The results of this assembly election are a bit surprising, but they also show that there was a very powerful undercurrent of some kind in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, which are states in the same region. The basis of this undercurrent, prima facie, is the various welfare schemes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Centre, through which money is given to the people and today they are also reaching the money to the people. This has awakened trust in Modi in the minds of people and it is visible. This trust will be seen more strongly in the Lok Sabha elections and in the Hindi belt and this is a big alarm bell for the India alliance.
In the three states of the Hindi belt where elections have been held, the elections have been fought in very different ways. Talking about Madhya Pradesh, it was being said that there has been apathy and boredom there for a long time. There was no talk of any wave of BJP here. Still BJP won. Talks about various schemes also took place here. If there was enthusiasm among the public for schemes or women’s vote, then why Ashok Gehlot and Bhupesh Baghel did not win, they had launched a series of schemes. BJP did not even have such a strong face in Chhattisgarh. Even in Rajasthan, BJP did not put forward any face, yet people have strongly supported BJP in this state. What is worth noting here is that the announcement of the date of Ram Temple was made by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah in all their election campaigns. Similarly, the Prime Minister said that we are building houses for you. He also said that we fulfilled our promise to build Ram temple. And then after reaching Mathura, without saying anything, he gave many messages to the public through pictures. The second important thing that seems to me is that the time period of ration being given to 80 crore people across the country has to be extended for another five years. So the welfare schemes of the Center are now reaching the targeted people. I am not just considering this as a matter related to communalism, religion and nationalism. I feel that this is becoming an important factor, because if Shivraj ji had achieved this, then that matter would have been limited to Madhya Pradesh only. BJP had no face in entire Chhattisgarh. Although to a small extent, Bhupesh Baghel was also running some schemes to woo the Hindus. On the other hand, in Rajasthan, Ashok Gehlot had come out with his health schemes and publicized them a lot for last two years, but nothing materialized.
There are two things in the national context. One, Rahul Gandhi is continuously talking about census on the basis of caste, but the backward people in these states completely rejected that thing. Secondly, Rahul Gandhi does not have that kind of mechanism to go among the public and make the kind of inroads he has made, especially regarding reservation for backward classes, as Samajwadi Party or other parties have done. In this matter, Congress is not visible anywhere. There was even talk of religious outreach program in the Congress convention in Udaipur, but Congress did not get any benefit from it, instead only BJP benefited. The huge success that Congress has achieved in the South by winning in Telangana has been overshadowed by the election results of these three states. When Congress loses elections in a state to a third front, then it is not able to flourish there. West Bengal, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi etc. are examples of this. She may join the government as a hanger-on, but she has no existence of her own. As far as Lok Sabha elections are concerned, the reality is that Narendra Modi has influence on the people and BJP can easily get more than 300 seats. If we talk about India alliance, then whether the alliance parties are trusting Congress or not, whether Congress is giving them seats or not, it has no meaning. The real thing is what will be the result of the elections. There was an assessment regarding the year 2024 that there could be a hung Lok Sabha, after these election results, there seems to be little hope for it. It can be said that this election result is the undercurrent of BJP’s ideology.