After the landslide win in three heartland states, the BJP remains firmly in pole position for the 2024 parliamentary elections. This advantage is principally driven by Narendra Modi’s enduring popularity
Our Bureau
New Delhi/Moscow/Washington, DC
In an interesting development, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday heaped praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying that he cannot be intimidated or forced to take decisions that are contrary to national interests. “I cannot imagine that Modi could be intimidated, intimidated or forced to take any actions, steps and decisions that are contrary to the national interests of India and the Indian people. And there is such pressure, I know. By the way, he and I never even talk about this. I just look at what is happening from the outside, and sometimes, to be honest, I’m even surprised at his tough position on defending the national interests of the Indian state,” the Russian President’s Office quoted Putin as saying at the 14th VTB Investment Forum ‘Russia Calling’.
Putin’s comments came just four days after Modi’s BJP swept the elections in three states in the Hindi heartland. The BJP scored landslide victories in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, months ahead of the 2024 general elections. The party also improved its performance in Telangana and Mizoram.
Observers believe that with barely six months to go until India’s national elections, Narendra Modi appears to be cruising to a third successive term as prime minister. Bharatiya Janata Party’s emphatic victories in three crucial Hindi-speaking heartland states underscore Modi’s continued hold on voters and seriously set back the Congress Party’s hopes of claiming power after 10 years in opposition.
The elections in five states were seen as a semi-final for the 2024 elections. Having won the semi-finals, Modi is not preparing for the final in 2024. Hailing the BJP’s resounding victory in assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said that his party’s success rate in different polls indicates that the party is the best performing one among the other political parties of the country. During his address at the first BJP Parliamentary party meeting after the victory in the Assembly elections, Modi said these results showed that the BJP as the incumbent party gets re-elected based on its governance record.
PM Modi was welcomed at the BJP parliamentary party meeting with a standing ovation and was felicitated by BJP national president J P Nadda on his arrival.
Now, BJP has the crucial task of selecting potential chief ministerial candidates to lead new cabinets for the upcoming five years. BJP trumped not just their rivals but also some pollsters who had predicted tight races in these states. The election results in four states, especially the losses in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, came as a huge blow to the Congress’s hopes for 2024 as it is now out of power across a vast swathe of the Hindi heartland.
Now that voters in five states have rendered their judgments in a clutch of recently concluded state assembly elections, the eyes of 1.4 billion Indians—and those observing from abroad—turn to the country’s general elections, expected to be held over several weeks in April–May 2024.
The results of the December 3 state polls provided a big boost to the Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The party swept elections in the Hindi belt states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan. The lone victory for the opposition Indian National Congress came in the southern state of Telangana. Neither the BJP nor the Congress Party figured prominently in the Mizoram battle.
The BJP, which had been battling close to 20 years of incumbency, won a resounding mandate bagging 163 seats while the Congress finished a distant second at 66 seats. In Rajasthan, the vote count painted a starkly different picture to what some of the pollsters had predicted, with the BJP poised to form the government, winning 115 seats, and the Congress trailing at 69 seats. Of the 90 assembly constituencies in Chhattisgarh, the BJP bagged 54 while the Congress won 35.
Setting the tone for the 2024 elections, Modi said while the BJP got re-elected for the second time 56 per cent of the time, the percentage of the Congress party for a second term was below 20 per cent. “Yesterday, someone sent me an analysis that shows that out of the 40 Congress governments who got the opportunity to contest elections (in different states), they were re-elected only 7 times. That means their success rate is 18 per cent. BJP governments got the opportunity to go among the people 39 times. Out of 39, the BJP government was formed 22 times i.e. it was repeated. That means the success rate was 56 per cent. Regional parties got the opportunity to go to elections 36 times while in government, and they came back after repeating 18 times. That means their success rate has been 50 per cent,” PM Modi said.
He further said the results of the polls mean that the policies of the BJP are right. “Let me give you an example. This happened when I was a small worker of the BJP. This is 40-50 years after independence. A gentleman had done research on various governments in Madhya Pradesh and shared it with me. He found that Madhya Pradesh gained a lot of momentum during the time the BJP government was in power in Madhya Pradesh, and this is an eye-opening fact. This was many years ago, he had told how the BJP party became a subject of study,” he added.
Modi also said that people like BJP’s governance, decision making and transparency. “I have said this many times before that this matter should be studied. If you do research on different governments, Congress, regional parties and coalition governments, you will find that BJP is the best-performing party,” he said.
He also said that his party has an advantage in that it never faces anti-incumbency. “Victory in these elections is the victory of our collective strength. Victory is not due to any one person; work is done by everyone’s strength. Every BJP worker deserves this victory. Those people who have spent their lives in building the party also deserve this victory. We are just there for the sake of purpose. The power of community is our strength,” the PM added.
It is not just talk. Modi and his party are working on a plan, with Modi asking the MPs to participate actively in the ongoing Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra, a programme to reach out to beneficiaries of the government schemes that began on November 15 and will conclude on January 25, the Janman programme for the particularly vulnerable tribal groups and extremely backward as well as the Vishwakarma programme.
Even international observers are quite confident of Modi and BJP sitting pretty and confidently in 2024.
According to a Carnegie Endowment report, the results confirm what is already common knowledge: “as far as the 2024 parliamentary elections are concerned, the BJP remains firmly in pole position. This advantage is principally driven by Modi’s enduring popularity.”
According to Morning Consult, which tracks the weekly approval ratings of more than twenty democratically elected world leaders, 78 percent of Indians surveyed in late November approved of Modi’s job performance. Modi’s net approval (calculated as the share of respondents who approve of his performance minus those who disapprove) is a stunning +60. The second-most-popular leader on the list is Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose net rating is “only” +30. It is even more remarkable that Modi’s approval has been remarkably consistent since August 2019, the date that data were first available.
Domestic opinion polls confirm that Modi’s popularity remains intact and that this continues to fuel his party’s dominance. The biannual Mood of the Nation poll from India Today has consistently shown, including as recently as August 2023, that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) would handily capture a majority of seats in the Lok Sabha, even if its majority reduces compared to its 2019 tally (when it notched 353 seats), according to the Carnegie report.
There seems to be a complete consensus – from New Delhi to Washington DC to Moscow – that Narendra Modi looks like a leader who can’t be beaten now – and in 2024.
