The BJP suffered major losses in recent by-elections across several states, contrary to expectations of victory. This was seen as a failure of BJP president Amit Shah's strategy of focusing on national issues of development rather than local issues, and attempts to communalize and polarize votes. Shah took full responsibility for candidate selection without consulting local leaders. The results show that Shah's centralized, arrogant approach does not work and that Modi should concentrate on economic issues rather than allow polarization, to maintain public support through 2019.

1. The Recent By Election and BJP- A Pathetic Saga
Biswanath Bhattacharya
On the night of 15th
September 2014, nobody could have imagined in his wildest imagination that BJP
will be almost trounced in the By Election held in UP, Gujarat, Rajasthan and other states. The BJP offices
were seemingly in upbeat and festive mood and were readying themselves to celebrate the seemingly
imminent victory. Gulal and Saffron colored Abir had been ordered, the tailors were busy in stitching the
saffron flags, the workers were frantically discussing amongst themselves how Shri Amit Shah, the
President of BJP, the blue eyed boy of Narendra Modi, and the man of the match of the recently
concluded 2014 Lok Sabha Election would be felicitated and congratulated for facilitating a spectacular
victory. The poll pundits were busy in calculating how many seats BJP would win and were almost
writing a eulogies for the BJP victory. Time for celebration were to start the following morning. Wow!!!
But gloom and doom descended on the BJP offices throughout the country with the outpouring of
results in the noon of 16th
September 2014. The think tank of the BJP under the leadership of Shri Amit
Shah, -THE INFALLIBLE, were in active parleys in offering a plausible reason for this debacle. I can hardly
forget the pathetic condition of the BJP Spokesman in ‘Times Now’ in offering a justifiable reason! He
looked like a punctured balloon.
The result, in fact, offered a unique opportunity to the psychologist and the social scientist for
examination of what had gone awry for the BJP which had till recently assumed power riding over a
decisive victory - never witnessed since 1984.
The BJP’s Lok Sabha victory is widely credited for electoral engineering with a mix of polarization of
Hindu votes and the definite and firm promise for development. The people were desperately looking for
a change, a change towards development, a change for free market policy, a change for unfettering the
shackles of bureaucracy for doing fair business, a change for employment and eradication of poverty.
And Modi, a shrewd reader of people mind did not make a mistake in reading it. Armed with the
veterans of cyber warfare, he almost engineered a blitzkrieg to allure the public psyche in a manner
never heard of in Indian history. And it paid dividends. The BJP by itself, attained majority in the Lok
Sabha- a feat unachieved by any party since 1984.

2. But in these recently concluded by elections, the national issues did not dominate the public mind – the
electors were more interested in the local issues and Shri Amit Shah who is yet to recover from the
combined onslaught of Lalu and Nitish in Bihar failed miserably to address the local issues. In UP they
even failed to project a mature state level leader. The candidate selection was also done by himself
throwing to the winds the advice of Shri Rajnath Singh and Shri Kalyan Singh who knew UP like the palms
of their hands. The people also could not accept the banishment of Shri Lal Krishna Advani and Murali
Manohar Joshi, the patriarchs of BJP and the marginalization of Shri Rajnath Singh who with the aid of
Arun Jaitley effectively helped Shri Narendra Modi to be chosen as the prime ministerial candidate. The
removal of Varun Gandhi from the post of the Secretary was a move in the wrong direction. All these
contributed to the ignominious result in UP. It could win only in three seats out of eleven and all the
remaining eight went into the favour of SP.
The rhetoric of Yogi Adityanath had also backfired. People have rejected all his attempts to communalize
and polarize the Hindu votes, being oblivious of Muslim votes and the local caste arithmetic. People
actually want amity and therefore the strategy taken by the Yogi did not pay anything to BJP and people
rejected the Love Jihad strategy with all contempt and for that matter ‘Beef Jihad’ of Maneka Gandhi as
well.
To quote Ajoy Bose of Economic Times:
Mr Shah cannot escape responsibility for the highly communal crusade launched to garner Hindu
votes by demonising the entire Muslim community. Although saffron-robed zealots, Yogi
Adityanath and Sakshi Maharaj, may be made scapegoats for this strategy that so spectacularly
backfired, they could not have unleashed inflammatory campaigns like Love Jihad without the
active connivance of the party president.
Interestingly, Mr Shah who had very ingeniously and successfully managed to blend caste politics,
development agenda and Hindutva in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls, displayed a surprising
lack of subtlety this time.
The result in Rajasthan also speaks of an equally pathetic story. The Congress under the dynamic
leadership of Shri Sachin Pilot has become a resurgent force. It is slowly but steadily regained some of its
lost ground. The charisma of Smt. Vasundhara Raje and Shri Amit Shah did not prove a match to the hard
work, dedication and untiring efforts of the Congress. People also could not accept the over-centralizing
tendency of Shri Amit Shah and his arrogance failed to take the people along with the party. His own

