Despite exit poll results, BJP doesn't have hopes riding high on state elections

BJP can expect to make decent inroads in Kerala and Assam at best while laying foundation for 2019 general elections in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu

As news channels began telecasting exit polls on Monday evening, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav tweeted the results of the exit polls for the November 2015 Bihar Assembly elections. Not one exit poll had come anywhere near predicting the eventual results. All of them, bar one, got the results horribly wrong. The one that did get it right, Axis, was never telecast. “Gentle reminder and reality of Bihar exit polls. None was close to original outcome. Relax, keep calm and wait for 19th,” Yadav tweeted.

In another 48 hours, it will again become clear whether election results will belie exit polls and bring succour to the Congress party. As for the Bharatiya Janata Party, its Assam leaders, as well as those central leaders who were entrusted with managing the elections, are taciturn about claiming a resounding victory for the BJP alliance in the northeastern state. They are confident that the party will turn in its best performance ever in Assam but are nervous that this might not be enough to form the government.

As for the other states that went to the polls, the BJP never considered itself a player in Tamil Nadu. But a Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-Congress victory will be a shot in the arm for the struggling Congress in a situation somewhat comparable to Bihar where the party was a marginal partner to Nitish Kumar's JD9U) and Lalu Prasad Yadav's RJD.

The BJP has more hopes from Kerala. A Left Democratic Front victory in Kerala would be disappointing for the Sangh Parivar. It considers the Left as its Enemy Number One. Given its strong ideological moorings and committed cadre strength, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) poses a far greater challenge at the level of political discourse to the Sangh Parivar, which is also cadre based and driven by its ideology of cultural nationalism. In Kerala, the BJP would ideally want its vote share to increase but hopes the LDF loses. Another five years without power in Kerala for the CPI (M) would be debilitating for the Left. The Left's committed support base in Kerala is predominantly Hindu, which the BJP hopes to poach.

 

BJP leaders say their aggressive campaigning in both Kerala and West Bengal are investments for the future. The BJP, under Sidharth Nath Singh, led an effective campaign in Bengal. The BJP’s incessant campaign and effective use of mainstream as well as social media should be taken to have contributed significantly if Mamata Banerjee’s party finds itself with a wafer-thin majority. The BJP is unlikely to win many seats but believes it was its campaigning that punctured the aura about Banerjee’s invincibility. The BJP believes a weaker Banerjee and a state in chaos will help the party put down roots in Bengal. The BJP can then project itself as a credible party of governance as opposed to the Trinamool as well as CPI (M).

The halfway mark is 148 in the 294 seat West Bengal Assembly. All exit polls have predicted a victory for Banerjee but ABP Ananda on Tuesday added a caveat. It said that its initial survey findings suggest 163 seats to Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress but that there were as many as 25 seats where its exit poll predicts a Trinamool victory by the thinnest of margins. It says ascertaining voter behaviour has not been easy in an election marred by violence, a Bengal polity that is deeply divided and where people are afraid of telling the truth about their voting preference. This, according to a report in The Telegraph today, could mean the 25 seats, or several of them, going to the Congress-Left alliance, resulting in an electoral photo-finish. It won't be good news for West Bengal but the BJP hopes such a situation will offer it fertile ground to expand its base in the state.

The BJP went into these polls with an eye on the 2019 national elections. It believes it is unlikely to repeat its 2014 Lok Sabha performance in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and will need to compensate its losses in the north by winning seats in its non-traditional areas.