WAS MODI'S FLOP SHOW ROUTED BJP IN KARNATAKA?

By M H Ahssan / Bangalore

For all inveterate Narendra Modi worshippers, the Karnataka election results should be a shocker. The man with the magic wand has failed to deliver in a state where the party required a miracle most. After all here’s a man who is supposed to have phenomenal following among the middle class, the youth and in urban India. He lords over social media and draws passionate support like not even film stars do. And yes, he, some would vouch, talks the new language of politics – growth, development, governance and what not.

Voters in Karnataka have just separated the hype from the substance, and the myth from the man. The BJP has lost miserably in the state. Its failure in urban Karnataka has been spectacular. Obviously, the ‘goundswell’ support for the party after Modi’s election addresses was more social media imagination than reality. It now appears he did not even create a ripple in the state, forget a wave. If any reality check was required on the Modi phenomenon, the results offer that. He is not a leader with pan-Indian acceptability as his diehard supporters would have us believe.

But why are we discussing Modi in the context of the Karnataka elections at all? Well, why indeed! That precisely is the point. To be fair to him, he addressed only three meetings in the state and it was a lost cause in any case. After a chaotic stint in power in Karnataka, the dismal performance of the BJP in the assembly elections was on the cards. The real question was not the defeat per se, but its margin. Modi could not have changed that.

So what is all the hype about? Anyone with rudimentary understanding of current Indian politics would be aware that electoral behaviour has matured beyond hero-worshipping. The Gandhi surname no more attracts blind loyalty and votes, not even in the Gandhi pocket boroughs. There are too many competing interests at play to care about personalities. Modi, given the political ground realities, would find it difficult to be a pan-Indian vote magnet. The voter has grown up. He is less likely to be carried away by hype now than earlier.

Immediately after Modi’s campaign in Karnataka, there was the usual hyperbole about his impact on the voters and party workers. His own publicity machinery was at work again. Had the BJP won it in the state, the success would have been attributed to his superhuman powers. Now that it has lost, should not the blame be on him too? The Modi fan club is resembling more and more the Gandhi family supporters. The basic trait – personality worship – remains the same, only the deities are different.

Let’s get real. Modi’s myth-makers are doing him more harm than good. The more they make him an unreal politician – without normal weaknesses and strengths – the more is the risk of him unravelling quickly.