New Delhi: The results for the current five assembly elections are before us. Broadly, the trends are there, the results are before us and it looks some like some kind of a whitewash of the BJP. So there are multiple factors contributing to this. One decisive factor definitely for this is a rural backlash, farmers backlash, which has sort of overtaken this identity/communal polarisation issue of the BJP.So, this will give us interesting clues of how this is going to play out in 2019. As we are inching towards 2019, it is very clear that there cannot be an exclusive Hindutva agenda that is going to work for the BJP, because history tells us that the Hindutva agenda can work only when there is a basic minimum development.I think basic minimum development, basic minimum employment, basic minimum rural income is actually a precondition for Hindutva. This common-sense assumption that Hindutva is an alternative and economy is in deep crisis, I think is something that doesn’t work. Which is, I think, has been a popular myth, a commonsensical misreading of Indian politics for quite some time.What this round of elections clearly proves is that if you push the electorate beyond, and my own assumption is that the BJP could not, one, manage the economy, and second, it thought that misgovernance or crisis in the economy will translate into a pro-Hindutva kind of a mobilisation. I think that has been a gross misreading of the BJP.What it proves is that you need a basic minimum development, basic minimum economy to provide some kind of social gestation for periods to respond to Hindutva kind of claims, for identity claims, claims of Hindu pride and so on and so forth.So the BJP, I think, has got it wrong, its combination of development and Hindutva and this is going to definitely have a much bigger impact in 2019. The economy cannot be corrected in a very short period of three-four months, so it is a big uphill task for the BJP to do what they can while on the other hand, the Congress is still struggling to get its social narrative on board and it is more playing that earlier kind of a default party, that people get tired of the BJP, then they are going to turn to the Congress.I think Congress has to really pull up their socks and find a very robust social narrative, which to my mind, should be a robust welfare orientation and welfare policies and that will, in effect, be the BJP’s game too.So, Telangana results are now before us. More or less, it looks like a big lead for the TRS. This was partly expected for many reasons. One, Telangana has the highest per capita budget in India right now. So in that sense, it is the richest state in terms of budgetary provisions which are over one lakh eighty thousand crores.So, definitely a KCR government succeeded in formulating a range of welfare policies, there is occupation-based welfare policies, there’s Rythu Bandhu for the farmers, there are women oriented policies, Muslims were incorporated. For every segment, KCR succeeded in having welfare policies. So this is really a pro-welfare vote in Telangana. And there’s nothing much that the Congress could offer which is very distinct from what KCR did. So, that was the first major reason for KCR’s well doing.Second, he did quite a few interesting things. For the first time, Telangana got 24-hour electricity supply. And what he did between the interim period, the six-month government’s interim period, he discontinued the 24-hour electricity supply. So people could see a clear distinction between if KCR is in power, you get 24-hour water supply, with KCR out of power, you’ll go back to the old Telangana which suffered huge power cuts. So these kinds of symbolic moves also people understood.Third, the state, by and large, remained very peaceful. And therefore, KCR succeeded in translating the IT industry, the profits and the budget overturns from IT industries, he could redistribute to the rural areas. And water is also the fourth thing that he succeeded by and large in providing.So in the backdrop of what was going on in Telangana for the last three decades, in terms of the water crisis, power crisis, agrarian crisis. I wouldn’t say its full marks, but KCR delivered and people are willing to give him a second chance.
