Despite strong public opinion prevailing in other parts of the country, successive elections to the Gujarat assembly in 2007 and 2012 were handsomely won by Narendra Modi. Not just critical opinion, there seems to be quite a lot of documentary evidence of the not-so-great performance of Gujarat over the years in terms of the human development, government policies openly favouring the rich and the very rich businessmen and industry groups flouting normal fiscal prudence and administrative norms (running up sizable fiscal debt), the widening of the urban-rural divide, government doing everything to delay and deny justice to the 2002 riot affected and displaced Muslims apart from the official insensitivity towards them and neglect of their rehabilitation needs. Despite all these facts, many of which the congress party brandished as the part of their propaganda at various times before the 2012 elections, 48% of the valid vote polled went in favour of BJP (and in Gujarat the party does not mean anything without Modi), with Congress polling about 39%.
The Muslims constitute only about 9% of the population of the state. For the sake of a simplified analysis, even if Muslims vote enblock against him that hardly affects Modi electorally, as long as he could garner the majority of the remaining votes on the supposed strength of economic development of the state, apparent priority accorded by the government to business and industry (which goes well with the traditional Gujarati ethos), well developed urban infrastructure, good availability of electricity and electronic connectivity, etc. From the reports critical to NaMo and his policies and programs, it may appear that Gujarati society is after all not monolithic and his actions did affect sections of the population in negative ways, especially the poor and the marginalized and those inhabiting the rural Gujarat. Do the voting percentages and patterns in different parts of the State, the regions and the districts demonstrate the disenchantment of these sections? Only a detailed statistical analysis of the poll data can establish that or refute the hypothesis.
Since the voting patterns in 2012 election show a fairly complete polarization between those for and against NaMo (all other parties in the opposition neither significant in gathering votes nor seats) obviously there is a fairly clear divide in the state – it remains, however, to be demonstrated as to whether this divide is indeed between those apparently benefiting from the stress Modi placed on the economic development (coinciding with the benefits visible in the urban and semi-urban areas of the state) and others being denied of the same. That BJP won comprehensively in the urban areas, cities in particular, is beyond dispute as shown by statistics. But the party also appeared to have got majority of seats – if not greater vote percentage- in most of the 5 major regions of the state.
The 8-9% difference between the BJP and the Congress votes during the last election is too large to have happened without a benefit that accrued to Modi on the back of the perception of a development dividend delivered. There are some indications of the role played by the so-called neo-middle classes of the Gujarati society in this election. There is a sizable section of the population from the poorer classes of the rural areas forced to migrate to urban and semi-urban areas as a result of economic difficulties and backwardness. It is quite possible that they have been attracted by the promise of an economic revival of their fate in the wake of the development ‘magic’ they are consuming as new entrants of the burgeoning middle classes in the cities and urban clusters of Gujarat. And for them the perception is that entrepreneurial ethic is getting the desired attention and support from the government. And naturally they became the latest vote bank for Modi.
Lastly, the recent delimitation of the assembly constituencies may also have played a role in tilting the electoral balance by way of redistributing the purely rural areas and combining them with relatively more urban areas and generating a new constituency with both urban and rural category of voters. This again needs more detailed examination provided relevant statistics are available.
Hope to revisit Modi’s magic formula for wining elections and how it could impact countrywide if at all some other time.
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