (chhattisgarh)	14	27
Ashok Gehlot (Rajasthan)	14	20	8	4
Mayawati (Uttar Pradesh)	13	27
O.P. Chautala (Haryana)	12	-38	-19	-18
Digvijay Singh (MP)	10	9	3	14
Amarinder Singh (Punjab)	4	28
S.M. Krishna (Karnataka)	-3	18	43	42
A.K. Antony (Kerala)	-8	-21	-19	-5
Rabri Devi (Bihar)	-17	-24		-13
J. Jayalalithaa (Tamil Nadu)	-41	-24
All figures in per cent. Rest: Don't know/Can't say
If national trends are bereft of wild fluctuations, state findings suggest the complete opposite. State politics being of more immediate concern, the performance of chief ministers is more closely measured by voters. Karnataka Chief Minister S.M. Krishna who topped the popularity ratings in August 2001 and January 2002 now finds himself down in the dumps. But there are others like West Bengal's Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, Orissa's Naveen Patnaik and Gujarat's Narendra Modi who have performed consistently well. Finally, there are those like Tamil Nadu's J. Jayalalithaa and Kerala's A.K. Antony who always get negative ratings. This is because passionate support for them is invariably offset by an equally passionate dislike-a function of intense polarisation. And the support for Bihar's Rabri Devi isn't measured by governance.