The Five Key Takeaways from Gujarat Assembly Polls 2017

There comes a “resurrection moment” in politics and I am willing to bet that a Rahul-led Congress has witnessed some such moment today.

Here are my five key takeaways from Gujarat Assembly Polls 2017:

1. Prime Minister Modi did not win; and Rahul did not lose. On the index of political courage, Rahul scored. That’s my primary takeaway from today’s dramatic results.

2. BJP’s spectacular UP victory was not a trend-line, but the peak. Most political pundits were seeing the UP juggernaut as a trend that was likely to accelerate towards an even bigger BJP victory in 2019; but to me, the UP victory was the culmination of BJP’s incumbency advantage.

3. BJP is struggling to neutralise a double-incumbency disadvantage. Punjab, DUSU, Goa, Bawana, Chitrakoot, UP local polls – I have deliberately mixed up students’ unions, municipalities, panchayats, by-elections and assembly polls. Except for in Bawana, the BJP weathered stunning reverses wherever it was in power at both levels, local and national. This rings an ominous warning for the party in the upcoming polls: first, the Lok Sabha by-elections in Phulpur, Gorakhpur, Ajmer, Alwar, and a Muslim-dominated constituency in Bihar. This will be followed by assembly polls in Rajasthan, MP and Chhattisgarh. The Congress could go for the kill in all. And it could use its “resurrection” in Gujarat to ensure that it’s no longer starved of funds from donors who would now like to hedge their bets!

4. After successfully spinning Demonetisation & GST, the BJP is now suffering their bite. Once the sheen of demonetisation wore off, and got compounded by botch-ups of a flawed GST architecture, the misery of ordinary people is now beginning to visit the BJP.

5. 2019 is wide open; Rahul/Congress would be the fulcrum, and a united opposition is an Imperative.

To conclude, I would like to slip in a sixth, provided the Prime Minister is open to suggestions:

6. Prime Minister Modi must re-pivot to the centre; else the moderate vote he won in 2014 could slip away in 2019.

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