This is what the BJP did in Jharkhand

This was published, edited, here.

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A senior newspaper editor based out of Delhi once asked this reporter during the Jharkhand election campaign: "The BJP has not managed to form a government in the state, right?" Therein lay the victory of the BJP's advertisement brute force, sometimes passed off as an election campaign.

The format of the five-phased campaign to capture the state's 81 seats progressed in the format of a typical episode of the US television show Person of Interest: protagonists trying to ascertain if a certain individual is a victim or a perpetrator.

The BJP was quick to claim the victim's spot: it cast the JMM as the perpetrator and said that the Sorens were responsible for the under-development of Jharkhand. The party argued that the only difference between Jharkhand and the two other states formed alongside was that Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand have "stable" governments. It then claimed that the other two states have seen impressive growth and that the BJP is the only party capable of providing Jharkhand with a stable government.

In all this, the party was counting on short public memory: of the nine governments formed in the state since its formation in November 2000, four had BJP chief ministers.

Probably keeping in mind a largely rural, illiterate demographic, the BJP kept its message simple throughout: that all of Jharkhand's problems will be solved by electing a stable government. At almost no point during the campaign did the BJP bothered itself with the how of things. This attitude was exhibited in the linear nature of its video advertisements - the narrator asks what Jharkhand's biggest problem is, someone who looks like a voter responds by naming an issue, the narrator asks what the solution is and the voter says, "Bhaajpa ka button dabi, kamal khili," in the Nagpuri dialect.

To its credit, the BJP had latched on to a genuine grievance of Jharkhandis: the state and its people have often been laughed at for its tumbling governments. By owning the issue, the BJP made sure that anyone who even expressed the desire to see stable governance would be seen as supporting it. In fact, as the campaign evolved, voters came to express a certain sympathy for the BJP: "They should be given one chance," was an expression one often heard from villagers.

The promise of stable government made, the BJP needed a credible face to tell it to the people. Prime Minister Narendra Modi therefore came to occupy that space; mostly because it would bring back memories of failed governments past, the BJP was loathe to project anyone from the old guard as chief minister. Despite the state unit of the party taking the effort to publish a 56-page manifesto, PM Modi set the agenda. Apart from the issue of instability, two concerns occupied his speeches - Sorens and adivasis. The party did not actively reach out to any other social groupings: the BJP did not have a Muslim candidate, the dalits of the state largely consider themselves Hindus.

The verbal duel between the PM and CM got very personal at times: responding to Modi's comments about his family's influence, CM Soren once said he was sorry the PM did not have children. As for the adivasis, Modi was selective - while speaking in dalit-majority Chandwa in Latehar district in the first phase, Modi never mentioned the adivasis. By the time the campaign reached the other end of the state in the fifth phase, Modi was actively wooing the adivasis in Dumka.

This in turn led to two fresh conflicts. BJP said it formed Jharkhand; JMM coined a slogan to counter it: "Hum ne banaya, hum sawarenge." The other was in response to attacks by Rahul Gandhi, with Modi saying the Congress had forgotten adivasis and that it needed Atal Bihari Vajpayee's first government to form a Ministry of Tribal Welfare.

The BJP could afford to not talk about micro issues with this magic wand approach of its leader. Left wing extremism was one: apart from a few perfunctory remarks, Modi offered nothing new in his speeches. In that respect, he was in line with the party's manifesto, which had only four lines on the topic. The PM almost never mentioned the former BJP governments in the state, lest it refresh voters' memories.

With the help of the regional media, the BJP had moved seamlessly from its initial target of a single-party-government to the slogan of ending instability after its Delhi leadership forced through an alliance with the AJSU Party. The party managed to stay on message till the campaign approached the last phase of polling in the Santhal Pargana. The JMM and Hemant Soren managed to turn the tables briefly there, portraying the BJP - "a party of outsiders" - as the perpetrator.

At that point, the BJP reached for its fail-safe in Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He delivered, addressing massive rallies in Dumka and Barhait constituencies, where Hemant Soren contested from. The BJP knew the PM's focus on him will lionise CM Soren, but that did not bother its campaign managers. Their target was never really the Sorens, after all: it was a win, at any cost.