#dnaEdit: BJP’s 2019 poll plan

The statistic is both curious and revealing. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is now in power over 51 per cent of the area and 37 per cent of the population, and that the state governments are responsible for 75 per cent of the implementation of the Central government’s welfare schemes. This was the figure doled out by party president Amit Shah while addressing the chief ministers from states where the BJP is in power. It seems that the BJP and its leading duo — Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah — recognise that preparations for the 2019 Lok Sabha election would have to begin now. This is something akin to some of the Indian athletes getting ready for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic games! While it is right that athletes should indeed be preparing now for the next big event that is four years away, it does not appear that the sole aim of governments should ever be to prepare for the next elections. The democratic dynamic is based on a different logic. It is about what the people want, and their freedom to choose a party or reject it. 

There is the famous example that after Winston Churchill led the country to victory in the Second World War, and in the elections that followed immediately in 1945, the Conservative Party to which Churchill belonged, was unceremoniously defeated. There were of course very good reasons for that. The people believed that it was the Conservative Party that had muddled the policy in dealing with Hitler and Germany. But the more important reason was after the Great Depression of the 1930s, people did not any more believe in laissez faire economics. The Labour Party with its ideas of planning and a welfare state offered hope to the economically battered millions. Of course, the enchantment with the Labour Party lasted just for a term. In the 1951 general election, the Conservative Party was voted back and Churchill became the popularly elected prime minister. He became prime minister in 1940 when the Second World War was underway and the Conservatives were already in power.
While the BJP is doing the most rational thing in the circumstances by preparing to win the next elections, it should be borne in mind by the party leaders themselves, including the prime minister, that the ultimate right lies with the people as to whom they would choose to govern. It might be short-sighted to believe that implementing welfare schemes for the poor would guarantee re-election. The BJP governments at the centre and in the states may be successful in implementing all the welfare schemes, and they may even promise more of them. But the people in their wisdom might reject the very idea of being mollycoddled by a welfare state. 

Political parties prepare for elections and fight them on the assumption that they would emerge victors. But the decision lies with the people. And parties may win or lose elections when they really do not deserve to win or deserve to lose. It might seem fatalistic to suggest that good governance is not sufficient to win elections. People would reward good governance and it has been shown many times over in successive elections in this country. But what distinguishes a democracy from a dictatorship is that people vote for change in government in a democracy. It is this condition of change that makes democratic polities vibrant and healthy. Political parties should indeed endeavour to remain in power, but people should always prefer change. Change keeps political parties on their toes.