3. team was resenting that the local MPs had not been consulted while selecting the party candidates.
Hence, this most unexpected result.
The result in Gujarat, the home state of both Shri Narendra Modi and Shri Amit Shah was quite amazing.
It is the diehard attitude of the Congress to never say ‘No’ that snatched away three seats from the jaws
of BJP. Shri Shah underestimated the vibrancy of our multi-party democracy. The Congress which was
almost written off for having not won a single seat in the national elections in May staged its surprise
comeback in Mangrol, Deesa and Khambaliya. Smt Anandiben Patel’s dream of winning all the seats in
the by elections and thus offering a birthday gift to Modi remained as elusive as ever.
The only state that BJP could dent was in West Bengal. The BJP could have at least one MLA in the
Vidhan Sabha in the State. This is also because the Trinamool Congress and Didi are mired in knee deep
corruption in ‘Saradha Scam’ and can of worms have begun to come out in public glare!
In Tripura, the BJP leadership is perennially weak. There is neither any state leader of any authority nor
any solid party structure. True there has been influx of some voters from the Congress and Trinamool
Congress but they are neither properly trained nor enthused with the party philosophy. As result. it could
garner some hundred votes. A pity!
Now the million dollar question whether this result of the by elections should be construed as a
referendum towards the functioning of the NDA and particularly of Shri Narendra Modi. I personally
refuse to believe it as referendum. In the by elections generally the local issues dominate and these
issues achieve the attribute of redundancy in a national forum. Shri Narendra Modi is yet to be tested.
But this by election has definitely proved that the high handedness and the over centralization of policy
of BJP leadership headed by Amit Shah won’t pay. Though Shri Narendra Modi effectively controls him
remotely, Shri Shah does not have the mettle of national leadership. He is at best a State Level Leader!
The BJP shall stand to lose by giving him the handle of central leadership.
Shri Modi should concentrate on economic growth and governance, the people bestowed the victory
trophy on him for growth, development and governance only, and someone (s) must not hijack these
golden goals for their self-aggrandizement by way of polarization of the societal character. Polarization is
a dangerous game and whoever has played with it have burn their faces.
Shri Modi Ji should also scrupulously read the mandate of the people, try to translate them into action or
otherwise he shall have to bear the burn of public fury and thus making it difficult to continue up to 2019
I can’t resist myself from quoting a wonderful posting of Kanwar Manjit Singh on Facebook in this
context:
Kaun Banega Karorepati Session
Compere: What did Modi say on seeing the by - poll (by - election) results?
Your options are:
(a) That should teach them to campaign without me;

4. (b) Too many jihads spoilt the broth;
(c) I knew price rise wasn’t the issue. Thats why nothing has been done about it; or
(d) Pass the soup, Xi.
Your time starts.................. NOWWWW !
And I chose the option at (D) - to pass the buck and I am sure Amit Shah will do the same.