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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday turned his party’s stupendous success in the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand elections into a victory march, looking beyond the 2019 general elections at 2022, the 75th year of the country’s Independence, with a fresh theme: ‘New India’.
The PM’s framing of the BJP’s “New India” slogan was replete with references to the poor and their upward social mobility, reflecting a change in political idiom from Achche Din to Antyodaya and Garib Kalyan (welfare of the poor).
The PM articulated the political message and transformed the celebrations of the latest poll results practically into the launch of the BJP’s campaign for the 2019 elections. The party has simultaneously worked towards the formation of its governments in Goa and Manipur, which delivered a hung verdict.
Manohar Parrikar, who has resigned as Defence Minister, held parleys with different sets of elected Goan MLAs along with his senior colleague Nitin Gadkari. Parrikar subsequently met the Goa Governor Mridula Shah and staked claim to form the government.
Even in Manipur, where the Congress is just two short of a majority, the BJP, which needs nine MLAs to reach the halfway mark, aggressively pushed its claim to form the government.
Discussions in the BJP’s parliamentary board on chief ministerial probables for UP and Uttarakhand were continuing till late in the evening.
Reforms, redistribution At the same time, the PM and BJP President Amit Shah were already busy framing the popular discourse for the BJP as “empowerment, rather than appeasement, of the poor”.
The policy objectives were simultaneously summed up by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his post-poll comments. “We see no contradiction between reforms and redistribution of resources. They can be complementary,” said the Finance Minister, asserting that the results imply that the government will be “emboldened” in pushing crucial reform measures without being constantly wary of their political implications.
The party’s extraordinary victory, especially in Uttar Pradesh, clearly means critics have to eat crow and the government has the people’s support in implementing any difficult policy measure.
However, as the Prime Minister’s speech at the BJP headquarters indicated, the articulation of the ruling dispensation’s policy perspective would remain strictly clothed in a “pro-poor” idiom. As the BJP expands its social base to Dalits and OBCs besides upper castes who voted for it overwhelmingly in UP and Uttarakhand, the political messaging too will be tailored for the new constituency.
The PM thus described the latest poll results as a “golden moment” in the BJP’s history and an opportunity to work for the downtrodden.
‘Golden moment’ “This is a golden moment in the BJP’s history… We have seen many dreams being promised to win elections. But my dream is to take this ‘New India’ forward in the 75thyear of our Independence. I am not someone who thinks in terms of elections… What these results have done is to empower my ambition for 2022, to fulfil the aspirations of every Indian, to take India to newer heights,” said the PM.
While framing the contours of the BJP’s campaign for the next general elections, the PM described the poor and their upward social mobility as the new policy paradigm.
“We are informed by Deen Dayal Upadhyay’s mission of Antyodaya and Garib Kalyan . I see the potential in India’s poor in contributing to nation-building. The poor are our biggest asset. The middle class has thus far borne the burden of more taxes, following all laws, rules, traditions. If the poor are empowered, the burden on the middle class will decrease. I see this as the guiding economic principle for the New India,” Modi said.
‘Hope for the future’ Amit Shah made no secret of the party treating the poll verdict in the five States as an endorsement of the Prime Minister’s leadership and his policy initiatives, especially demonetisation.
“In demonetisation, the poor found themselves united with the Prime Minister and the government… Today, for the first time after Independence, we have a Prime Minister who had ignited a hope for the future among the poor…
“The BJP’s victory march will go through Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka into western and southern India and will culminate in a bigger mandate for the party in 2019,” the BJP President said.
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