By-poll result: People want 'Karma Yogi' Narendra Modi, not Yogi Adityanath

Euphoria can't be a substitute for ground level organisation. Votes have to be earned through development, not by ramping up political rhetoric. This in a way is the short message from the by-election results in 10 states - a warning bell to the saffron unit before the critical test in Maharashtra and Haryana. 

Narendra Modi, just after winning the Lok Sabha elections, had asked party workers to toil hard to ensure the dream of a Congress mukt Bharat. Four months after that clarion call, BJP has suffered a severe jolt in the by-elections. In total, it won 14 out of 33 seats that were up for grabs, dropping 12 seats in the process. Congress which looked almost dead and buried, has got a new lease of life as it did decently well in Gujarat and Rajasthan. It may have not got the official status of opposition in the Lok Sabha, but such a show can prove to be god-send for the floundering unit to get its act together. 

There are multiple things that can be interpreted from this electoral setback of BJP both at the national level and in the states. Firstly, the BJP has to tone down its exuberance of winning an unprecedented mandate in the general elections. That is now a matter of the past and was a combination of the listless leadership of the Congress and the charisma of Narendra Modi which caught the collective imagination of the people. It also camouflaged all the organisational weaknesses of the saffron party. But now that the “wave” has died down, the party needs to get back to the drawing board and start planning rationally. BJP doesn't have a strong organisation in Uttar Pradesh and it took master strategist Amit Shah to pull a coup during the Lok Sabha. But clearly, Yogi Adityanath and other second-level leaders don't have that chutzpah. The collective zeal to see Modi as the Prime Minister meant people voted for the BJP cutting across caste divisions. But the bogey of 'love jihad' served in the cauldron of UP politics by BJP leaders was not a potent enough potion and the polarisation attempted by the BJP has backfired. With the absence of the Bahujan Samaj Party, the minority votes were less divided and in effect went en-masse to the Samajwadi Party. While the assembly result for SP is no endorsement of Azam Khan's brand of equally cynical politics, it just shows how double-edged the sword of polarisation is. BJP will do good to highlight basic issues like bad roads, massive power cuts and lack of women's safety in the biggest state of the country, rather than obsessing over 'love jihad'. 

The lack of organisation may also come to haunt BJP in Haryana where it has only four Assembly seats. The party, buoyed by its performance in the Lok Sabha where it punched above its weight, has now decided to dump the alliance with the Haryana Janhit Congress ​(HJC) and is banking on leaders who have freshly migrated from other parties to win the elections. Will this arrogance cost the BJP dearly? One will find out on October 19. But this setback may well realign the electoral equation in Maharashtra, another state where the party is aiming to be the senior partner eclipsing its long term ally Shiv Sena. This result in a sense, will prove to be a dilemma for Amit Shah about the future course of the party. 

BJP's performance in Gujarat is not a major blow, but a small blip in its radar. It is a message for Anandiben Patel to come out of the towering shadow of Narendra Modi and carve out a niche for herself in a state, where public expectation from BJP is always sky high. The result from Rajasthan is perhaps the most surprising one. Experts had gone gaga over Vasundhara Raje's governance, hailing her as a leader who is truly taking the path of reform. But in the process, she has ruffled feathers of trade unions who vehemently opposed the move. Is good economics turning out to be bad politics for the enigmatic Raje? If it pans out in this way, it will also put the central government in the backfoot very soon. 

In Assam too, BJP did exceedingly well in the Lok Sabha polls, disproportionate to its actual strength on ground. Now this result is back to reflecting BJP's prowess in the state. Amidst all the setbacks, Bengal is one bright spot for the BJP. The credit for this solely goes to Amit Shah who injected the fighting spirit in the party to take on the might of the TMC. But it is still an infant step for the BJP in Bengal and they will need serious groundwork if they have to possess a realistic shot at power in the state come 2016. 

Overall, the message stark on the wall is that people are impatient, perhaps irrationally, for some real change. Brilliant oratory from the Red Fort can result in fawning op-eds, but unlikely to change the fundamentals of people's lives. The prime minister has taken a good step by looking to get the small details right rather than going for big bang reforms. It is up to the bureaucracy to pass on these facilities to the ground. Also, while Modi is calling for a moratorium to violence between communities, Yogi Adityanath is singing a different tune. His blatant attempt at communalism in the discourse is not going down well. People want 'Karm Yogi' Narendra Modi, and not Yogi Adityanath spewing venom. Off late, voices of fringe players like Dinanath Batra are increasingly getting louder. Modi needs to get cracking on these elements to send a strong message. The mandate of 2014 was for development, not for teaching phony history lessons. This poll has clearly showed the public mood. The onus is on Modi and his people to respond.