Gujarat frames big questions for India in 2019

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party won its prestige poll battle in Gujarat and swept Himachal Pradesh, bolstering the electoral record of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah. But Congress’ good fight in the PM’s home state added a much-needed measure of credibility to its new chief, Rahul Gandhi. Also, GST (the goods and services tax) didn’t prove to be the electoral demon it was portrayed as, but MSP (minimum support prices) emerged as a big factor in the policy-political discourse.

BJP won for the sixth consecutive time in Gujarat, starting in 1995, but dropped below 100 in the 182-seat assembly for the first time. Broadly, urban voters and the second phase of Gujarat polls brought BJP home while Congress’ improved performance was thanks to seats won in the first phase and in rural areas.

Post-Gujarat verdict, a BJP versus Congress battle will more sharply define the national political landscape, more so because four major state polls — in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka — before the 2019 general elections are straight bipolar contests.

Modi’s stature as a campaigner who delivers wins increased further after the verdict; the PM had addressed 34 rallies in Gujarat. But, for the first time since 2014’s general election debacle for Congress, Gandhi appeared to have had some impact on a poll result. This means the Modi versus Rahul battle will likely become a larger subplot in the BJP versus Congress electoral war.

Gujarat’s verdict also sharply defined some political economic questions. BJP’s handsome victories in urban areas, especially in Surat, showed mandates can be won even after disruptive reforms such as GST while Congress’ improved performance in rural areas demonstrated the agrarian question remains a powerful political-policy poser.

Monday’s verdict may impact the economy and the fisc through the Centre’s approach on Minimum Support Price and farm loan waiver. The critical choice for Bharatiya Janata Party in the next 18 months may well be whether its non-populist social welfare policies aimed at universal provision of electricity and cooking gas are enough to win over India’s large agrarian population, especially given Congress’ already-clear emphasis on populist policies such as farm loan waiver.

For Congress, too, there’s a poser: its attacks on major reforms like demonetisation and GST have paid no vote dividends and populism alone is a risky electoral strategy. Gandhi’s major challenge will be to fashion a positive, alternative narrative to Modi’s. Gujarat in late 2017 has in many ways framed the most import questions for India in 2018 and 2019.