Elections for the state of Maharashtra and Jharkhand are underway along with a crucial set of bypolls in Uttar Pradesh and of course the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat. What is interesting is the poll rhetoric this time around is more centered on local rather than national issues. In Maharashtra specially it is welfare schemes and infrastructure projects that dominate the discourse with the occasional appeals to caste and communal vote banks. One reason for this could be that the electioneering is largely left to the regional parties and is not a straight Congress vs BJP fight. In fact, apart from writing a course correcting newspaper editorial, Rahul Gandhi is not the face of the Congress party’s Maharashtra campaign. The campaign is divided between Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul and also Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. One reason could be that the Maha Vikar Aghadi allies don’t want the campaign to derail from local issues to a Rahul Vs Modi fight. It’s a good strategy as post Haryana there is a fear that this battle usually ends up in Modi’s favour.
As far as the BJP is concerned the Prime Minister has entered the poll arena in the last week and is tipped to address 9 rallies. He tried to address the caste divide with his ek hain toh safe hain slogan, which has both a casteist and a communal overtone. The MVA is batting for caste census and maratha reservations. Activist Manoj Jarange is campaigning in favour of the MVA on this plank. But having learnt from Haryana the dangers of making the campaign one community centric the Congress is letting the NCP (Sharad Pawar) take the lead on this issue
The bypolls in Uttar Pradesh are being contested largely between the state BJP government led by Yogi Adityanath and the Samajwadi Party. The COngress is not contesting a single seat. Again here as well local issues dominate though Yogi has raised some hackles with his batenge toh katenge slogan.
The silver lining here is that the campaign is being fought on local issues which is as it should be. For instance in Mumbai it is the Dharavi Slum redevelopment, the coastal road, the bullet train and the metro, FDI and the loss of big ticket projects such as the Vedanta Foxconn project or the GIFT city to Gujarat that are the talking points. The sitting Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s track record is being compared to that of Uddhav Thackeray’s. It is governance that is on the table rather than divisive rhetoric of hindutva and hate. That by itself is a win for the people of Maharashtra.
