BJPs recent
poor showing in state elections has left many disappointed and others elated.
One may argue state results vary from national election results and that may be
true in some measure but perhaps not enough for BJP to remain complacent. It
needs to pull up its machinery for a much harder battle ahead.
While the
Amit Shah basics of ensuring their supporters step out to vote on election-day
is critical, a key learning is to also better know what is running in the minds
of the swing voters. One may say that it was indeed the swing voters that got
the BJP such a convincing victory in 2014. If not handled on war footing today,
they can again be the major game changer.
Below is a
summary of what may be influencing the swing voter and the possible action one
may take to win their vote.
Corruption still affects me
What is the
public concept of corruption? Think about how it is depicted in our movies and
our public narrative. Corruption is mostly represented by distrust in the legal
system’s ability to look after the little person. It's the corrupt cop
subservient to a scheming neta. It’s the ineffective judiciary making it
impossible for a victim citizen to receive her due. It is the helpless and upright officer
fighting the “system”. The public memory of corruption is not signified by
scams but by the daily adverse effects of a gamed system.
BJP’s regime
has ensured lesser outcry over scams than the preceding Congress UPA II. They
have also focused a lot on simultaneous elections that can be a major change to
bring down the cost of elections and the associated corruption to fund
elections and politics. Both are very important and that is what governments
need to do but perhaps that is not what brings the point home for the voter.
How do
people perceive the change in everyday corruption? Do people believe that
policing is more honest and do they believe that they have a better chance
today that the judicial system will address their grievances? If anything,
people possibly believe mob rule has increased, implying trust in the police
and judiciary’s ability to deliver justice has likely reduced.
The
solutions have been in public domain for long. BJP has a golden chance to
initiate two landmark reforms.
i.
Police
Reforms:
The
upkeep, promotion and transfers of police cadre must be far removed from the
elected representative, like it is in more evolved democracies. It is the only
way to maintain a professional and meritocratic policing institution. There is
a massive body of work on how this could be implemented in India. It can be
initiated by a central legislation to be further ratified by the states. BJP can
leave a truly lasting legacy by doing the right thing here.
ii.
Judicial
Reforms:
Is it not ironic how the process
of becoming a judge is far more lacking in controls compared to other
administrative services? Judicial reforms and funding have been in question for
as long as one can remember. The long list of pending cases is a matter of
shame and depicts an institution in urgent need of support. The topic has been
provided a very cursory treatment. Announcements that truly enable the judiciary
to address civil cases in particular will go a long way in building the
credibility BJP wishes to acquire.
Achhe Din
still elude me
Achhe Din
was a slogan to win over the swing voters, those that had little affinity to
BJP but believed that better governance can be achieved through Modi. What was their
expectation from “Achhe Din”? I broadly look at it in three broad streams – (i)
Employment opportunities to grow my income will increase (ii) Costs represented
by inflation and taxes will reduce, and (iii) My quality of life depicted by
the value received against taxes will improve
Here again,
while one may argue that the published indicators on inflation and GDP growth
seem decent, that is not what makes up the everyday impact.
i.
Local
Governance Reforms: My city continues to be chaotic and dirty.
A lot of engagement has occurred
on Swachh Bhaarat but how good has
the effort been on institutionalizing the quality of civic services? Here again
solutions have been in public domain and long in discussion. The need to
decentralize powers into municipal and panchayats are so evident yet so long overdue.
Why cannot local units get their
fair share of collections - not as an allocation by a central planning
committee somewhere far away but by virtue of a pre-agreed formula on the
economic activity their quality of local government creates?
Local governments are in disarray
and continue to be either dependent for funds, or mired in complex permissions
to utilize those funds and hostage to corruption while extending contracts and
hiring personnel; mostly to fund state and central elections.
Mega cities like Mumbai have long
been victims of this political expedience. At any given time multiple agencies,
from BMC, MSRDC, MMRDA, Western Railways and Maharashtra Police, all reporting
to different centres of power, work in utter lack of coordination. The Mayor is
a symbolic position with no real power. It is not even funny that there is a
Minister for Mumbai who is neither elected, nor answerable to the people of
Mumbai. When things go wrong in our city, there is no one responsible.
So far removed are we from the
days when our greatest national leaders like Sardar Patel and Subhash Chandra
Bose emerged from local democracy. Today the locally elected leaders are so
helpless, they are trained early on that the only way to grow is to serve their
political masters upwards, not the people. BJP can bring back those early days
to nurture ground leaders by one fell swoop of these reforms.
Time is really past now in this
term to see any results but BJP would still be doing a great service if it
announces concrete steps towards local government empowerment.
ii.
Tax Reforms:
Many argue that disposable incomes have not kept desired pace. I know there is
a strong element of perception here. But politics is about managing
perceptions. Fuel and prices of essentials like lentils took a lot of the
limelight. Add to it that the taxpayer did not have any perceptible reduction
in dues expected from a widening tax base that was a strong premise of
demonetization.
