The message that comes from the BJP and NDA’s landslide victory in Thursday’s poll count is that for winning elections politics and its message are more important than economics.

 

Congress may have shown promise on economic front and it also did better in fiscal terms when it was in power. Yet, the party has somehow turned out to be weak in political sphere. And this has helped quite a bit in giving the BJP Government a second term in office.

 

Despite being in the Opposition for past five years Congress could hardly take its fight with the Government to the people at the ground level except during late last year’s Assembly polls for Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Even these gains were dissipated in the just concluded polls since the party is too top heavy with little support at the bottom to back it up.

 

In other words the party has a heavy command structure with a virtual army of Generals, Lieutenant-and-Major-Generals as happens in a military command structure but without any soldiers or foot workers to take down the message of the party to common voters. This has led to a situation where the team of Congress Generals may draw a better plan than the BJP or other rivals but the wherewithal to sell party’s plans and programmes to the people is either non-existent, or thrown out of gears.

 

Looking at the inefficacy of a promise like giving Rs 6000 a month to poor families under NYAY scheme by Congress just before the polls can help to explain this. The promise of the welfare programme with a universal reach for BPL families could not catch the imagination of the electorate though it was expected to rev up the economy besides helping the poorer sections of the society.

 

The Congress scheme could hardly catch voters’ imagination because of the party’s weak communication strategy and set up against BJP’s more assertive campaign that was also couched in Rs 6000 in a year Government dole for marginal farmers. Congress’ promise was trumped over despite offering 12 times as much in a year to not only farmers but also all those who lacked basic income for subsistence and survival both in rural as well as urban areas.

 

A meager dole for marginal farmers alone, excluding even the landless farmhands, with rich political content offered by the BJP somehow worked against Congress’ more well meaning scheme based on the concept of universal basic income to fight poverty. This has been so because of a better and politically charged rhetoric and the way it was communicated through the better part of the country, or through the poorer Hindi belt, by the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

 

Congress was nearly decimated because of this, though other reasons may too have contributed, through not only the Indo-Gangetic basin but also vast parts of Central and Western regions of the country. In the South the Opposition party and its UPA allies not only remained unscathed but also improved their presence.