Ratlam by-poll defeat: Modi's magic is certainly on the wane

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Tables turned

• The BJP has been in power in MP since 2003. It had won 27/29 seats in the state in the 2014 LS polls

• But it lost the Ratlam seat in a by-poll, despite the sympathy wave being in its favour

Waning magic

• After reverses in Delhi and Bihar, the Ratlam result is the third jolt for the BJP this year

• It\'s a sign that PM Narendra Modi\'s magic is waning from the minds of the people

More in the story

• The reasons why the PM\'s charisma is fading

• Why the BJP needs to rethink its Modi-centric strategy

The arithmetic clearly favoured the BJP in the Ratlam Lok Sabha by-polls. The seat was vacated by the death of its leader Dileep Singh Bhuriya, who had won convincingly in 2014.

The party has been in power in the state since 2003, and had won 27 of the 29 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

This time, it decided to field Bhuriya's daughter, Nirmala, against Congress candidate Kantilal Bhuriya, who was the runner-up in 2014.

The numbers, as well as the sympathy wave, favoured Nirmala. However, it was Kantilal who managed to turn the tables, winning by a margin of over 88,000 votes.

Fading charisma

Is this defeat a sign that Narendra Modi's magic is waning from the minds of the voters? The BJP will obviously cite its victory in the by-poll for the Dewas Lok Sabha constituency to dispel the notion. It has also managed to win two assembly seats in Manipur for the first time in history.

But the question about Modi's fading charisma has been floating around for some time now. After victories in Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Haryana and prominent gains in J&K, the BJP received its first jolt in the Delhi assembly elections.

Read: How Modi's Bihar defeat will alter the world's view of him

The party had replaced the dependable Harshvardhan with Kiran Bedi as its Chief Ministerial candidate. It had hoped the Modi factor will drive it to victory. However, the opposite happened, and the voters of Delhi routed the party.

Bihar was the second major front where Modi's popularity failed to deliver. Extensive campaigning by the Prime Minister and BJP's massive organisational preparation could not impress the voters of Bihar.

The party had clearly pitched Modi against Nitish Kumar in these elections. A confident Amit Shah had even declared the time table of the victory: "The result will be clear till 12 o' clock in the afternoon, Nitish Kumar will resign till 2 pm and we will announce our Chief Minister by evening."

But it turned out to be a pipe dream. The voters left no doubt that they favoured the grand alliance.

Connecting the dots from Delhi, Bihar and Ratlam, the picture becomes clear: Modi's charm is declining among the common voters.

Reasons for the fall

There are various reasons for this trend. For one, many of the election promises made by the BJP turned out to be empty. Modi's proclamation of bringing back black money and depositing Rs 15 lakhs in every bank account became a subject of ridicule. Shah's statement that the promise was a mere 'jumla' meant to entice the voters did not help matters.

The Prime Minister is finding it hard to fulfil the promise of 'one rank, one pension' made to the ex-servicemen. He had severely criticised the previous government for failing to control the rising inflation. But skyrocketing prices of several commodities like onion, pulses, oil and tomatoes fly in the face of his promise to curb the price rise.

The BJP lost to the Congress in Ratlam by a big margin, but managed to win the Dewas constituency

Petrol and diesel rates have stabilised a bit due to low prices in the global markets. But people have started to realise that the benefit has not been fully passed on to the consumers.

The image of the Prime Minister has also taken a beating in the past one-and-a-half years. The 'chaiwala' PM is now taunted as a 'suit-boot wala PM' by the Congress. The charge seems to be have stuck to Modi to some extent. The Prime Minister's penchant for foreign travel has become a subject of jokes on social media.

Modi's adamant attitude on the Land Bill and repeatedly promulgating ordinances to bulldoze his version of the Bill has alienated farmers. Marginalised labourers and poor farmers have suffered the consequences of a budget cut in several social welfare schemes, including MNREGA.

Though the affluent middle class still stands firmly behind Modi, his acceptability has been dented by incidents like Dadri. The 'award wapsi' campaign started by intellectuals against growing intolerance has raised several question-marks over Modi's claims of 'sabka saath, sabka vikas.'

Also read- Measure of the Man: why Modi loves hoopla

Modi has failed to rein in his motormouth colleagues, whose spate of controversial statements have further eroded the credibility of the government.

Modi's silence on the Lalitgate controversy involving Union minister Sushma Swaraj and Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje, along with the Vyapam Scam in Madhya Pradesh has gone against his promise of 'zero tolerance' against corruption.

Change of track necessary

The present realities pose a serious challenge to Modi's plan of governing the country for the next 10 years. The fate of the Congress in the 1989 general elections shows that even the strongest of governments can fall from grace, if they take wrong decisions.

Rajiv Gandhi had come to power with over 400 seats, but corruption allegations coupled with controversial decisions like opening the doors of Ram Temple in Ayodhya and overriding the Shah Bano case verdict proved to be his party's nemesis within a span of five years.

The BJP needs to seriously rethink its strategy, if it wants to escape the same fate. The decision to go back to the earlier version of the Land Bill and the Prime Minister's speech at London's Wembley Stadium dropped some hints about course correction.

What looks increasingly certain is that the Modi-centric formula that the BJP has employed in every election in the last two years will not work anymore.

With crucial assembly polls coming up in Assam, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Kerala in 2016 and Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur in 2017, the party will have to employ a new strategy. Getting Modi out of campaign mode and into governance mode will probably be the first thing it would need to do.

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