The BJP understandably had to
wean the nation off from fuel subsidies. They also made the right efforts to
reduce dependence on non-renewable energy. Housing sector reforms were also
crucial. But the offsets did not adequately result in increased disposable
income nor was there any perceptible improvement in quality of life.
Staying with taxation - One item
that comes up frequently is the discussion on what would be the most suited
personal income tax regime for a vast and spread out country like India. This
is an area that can do with some bold thinking. Personal income taxes amount to
less than 15% of total collections. But the cost of administration and the
personal harassment to many citizens by the tax department far outweighs any
advantages in public memory. Could the BJP have taken a bolder stance to
unshackle the low income earning Indian from the complications of a personal
tax regime?
iii.
Initiatives
to create employment: BJP has done a decent job of communicating the good work
here and it should now increase the tempo. Make in India has been a very bold
initiative as also has been the Start Up India and Skill India initiatives. But
how many jobs has this created? There should be a far stronger communication of
outcomes. There is some good work here that needs to be more effectively taken to
the masses.
Another idea is to learn from our
history. From Mauryan days right into Mughal period, cities were promoted as centers
of excellence of a trade or craft, while villages were promoted as centers of
supply and primary processing. It helped keep the balance of employment between
villages and urban centers. An opportunity exists to spell a larger vision for
cities, not only as an inevitability of urbanization but as a catalyst of human
enterprise. Perhaps the government can take specific sectors like automotive,
textiles, services, banking, Information Technology, Healthcare, space research
and so many more for creating a fund dedicated for allocation of free zones in
the cities that are able to commit the best ecosystem in basic infrastructure,
support infrastructure, quality of services etc. From employability-based
education, to enterprise enhancing banking and services – everything can be
contoured to drive that industry in a city. One such grand scheme can be a
major sentiment builder.
Similarly for villages, an
initiative like the milk revolution is in order. Can specific states select a
few industries that will be supplied by the farming sector leading to a
purposeful and strategy aligned farming aimed at increasing output and
productivity? For e.g., fisheries, milk, wheat, soya, tea, Coffee, Mangoes,
Apples and many other produce. The same can also be applied to preservation and
enhancement of traditional art and heritage.
Employment should be linked to a greater
national vision. This will both inspire and touch the emotive part of swing
voters.
Was Modiji honest with me in 2014?
It is again relevant to look at this from the
lens of the swing voters. While voting in 2014, the swing voters had had enough
of corruption and misgovernance yet did not completely buy the Hindu Rashtra
brand of politics. They needed a face that had the credentials to deliver good
government without going too far on making India into a Hindu Pakistan.
A
communal India: Modiji campaigned
and portrayed himself as that personal guarantor (like Vajpayeeji before him).
What followed unfortunately is a lot of unnecessary noise on issues like mob lynching
on beef bans, Karni Sena blocking movies and many other issues that completely
upset the swing voters. At that moment, Modiji needed to come out and make a
very strong statement and follow it up with tough action. Possibly enough has
not been done. More needs to be said and done and it is important enough for it
to come straight from him.
Demonetization:
On the other hand demonetization
has been another instance creating suspicion. The narrative that demonetization
was done to win the UP election by starving the SP-BSP of cash has caught the
imagination of the public. This is all the more strengthened by all the old currency
being deposited back to the RBI and the circulation value of cash hitting back
to pre demonetization levels of over 80%. The fact that the public was
inconvenienced should not be publicly dismissed by the BJP as it will only
further aggravate the voters. It is better to stay true to the objective of
reducing the dependency on cash and continuing to push digital payments.
Political
Funding: One last
thing is the perception with other political parties that BJP is out to clean
all other parties and one such area is related to political funding reform. The
fact that BJP did not proceed on a formula to fund the key parties in a
legitimate way is seen to be deliberate and is leading to all remaining parties
to pool their strength and resources. Most opposition parties are cash starved
now and this may actually be hurting the BJP. India needs legitimate sources to
fund its political system. A long term fix is in India’s interest. BJP is the
only party today that could possibly act on this, but will it? Not doing so may
be strengthening the opposition to the BJP in ways it does not completely
understand.
What
Next: Modiji is at a possible risk of
being in a zone where 2014 swing voters suspect he is insincere in what he is
saying. Regaining this trust is critical.
The swing voter will head into 2019 with
disappointment and disillusionment. BJP needs to engage them and win their
trust for one more term. This has to be done especially in the grassroots and
the outreach has to be to the swing voters, who are usually expected to not appear
on voting day. Hoping these disappointed swing voters will not show up to vote
because There Is No Alternative (TINA) might not be a good strategy. Instead
BJP will be better placed by continuing to remain the swing voters’ None of The
Above (NOTA) option.
