It happened almost immediately. The day after the Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party official broke up their 25-year-old alliance, the ads, slogans and radio spots were all ready. “Chhatrapati Shivaji ka Aashirwad, Chalo Chalein Modi ke Saath” (With the blessings of Chhatrapati Shivaji, let’s move forward with Modi).
The front pages of all the newspaper until the day of the election were plastered with BJP ads that featured no faces from Maharashtra, no potential chief minister and not even any past luminaries. There was only one face: Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
That might not be unusual. Ever since Modi completed his ascent to the top of the BJP last year, the party’s campaigns have lavished inordinate amounts of attention on the leader who is now prime minister. The Lok Sabha election campaign was famously built on the Ab ki baar, Modi Sarkar slogan: this time, it’s Modi’s government. Whether it was in Jammu and Kashmir or in Tamil Nadu, the face that was being sold was that of the Gujarat chief minister.
Ebb and flow
So of course, when the BJP pulled off a stunning victory, the credit was laid at Modi’s feet. The Modi wave made it becoming clear in many places that it wasn’t just an anti-incumbent or an anti-Congress undercurrent that ended up giving the BJP the first simple majority since Rajiv Gandhi swept the Lok Sabha in 1984. The BJP not only managed to pick up almost all of the seats in the Hindi belt, it also showed signs of expanding into uncharted territory: Tamil Nadu, Kerala and West Bengal.
Then came the by-elections in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat. Although the BJP did decently, the high expectations set by the Modi wave election meant that all setbacks, such as losing seats in Modi’s Gujarat, were overblown as a serious defeat for the BJP.
But the prime minister himself didn’t campaign for the by-elections at all, leaving the work instead to local leaders like Yogi Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh, who proffered a much more communal line than Modi’s development mantra. So when the BJP’s defeats in certain seats became clear, there were as many suggestions that this was a confirmation of the Modi wave – because his absence in campaigning led to the party’s losses – rather than a sign that his star was on the wane.
Riding the wave
In Maharashtra, however, the BJP will not be able to resort to this explanation.
Modi has been front and centre throughout the campaign and much more visible in the advertising material than any local leader, including the chief ministerial hopefuls. In the last two weeks, Modi has addressed 27 rallies in the state, despite major crises on the Western border with Pakistan as well as on the eastern coast, where cyclone Hudhud was wreaking havoc. This insistence on a prime minister campaigning amidst these crises prompted the opposition to question whether Maharashtra’s elections were more important to Modi than dealing with tasks like Pakistan’s intransigence on the border.
There is no way for the BJP to spin this as not being an election that has Modi’s stamp on it. The slogan, chalo chalein Modi ke saath, explicitly calls him out while also tagging him to the state’s iconic figurehead, Shivaji. The vision document, and numerous photo-ops, make this even more evident: Modi is cast above all of the local state leaders, but is bowing his head in obeisance to Shivaji. The prime minister’s popularity seems so persuasive that the BJP decided to buy slots on a number of Marathi channels to replay Modi’s Madison Square Garden speech just a few days before the polls – not a tactic the Congress ever employed with its prime minister.
The belief that the Modi wave effect will be felt in Maharashtra has BJP leaders oozing confidence as the state goes to polls today. One senior leader speaking as campaigning came to an end in the state said that the BJP's internal survey suggested the party would be crossing the simple majority mark, although he went on to add that the party also was not foolhardy enough to “burn all bridges”.
Meanwhile, other parties have been complaining about the BJP’s reliance on Modi, claiming it is a sign of slim pickings within the party’s Maharashtra unit. "There is a lack of leadership in the state BJP after [Gopinath] Munde's demise," said Congress leader Milind Deora. "The party has nothing to project in Maharashtra than the PM's face.”
Credit and blame
A Congress leader saying this is always going to be ironic. That party is famous for attempting to shield its top leadership from criticism whenever there is a failure. Spokespersons from the Congress in the last few years have had to repeatedly sell the contribution that Rahul Gandhi has been able to provide to the party and then suddenly insist, after Gandhi’s interventions in UP or during the general elections, that the failure is a collective not individual one.
It would be much harder for the BJP to do this if it ends up doing badly in Maharashtra.
For one, the campaign has clearly been built on the Modi wave factor, made even more obvious because of the lack of a named chief ministerial candidate. In addition, the prime minister has always projected himself as someone who doesn’t shirk responsibility and therefore both credit and blame.
As a result, the Maharashtra elections, more than the by polls before them or the state assembly polls that are still to come, could see the end of the Modi wave factor or the cementing of the Prime Minister’s incredible popularity.
The next few elections, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand and most likely Delhi, are relatively smaller contests with other complications that might be able to explain away the lack of a Modi wave. It’s not until Bihar elections, expected only in the last few months of 2015, that the BJP will be in a contest where they will have the potential to send an emphatic message to the whole country, and by then there is plenty of potential for many other, non-electoral events to impact what seems to be the inevitable rise of PM Modi.
