Phase 3 Seats: BJP Miles Ahead In 2019; Prestige Battle For 2024?

Hello and welcome to The Times of India and you’re watching the narrative. Election Special and Phase 3 voting is all almost done and dusted. The final votes are being polled right now. It is a total of 283 of the 543 constituencies, which is almost half the parliamentary constituencies will have voted after today. The states of the number of candidates in 283 seats has now been locked and sealed inside those AVM machines. And of course, the results will be out in June 4th. Now, after phase three, the focus now shifts decisively to the heartland. In a lot of these seats, the BJP and the Congress are sort of locked in a very, very, very close fight and a battle for survival, literally for the Congress and for the BJP, of course, a prestige battle given the fact that they’ve already talked about charge of power. Right now, I’m introducing my guests. Shantanu Gupta is sitting with me here in the studio. Thank you Shantanu, for joining us. Political analyst and author Yashwant Deshmukh has joined us online. He’s joining us from Dubai. He’s the founder, director of Seawater and of course one of the better pollsters that I’ve met in my time. Of course, Deepak Shibidi, a senior journalist joining us from Ahmedabad, all the seats in Gujarat today, sealed, locked, loaded. Deepak can share with us what’s happening there. And we will of course talk to her about the key, you know, is it going to go down to the wire in some of those seats which are supposedly supposed to be he, you know, all of them locked for the BJP so far in 2014 and 20/20/19 elections. Also joining us is HS Balram, senior journalist, former resident, editor of the Times of India and of The Indian Express. He’s joining us from Bangalore. Thanks everyone, for joining here. And let me start with phase three. And since by virtue of the fact that my friend Shantanu is sitting here in the studio with me, Shantanu, it was a battle of prestige for both the Congress and the BJP. And now that the battle has been wrapped up in Karnataka, in Gujarat, in Assam, in Goa, in Chhattisgarh, you know in 2019 NDA 179 of the 93 seats that have voted today. Now the India alliance had won just about 11 seats. And those graphics you will see shortly on our on our LED screen. So these seats clearly a critical phase, phase three wrapped up for both the UPA and the NDA. I think well all all the phases are are crucial for every party. But this phase is particularly crucial for NDA because they were the front runner earlier. And whenever there is a Congress versus BJP direct fight and we have seen in 2014, nineteen BJP has 1995%. I think Yashwanth can tell the exact number strike rate right. So in fact BJPBJP loves Congress as a position right. So in fact BJP wherever BJP has a struggle or problem or a real challenge is bugle the regional chatrups is the TMC is of the world right or maybe in South where their regional chatrup. So I think wherever Congress is their opposition, their strike rate is 90 plus. I think they will maintain that more or less. Yashwas, you think the 90 plus strike rate is going to be maintained. Shantanu obviously seems to think so. It depends a little. I mean, Shantanu is correct about the 90% strike rate of the BJP. But there is an inherent issue with the BJPS, you know, entire election management this time that many places that they had to leave quite a significant number of seats with the alliance partners who are not really that striking at the same rate. Yeah, so, so say, for the case in Bihar, we know for sure BJP is contesting the similar number of seats as last time. I just left out significant number of seats for the alliance partners which are unlikely to have the similar kind of strike rate. Luckily for them, they are actually contesting bigger number of seats in in Maharashtra. But still there is a significant number even then left out. So I don’t know if if at some point of time, in retrospect, the BJP at some point of time we’ll think that they should have opted for the jalalitha model. You know Tamil Nadu where if you remember when everybody was predicting in 14 and after that in the Assembly election that she will be losing, she actually bullied all her alliance partners to contest on their symbol. So because she said that my symbol carries more electoral power and you are important, you have electoral support on the ground, but you need the support or the convertibility factor more because of our symbol. So I think at some point of time, BJP might, you know, once this elections are over, BJP might very well think like that. It’s possible that you know if they would have contested more seats or probably they would have asked their alliance partners to contest on the symbol of the BJP, if that may be the case. So we know actually once the results are out, but definitely the 90% plus rate is a very distinct possibility for BJP in their heartland. That’s what the tracker and all the pre poll surveys have been showing. Only concern is that whether the same kind of conversion would be there for the alliance partners of the BJP, But not just the alliance partners. Let’s just start with start talk about Karnataka. Karnataka and Maharashtra are the two swing states, you know in a very, in a very big way. This time, what about Karnataka? Let’s let’s just talk about Karnataka and let’s bring up those graphics on air about Karnataka. Its a state where the Congress and the BJP are in a direct fights together. Many believe that this time they are not going to see the kind of sweep that they saw in Karnataka in 20/19/28 seats there. How does what is your reading of Karnataka? Because today the voting was on 14 seats of Karnataka. Now this all these seats come in North Gujarat. Can I have a producer put up those graphics on screen so that one knows exactly where what the vote share, what the seat share was in was in 2019 on these fourteen seats in Karnataka and Yashwant? Again as I said the voting is in the is in the north belt, the north, you know Karnataka N where which is really a BJP bastion. How do you, how do you read? Because in this election is happening at a time, you know these fourteen seats, seats have gone to polls and the Prajwal Ravenna scandal, the sex tape scandal is doing the rounds, differ from many other analysts on on the trend of Karnataka as the baseline. Where are we comparing that from? You know, you just compared that figure from 2019 Lok Sabha election. But you know, because I do tracker and I realized that after the assembly elections in Karnataka and a year down the lane, you know before last year BJP was in really bad situation in Karnataka. So, so, so