Haryana is One Election Where Modi Can Hardly Claim to Have Won Off His Own Bat

It is difficult for a megalomaniac to attribute a poll victory, however welcome, to any other factor but himself.

The surprising victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Haryana where it had been written off by both political pundits and pollsters underlines the symbiotic relationship between the party and its mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

It also marks a shift in the political strategy by the party from depending on just one trump card which is Prime Minister Narendra Modi, regardless of whether it was contesting national or assembly polls.

In a state where all seemed to be lost, the remarkable turnaround by local leaders quietly working hand-in-hand with the RSS on the ground, instead of depending on the usual triumphalist campaign dominated by the supreme leader, will no doubt impact the future course of the BJP’s politics and the lately troubled relationship between the prime minister and the Sangh.

Analysts usually make the mistake of seeing the role of the RSS in the political rise of the BJP purely in terms of its Hindu supremacist ideology. There is no doubt that first the Jan Sangh and then the BJP owe their ideological moorings and the idea of Hindutva to the RSS. However, in functional terms, particularly during an election, the Sangh plays a far more crucial organisational role, running a parallel support campaign to boost the prospects of its political creature.

The tremendous electoral advantage that the BJP gets when it works in close coordination with the RSS is because the latter is embedded in the community. Sangh leaders and activists do not look like politicians (who tend to have far less credibility among voters).

Over the past many decades, the party has invariably suffered whenever the RSS has been inactive or ignored in poll campaigns at the state or national level. Significantly, the organisational steel frame of the RSS has become even more essential to the BJP after the diminishing of strong party leaders due to Modi's growing personality cult and the organisational sledgehammer wielded by Home Minister Amit Shah.

For example, in the national polls earlier this year, the RSS in many states, most notably the politically crucial Uttar Pradesh, was relegated to a back seat as the Modi-Shah juggernaut sought to trample the Opposition into the dust on its own. The disappointing outcome underlined not just the perils of depending on Modi's magic or the tug of Hindu nationalism, but also neglecting grassroots campaign management that the Sangh does so well.

Interestingly, in Haryana, where unlike in the Lok Sabha polls, the expectations of the BJP were minimal, the Modi-Shah duo were, in fact, shielded from playing too dominant a role lest they suffer a blowback from a humiliating defeat for the party.

Instead, while local Congress Jat strongman Bhupinder Singh Hooda, riding on the shoulders of Rahul Gandhi, was openly triumphalist about what seemed an easy victory, local BJP leaders turned to the RSS for both strategic and tactical support. The Sangh advised local BJP leaders led by Chief Minister Nayab Saini closely on ticket distribution and insisted that they remain firm on the choice of candidates despite fierce protests by veteran party leaders.

On the campaign and propaganda front, it was the RSS and not the BJP that provided the leadership and direction. Party leaders were asked to collaborate and be guided by Sangh activists working at the village mandal and panchayat level to ensure outreach to voters. In the first half of September, the RSS conducted several hundred meetings between party workers and voters across rural Haryana where the BJP government faced considerable discontent.

As usual, the RSS propaganda machine was hugely effective because it was so insidious. It mostly stayed away from Hindutva propaganda, which was largely irrelevant in the elections. But the Sangh cleverly built up a nightmarish scenario for all communities except the Jats, of an impending oppressive regime led by the traditionally feared and muscular caste so visibly reflected by a larger-than-life Jat patriarch that is Hooda.

While the BJP’s feat of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat in Haryana does give a badly needed boost to the Modi government, dented by its disappointing performance in the Lok Sabha polls, it also sends a more unpalatable message to the Prime Minister. This is one election where Modi can hardly claim to have won off his own bat, although party sycophants and media cheerleaders will say otherwise. It is difficult for a leader so obviously a megalomaniac to attribute a poll victory, however welcome, to any other factor but himself.

There is also the question of what the Haryana victory will do to the delicate power equation between the RSS and Modi. It was not so long ago, in the middle of the Lok Sabha polls, that the BJP president J P Nadda, obviously greenlighted by his boss, had dramatically declared that the party was now capable enough not to depend on its ideological mentor. On the other hand, the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has repeatedly warned that no leader should consider himself a god, which is seen as a thinly veiled jibe at Modi’s infamous statement of being “a non-biological being destined on a divine mission”.

Nevertheless, it will not be easy with the RSS having proved a point in Haryana and a leader pathologically inclined to hold all reins of power, with the spotlight entirely on him. Many senior party leaders would like the Sangh to cut Modi and Amit Shah to size, and Haryana does strengthen their case. However, the Prime Minister is a politician who rarely concedes ground, fearing that any attempt to do so will be seen as a sign of weakness.

As for the Opposition, the BJP’s ability to fight anti-incumbency, as so resoundingly demonstrated in Haryana, is a warning not to underestimate the saffron camp, which has shown uncanny survival instincts in hostile political weather. It has to demonstrate more acumen, adaptability and innovation to get the better of an opponent, which is so difficult to vanquish not so much because of its ideological appeal but its insatiable appetite for power, as well as its capacity to cling on to it.

(The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist and the author of ‘Behenji: A Political Biography of Mayawati’. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)