The front pages of all the newspaper until the day of the election were plastered with BJP ads that featured no faces from Maharashtra, no potential chief minister and not even any past luminaries. There was only one face: Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
That might not be unusual. Ever since Modi completed his ascent to the top of the BJP last year, the party’s campaigns have lavished inordinate amounts of attention on the leader who is now prime minister. The Lok Sabha election campaign was famously built on the Ab ki baar, Modi Sarkar slogan: this time, it’s Modi’s government. Whether it was in Jammu and Kashmir or in Tamil Nadu, the face that was being sold was that of the Gujarat chief minister.
Ebb and flow
So of course, when the BJP pulled off a stunning victory, the credit was laid at Modi’s feet. The Modi wave made it becoming clear in many places that it wasn’t just an anti-incumbent or an anti-Congress undercurrent that ended up giving the BJP the first simple majority since Rajiv Gandhi swept the Lok Sabha in 1984. The BJP not only managed to pick up almost all of the seats in the Hindi belt, it also showed signs of expanding into uncharted territory: Tamil Nadu, Kerala and West Bengal.
Then came the by-elections in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat. Although the BJP did decently, the high expectations set by the Modi wave election meant that all setbacks, such as losing seats in Modi’s Gujarat, were overblown as a serious defeat for the BJP.
But the prime minister himself didn’t campaign for the by-elections at all, leaving the work instead to local leaders like Yogi Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh, who proffered a much more communal line than Modi’s development mantra. So when the BJP’s defeats in certain seats became clear, there were as many suggestions that this was a confirmation of the Modi wave – because his absence in campaigning led to the party’s losses – rather than a sign that his star was on the wane.
Riding the wave
In Maharashtra, however, the BJP will not be able to resort to this explanation.
Modi has been front and centre throughout the campaign and much more visible in the advertising material than any local leader, including the chief ministerial hopefuls. In the last two weeks, Modi has addressed 27 rallies in the state, despite major crises on the Western border with Pakistan as well as on the eastern coast, where cyclone Hudhud was wreaking havoc. This insistence on a prime minister campaigning amidst these crises prompted the opposition to question whether Maharashtra’s elections were more important to Modi than dealing with tasks like Pakistan’s intransigence on the border.
There is no way for the BJP to spin this as not being an election that has Modi’s stamp on it. The slogan, chalo chalein Modi ke saath, explicitly calls him out while also tagging him to the state’s iconic figurehead, Shivaji. The vision document, and numerous photo-ops, make this even more evident: Modi is cast above all of the local state leaders, but is bowing his head in obeisance to Shivaji. The prime minister’s popularity seems so persuasive that the BJP decided to buy slots on a number of Marathi channels to replay Modi’s Madison Square Garden speech just a few days before the polls – not a tactic the Congress ever employed with its prime minister.
The belief that the Modi wave effect will be felt in Maharashtra has BJP leaders oozing confidence as the state goes to polls today. One senior leader speaking as campaigning came to an end in the state said that the BJP's internal survey suggested the party would be crossing the simple majority mark, although he went on to add that the party also was not foolhardy enough to “burn all bridges”.
Meanwhile, other parties have been complaining about the BJP’s reliance on Modi, claiming it is a sign of slim pickings within the party’s Maharashtra unit. "There is a lack of leadership in the state BJP after [Gopinath] Munde's demise," said Congress leader Milind Deora. "The party has nothing to project in Maharashtra than the PM's face.”
Credit and blame
A Congress leader saying this is always going to be ironic. That party is famous for attempting to shield its top leadership from criticism whenever there is a failure. Spokespersons from the Congress in the last few years have had to repeatedly sell the contribution that Rahul Gandhi has been able to provide to the party and then suddenly insist, after Gandhi’s interventions in UP or during the general elections, that the failure is a collective not individual one.
It would be much harder for the BJP to do this if it ends up doing badly in Maharashtra.
For one, the campaign has clearly been built on the Modi wave factor, made even more obvious because of the lack of a named chief ministerial candidate. In addition, the prime minister has always projected himself as someone who doesn’t shirk responsibility and therefore both credit and blame.
As a result, the Maharashtra elections, more than the by polls before them or the state assembly polls that are still to come, could see the end of the Modi wave factor or the cementing of the Prime Minister’s incredible popularity.
The next few elections, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand and most likely Delhi, are relatively smaller contests with other complications that might be able to explain away the lack of a Modi wave. It’s not until Bihar elections, expected only in the last few months of 2015, that the BJP will be in a contest where they will have the potential to send an emphatic message to the whole country, and by then there is plenty of potential for many other, non-electoral events to impact what seems to be the inevitable rise of PM Modi.
Buy an annual Scroll Membership to support independent journalism and get special benefits.
Our journalism is for everyone. But you can get special privileges by buying an annual Scroll Membership. Sign up today!