Page 5 - The Indian EYE 121523

BIG STORY DECEMBER 15, 2023 | The Indian Eye 5

itated by BJP national president J P any one person; work is done by ev-
Nadda on his arrival. eryone’s strength. Every BJP worker
Now, BJP has the crucial task deserves this victory. Those people
of selecting potential chief ministe- who have spent their lives in building
rial candidates to lead new cabinets the party also deserve this victory.
for the upcoming five years. BJP We are just there for the sake of pur-
trumped not just their rivals but also pose. The power of community is our
some pollsters who had predicted strength,” the PM added.
tight races in these states. The elec- It is not just talk. Modi and his
tion results in four states, especial- party are working on a plan, with
ly the losses in Rajasthan, Madhya Modi asking the MPs to participate
Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, came as a actively in the ongoing Viksit Bharat
huge blow to the Congress’s hopes for Sankalp Yatra, a programme to reach
2024 as it is now out of power across out to beneficiaries of the govern-
a vast swathe of the Hindi heartland. ment schemes that began on Novem-
Now that voters in five states ber 15 and will conclude on January
have rendered their judgments in 25, the Janman programme for the
a clutch of recently concluded state particularly vulnerable tribal groups
assembly elections, the eyes of 1.4 and extremely backward as well as
billion Indians—and those observ- the Vishwakarma programme.
ing from abroad—turn to the coun- Even international observers are
try’s general elections, expected to quite confident of Modi and BJP sit-
be held over several weeks in April– ting pretty and confidently in 2024.
May 2024. According to a Carnegie Endow-
The results of the December 3 ment report, the results confirm what
state polls provided a big boost to is already common knowledge: “as
the Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath greets Narendra Modi in New Delhi (ANI) far as the 2024 parliamentary elec-
Minister Narendra Modi. The par- tions are concerned, the BJP remains
ty swept elections in the Hindi belt cent. Regional parties got the op- Pradesh, and this is an eye-opening firmly in pole position. This advan-
states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya portunity to go to elections 36 times fact. This was many years ago, he tage is principally driven by Modi’s
Pradesh, and Rajasthan. The lone while in government, and they came had told how the BJP party became enduring popularity.”
victory for the opposition Indian Na- back after repeating 18 times. That a subject of study,” he added. According to Morning Consult,
tional Congress came in the southern means their success rate has been 50 Modi also said that people like which tracks the weekly approval rat-
state of Telangana. Neither the BJP per cent,” PM Modi said. BJP’s governance, decision making ings of more than twenty democrati-
nor the Congress Party figured prom- He further said the results of the and transparency. “I have said this cally elected world leaders, 78 percent
inently in the Mizoram battle. polls mean that the policies of the many times before that this matter of Indians surveyed in late Novem-
The BJP, which had been bat- BJP are right. “Let me give you an should be studied. If you do research ber approved of Modi’s job perfor-
tling close to 20 years of incumbency, example. This happened when I was on different governments, Congress, mance. Modi’s net approval (cal-
won a resounding mandate bagging a small worker of the BJP. This is 40- regional parties and coalition gov- culated as the share of respondents
163 seats while the Congress finished 50 years after independence. A gen- ernments, you will find that BJP is who approve of his performance mi-
a distant second at 66 seats. In Rajas- tleman had done research on various the best-performing party,” he said. nus those who disapprove) is a stun-
than, the vote count painted a stark- governments in Madhya Pradesh He also said that his party has ning +60. The second-most-popular
ly different picture to what some of and shared it with me. He found an advantage in that it never faces leader on the list is Mexican Presi-
the pollsters had predicted, with the that Madhya Pradesh gained a lot of anti-incumbency. “Victory in these dent Andrés Manuel López Obra-
BJP poised to form the government, momentum during the time the BJP elections is the victory of our collec- dor, whose net rating is “only” +30.
winning 115 seats, and the Congress government was in power in Madhya tive strength. Victory is not due to It is even more remarkable that Mo-
trailing at 69 seats. Of the 90 assem- di’s approval has been remarkably
bly constituencies in Chhattisgarh, consistent since August 2019, the
the BJP bagged 54 while the Con- date that data were first available.
gress won 35. Domestic opinion polls confirm
Setting the tone for the 2024 that Modi’s popularity remains in-
elections, Modi said while the BJP tact and that this continues to fuel
got re-elected for the second time his party’s dominance. The biannual
56 per cent of the time, the per- Mood of the Nation poll from India
centage of the Congress party for a Today has consistently shown, includ-
second term was below 20 per cent. ing as recently as August 2023, that
“Yesterday, someone sent me an the BJP-led National Democratic
analysis that shows that out of the 40 Alliance (NDA) would handily cap-
Congress governments who got the ture a majority of seats in the Lok
opportunity to contest elections (in Sabha, even if its majority reduces
different states), they were re-elect- compared to its 2019 tally (when it
ed only 7 times. That means their notched 353 seats), according to the
success rate is 18 per cent. BJP gov- Carnegie report.
ernments got the opportunity to go There seems to be a complete
among the people 39 times. Out of Madhya Pradesh Congress President Kamal Nath during a meeting over Assembly election consensus – from New Delhi to Wash-
39, the BJP government was formed loss in Chhattisgarh being chaired by party president Mallikarjun Kharge, in New Delhi on ington DC to Moscow – that Naren-
22 times i.e. it was repeated. That Friday. Party leaders Rahul Gandhi and KC Venugopal also seen (ANI Photo/Jitender Gupta) dra Modi looks like a leader who
means the success rate was 56 per can’t be beaten now – and in 2024.

www.TheIndianEYE.com