Voter fatigue and additional expenditure are among the prominent reasons why Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government have been pushing for simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.
There can hardly be a debate about the expenditure but multiple elections in different States, spread over different months of a calendar year or between two Lok Sabha elections, do offer an insight into issues such as voter fatigue and local versus national factors to a student of politics.
In the 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana, which this reporter has extensively covered in April-May 2019, the ruling BJP has kept an identical narrative.
After carrying out the Balakot strikes against terror camps in Pakistan, a strong and decisive Prime Minister has finally integrated Jammu and Kashmir by diluting the Article 370.
Muscular nationalism coupled with Mr. Modi’s popularity works well in a State that prides itself over sending a sizeable contingent of its young men and women to the armed forces including the paramilitary.
“Modi jeetega” is the refrain among the BJP supporters who prefer the Prime Minister’s individual identity over the party.
For the voter, it’s a sense of deja vu as the ruling party’s campaign attempts to make local candidates or issues ‘irrelevant’.
The Congress, on the other hand, wants to avoid a Modi-versus-Who contest. Rather, with two-time former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda back at the helm as the party’s chief election coordinator, he wants it to be a Hooda-versus-Khattar to take on Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar.
Mr. Hooda was quick to go against his party line and supported the Centre’s decision on Article 370 and even endorsed the BJP’s demand for a national register of citizens (NRC).
He wants the debate on local issues such as farmers’ complaint about a ceiling being imposed on government purchase of different crops, being ‘forced’ to buy crop insurance, lack of government jobs, private investment slowing down and infrastructure.
Just as the BJP wants to take advantage of the internal feuds in rival camps — the split in Om Prakash Chautala’s Indian National Lok Dal and the walk out of former Congress chief and Dalit leader — Mr. Hooda’s strategists too are focussing on fissures within the BJP, especially in seats where the BJP has changed their sitting MLA with new ones.
“There are several seats where the BJP has replaced incumbent MLAs with new ones and that has led to a lot of rebellion. The BJP will have a tough fight there,” said Mandeep Sharma, a Hisar-based journalist.
