In Search of a political plateau: Full analysis of phase 2 election
[There was a delay in publishing this report because of technical glitch in our data servers so we could not run queries or simulations for almost 36 hours.]
Yadgir assembly segment in northern Karnataka is a rare seat which had elected anti-Congress leaders for four straight elections after independence. Local folklore, therefore tells the story of 1978, when Mrs Indira Gandhi came on a chopper, waved her hands at the waiting thousands of people and flew back. This simple hand waving gesture though was enough to produce a Congress victory for the first time, that too from a totally unknown candidate.
At her peak, Indira Gandhi’s popularity was so high that her mere presence in a constituency for barely a few minutes would change the course of an election. Mind you, Indira was not a great orator, so nobody ever remembers any of her speeches other than the one she made in 1971 about “gareebi hatao”, so it is doubly difficult to understand her popularity among the masses. People saw in her a messiah who would deliver, especially the poor and the downtrodden, so they just trusted her blindly. Yet, even the mighty Indira Gandhi did suffer a deadly blow to her political charisma between 1977 to 1980, when she lost elections and power.
This is how mass leadership is in India. Generally in about a decade or so, mass leaders go through their lows in popularity, if they survive through these lows, they emerge stronger in the future, but very few can actually survive. Take the case of Lalu Prasad Yadav, for instance, he won almost all elections between 1990 and 2000, then his woes began and could never recover after that. Similarly, somebody like Digvijay Singh was hugely successful in Madhya Pradesh between 1990 and 2003, but once he lost it, he never has been able to gain a foothold.
To that extent, Narendra Bhai Damodardas Modi has remained a rare exception. Ever since October 7th 2001, when he was first anointed as the Chief Minister of Gujarat, it has now been almost 23 years since, and he has remained an extremely popular mass leader, first in Gujarat and then all over India. He has never lost a single election in this period of time, whether in Gujarat or in national polls. What is more, he keeps expanding his popularity and vote-shares with each passing election. One of the primary reasons why these cycles of highs and lows used to occur was very simple, after 10 years or so being in power, you would have made at least some people unhappy because you cannot fulfil the wishes of all. This is where Modi distinguishes himself. Whether it was the 2007 or 2012 Gujarat election or the three national elections so far, not only has he managed to hold on to his previous voters, but also he keeps adding newer demographic subsets to his fanbase.
We have been recording numbers from the ground for more than 12 years and have witnessed his peaks first-hand. Each time, we go to the ground mentally prepared to see at least a plateau in Modi’s votes, but each time he positively surprises us with a new peak. We have already seen in the very first phase of this year’s election that how BJP is gaining in both the core as well as the peripheral zone as compared to 2019. Although in the second phase there might be a slight dip in the core-heartland, overall, BJP and Modi are still seemingly on course for another peak in their remarkable journey.