Ranjona Banerji: What do Goa and Manipur want?

Does UP prove that BJP can never lose File PicThe mind of the Indian voter remains a remarkable and wondrous thing It can defy predictions it can duck and dive and hedge and hide And more than anything else it takes the promise of a secret ballot very seriously Therefore no one predicted just how well the BJP would do in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand no one predicted how the Aam Aadmi Party is not a national level player yet no one expected Mayawati to fare so badly in Uttar Pradesh and no one expected anything from the Congress at all not even in Punjab let alone in Manipur and GoaIt is always tempting in times like these given BJPs stunning victories in UP and Uttarakhand to reimagine India and Indian polity Has the Indian Hindu finally found his and her voice drowned out for so long by fake secularism Do caste and religion as distinct voting blocs no longer matter Was the Prime Ministers demonetisation scheme a resounding success since the BJP won UP and UttarakhandThese are todays questions And they have also been yesterdays questions and may well be tomorrows questions At no time can one emphatically state that the truth is an absolute And if the questions are loaded and the answers are pat where is the answerHow one might ask is the BJPs victory in an Assembly election in Uttar Pradesh more emphatic than its resounding victory in the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 How far do you want to go back with this The BJP has definitely done better than before Its vote share in UP is bigger than its vote share in the general elections But at an average this vote share amounts to about 40 per cent of the electorate Is that the extent of the Hindu vote in India Or are there Hindus who do not vote for the BJP In some analyses the BJP gets the maximum vote share in the 51 to 60 age group What about older and younger people then The youth who make up the bulk of our population Where do they pin their hopesPerhaps the Prime Ministers magic wand apart there are other factors that come into play Perhaps as seemed to happen in the Mumbai and Maharashtra civic polls the electorate sees through squabbling and namecalling between former and now inevitably current allies Maybe as happened in Punjab antiincumbency is a bigger factor than the Prime Minister and religion and promises of development Perhaps as in Goa and Manipur people are uncertain and unhappy with the choices before them and do not give anyone a clear win Maybe the rise of middle class India via the Aam Aadmi Party is a dream that is still being formulatedDoes Punjab prove that the Congress is not dead Does UP prove that BJP can never lose Does Manipur prove that a local hero or heroine will be damned by personal choices and an election juggernaut Does Goa prove that Indias Defence Minister is better suited as its Chief Minister even without the votes Does Uttarakhand prove that people are stuck between one inefficient lot and anotherMy miserable conclusion at the end of all this is all and none of the above Yes there is a rightward swing across the planet India is no different here Earlier the right and left were largely contained within the Congress party That umbrella as we know has now gone Regional parties are not as strong as they were in some places but remain in charge in others There is no one size fits allHowever what we lack in India is a clear idea of what our political parties stand for if anything at all Resounding victories for the BJP in two states and Congress in one make the mandate clear But in Goa and Manipur the party which won the most seats Congress has been beaten to the post when it comes to government formation So what did the electorate want in these two states Or does it not matterSomewhere between left right and middle our political parties seem to be grappling in the dark with their preconceived ideas and the need for personal aggrandisement Much like the exit polls and election predictions one might argue In the end thats a nowin