Nationalism not enough for electoral insurance

ARCHIS MOHAN & SAHIL MAKKAR Pakistan came in the 1971 war. Indira New Delhi/, 9 October WAR ROOM Punjab results in 1997 and 2002 Assembly polls ! 1997 ! 2002 Gandhi won a comfortable electoral vic- A comparison of BJP seats in the 1998 and Contested Won Forfeited Voting percentage tory on the back of her Garibi Hatao slo- The army’s September 29 strike to post-Kargil 1999 Lok Sabha elections gan in the March Lok Sabha elections. avenge the Uri terrorist attack has BJP 22 18 0 8.33 With Pakistan’s surrender in brought a spring in the steps of Bharatiya Total BJP seats in LS Total BJP seats in LS 25 3 1 5.67 December that year, she was feted as State LS seats 1998 1999 State LS seats 1998 1999 (BJP) leaders and smiles SAD 95 75 0 37.64 Durga. The euphoria, however, couldn’t back on the faces of its cadres. Punjab 13 3 1 Delhi 7 6 7 Punjab 92 41 2 31.08 overwhelm the disaffection because of Assembly The BJP hopes this Narendra Modi Uttar Pradesh 85 57 29 Andhra Pradesh 42 4 7 105 14 15 26.38 price rise and other issues, and the gov- government response to Pakistan might elections 105 62 3 35.81 ernment faced a groundswell of public help it electorally in the coming state Bihar 54 20 23 Assam 14 1 2 ire by 1973. In response, assembly polls, particularly in Uttar Gujarat 26 19 20 Haryana 10 1 5 UP results in 1996 and 2002 Assembly polls ! 1996 ! 2002 famously imposed in Pradesh. The other states going to the Himachal Pradesh 4 3 3 Goa 2 0 2 1975 and lost power in 1977. polls are Punjab, Manipur, Goa and BJP 414 174 13 32.52 In 1987, the government Uttarakhand. Jammu & Kashmir 6 2 2 Tamil Nadu 39 3 4 320 88 50 20.08 mobilised on the Pakistan border. The On Friday, party chief said Karnataka 28 13 7 West Bengal 42 1 2 Congress 126 33 20 8.35 official position was that army was con- the effort wasn’t to politicise the issue 402 25 334 8.96 ducting war exercises, named Operation Madhya Pradesh 40 30 29 Other states/UTs 37 3 1 but the cadre would take the strikes’ Uttar SP 281 110 19 21.80 Brasstacks, but Gandhi had also taken to message to the people, to increase the Maharashtra 48 4 13 Total 543 182 182 Pradesh 390 143 68 25.37 issuing aggressive statements. morale of the armed forces. He said the Assembly Of the four major states that had polls Odisha 21 7 9 BJP vote BSP 296 67 28 19.64 Indira Gandhi-led Congress had used — 25.59 23.75 elections 401 98 91 23.06 in 1987, the Congress lost in West Bengal, the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war for Rajasthan 25 5 16 percentage Kerala and Haryana, and won an igno- political gains. Note: In 1998-99, Uttarakhand was still a part of Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand of Bihar, Chhattisgarh of Madhya Pradesh and Telangana of Andhra Pradesh minious victory in Jammu & Kashmir However, and as Indira Gandhi dis- BJP: ; SAD: Shiromani ; SP: ; BSP: Source: Election Commission of that was blamed on large-scale rigging. covered in the 1970s, electoral history It eventually lost power in the national suggests a political party’s ability to the border. Harbhajan Singh, another villager. In 2001, attack on Parliament and the sub- in 1999. If they won 11 of the 13 seats in elections in 1989. exploit military successes for poll gains Sucha Singh, an elder in the village bustling , 150 km from the bor- sequent mobilisation of forces 1998, this got reduced to three in 1999. Similarly, the BJP won several key has a mixed record. who has seen the India-Pakistan wars of der village, the mood is simi- (‘Operation Parakram’) at the Voters in UP brought the party down states in 2003, a year after Operation As was seen during a recent visit to 1965 and 1999, says the army action will lar. India’s most border by the Atal Bihari from the 57 seats it won in 1998 to 29 in Parakram and the Gujarat riots. the border district of Amritsar, local not make any difference to the results of Data from previous elec- famous victory Vajpayee government. The 1999. It hurt the party that it had thrown However, it lost power at the Centre by issues continue to take priority over the Assembly election. “People have tions also suggest that wars or against Pakistan BJP-Akali Badal-led coalition out a leader like Kalyan Singh. 2004. The BJP even went into an over- nationalistic fervour. already made up their minds. This time, military mobilisations have came in the lost power to Congress’ At the national level, the Kargil con- drive, questioning the Congress’ ‘weak Neither the celebrations by people will vote for a change to save seldom helped governments 1971 war ; in UP, the flict did help the BJP retain its number of kneed’ handling of national security BJP cadres in the wake of the strikes or a Punjab,” he avers. at the Centre to gain electoral BJP was reduced from being seats, gain in urban areas and again form issues in the wake of the November 2008 visit soon after by state Chief Minister The Akali-BJP alliance has ruled advantage in either Uttar Pradesh or the single-largest party to number three the government. But, its total vote share, Mumbai terrorist attacks but people to border Punjab for the past 10 years, and people Punjab. (see chart). compared to the 1998 elections, came brought back the Congress in Delhi and areas has changed the public mood in seemed eager to vote them out. “This Elections to both were held barely a UP and Punjab behaved similarly in down (see chart). Rajasthan in the polling that took place Dhanoe Kalan village, barely a km from time the fight is to save Punjab,” says couple of months after the December 13, the post-Kargil contest for the Lok Sabha India’s most famous victory against a couple of days later.