The thing is that comparing it from 2019, any data which has been thrown pre poll surveys of right now would look like a loss or big loss or BJP in trouble in that way. But comparing from the situation which was right after the assembly election, you will realize that actually BJP has probably on the way of doing a lot of damage, control, curtsy their tie up with the G So Prajwal, Ravana, of course you know that did not happen when the southern Karnataka or the vocal Liga belt was, you know was going to the poll in the their first phase of Karnataka. Arguably that has that part of Karnataka is done. Rest of the Karnataka, the vocal Liga votes are not really that kind of critical. But having said that there we should not forget that the 10% vocal Liga jump base of of JDS with the BJP trying to invite them into their camp right after their assembly election, you know, disastrous performance in the assembly elections happened. I think that was a damage control. So, So whatever BJP gets in Karnataka now, say for example for them to crash from a high of 25 seats to in about eight or nine seats, that would have been a huge disaster. But if at all they managed to, you know, go beyond twenty in Karnataka, they would see it more like a damage control rather than Shantanu. Shantanu wants to come in here. A quick word Shantanu and then I want to go to I. Then I want to go to HS Balram because he is in Bangalore. He can give us a sense of what’s happening on the ground there. I think 1 Yashwan said is very right. I think we should not look even not only Karnataka, Karnataka, Bihar and Maharashtra. Not what BJP got last time because one year back BJP was in big trouble in three states, right? Karnataka because of the loss in Bihar and Maharashtra because of the loss of the major ally, right. And now they have more or less recovered in all these three states. The losses, they recovered the losses. What the different trackers or different opinion polls are saying so that way we have look at it. So I just want to add that here. All right. So you know actions program Sir, do you do you differ from what are you know an analyst who is definitely he’s written a couple of books on Mr. Yogi. So I’m assuming he knows the BJP inside and out. And of course, Yashwanth, how do you see the reading on the ground? Because that’s the Prajwal Rabana sex tape scandal. Now both sides, BJP and Congress have traded blains. We don’t know which side the blow is going to land, do you? I don’t differ with these two evident persons here because just for the truth, but because I am on the ground here, very much not going on. The 14 seats that have gone to courts today are very crucial for BJP. Because last time BJP had won all the putting seats, not even one for the Congress. But unlike in other states, we don’t have regional parties in Karnataka. JDS is somewhat of a regional party but it is more of a troublemaker than they can join hand the devil to have power, that is the Papro. They can join hands with Congress, they can join hands with the BJP. They don’t bother about ideology. So the main fight here in Karnataka is between the Congress and the BJP. Both are quite strong and BJP has done very unlike any other southern state. BJP is very strong in Karnataka. But of late of late let me very clear about especially after last assembly as one year before not 12-10 months before Congress did a very good job and may be thrown out. Maybe it may be because of the local factors. The government was not working, governors was not good and people wanted a change and they brought in Congress with a majority. They didn’t vote for JDS, they have brought this is the majority. So the main fight between these two we have to see it will reflect on the national scene. You see if one how Karnataka does got it, got it. So but I just got it got it. I just because taking a cue from what you’re saying I just want to also talk about Dharwar Yashwa then I want to come to you for Dharwar. You know, we’re talking about all these seats and again Prahlad Joshi is contesting from there. But you know, facing a rebellion from the Lingayat community which is a critical BJP vote bank so to speak. How’s it looking for Prahlad Joshi? Because again one of the seats which BJP one last time likely to face a stiff challenge or facing a stiff challenge from Congresses, Vinod, Asuti, this time well again Aditi, there are seats which are going to be say for example if you will look into last years perspective which Shantanu just mentioned. I think if you will ask me which are the seats you know which even after the assembly elections disaster, BJP would have won. I am saying if last year if the assembly election and Lok Sabha election would have happened together and suppose if somebody says that BJP is tally would have tied down to say 9 or 10 seats in Karnataka, which are the seats. So Dharwada would be one of those seats which I would have said BJP would win even even when the BJP was crashing out in the assembly elections. You know, there these are such strongholds and also Aditi. I understand that the rebels and these factors, I mean some, you know, disenchantment, some local problem of the chemistry, these things do matter a lot, no doubt. I mean, we have seen of course the seat, the barmaid seat in Rajasthan going along that territory. But those things are more actually important when the assembly elections are happening or the micro elections, smaller elections are happening at the parliamentary level. Unless the the rebel candidate or unless the dissenting voice is really, really huge big guy, you know, person who who can, who has it, who has a capacity to win the parliamentary election as an independent of sorts. Unless that happens, I don’t think that in the larger narrative of the Lok Sabha election, where actually the Karnataka or for that matter even the entire India in neither Konic or Mr. Modi or at least Mr. Modi in that kind of narrative. I really don’t feel that much of the local this dissent or local issues are going to play too significant a role, say for example, even in a seat like that. Yeah, let me just you know for instance Kharwad is 1 seat, Haveri is another seat where you know Basavaraj Bomai is you know, he’s been an unpopular CM. He had to you know leave the leave the leave the seat midway. How? How? Because its definitely not. But you’re saying its looking like 26 ADA Mil Jayegi is what what you’re saying and therefore got a big loss of me. No, no, I I, I am just giving you the hypothetical. Yeah, yeah. We all understand this is the hypothetical. Yeah. Reason being that I am, I am because I am Privy to the exit poll data. So I will not be doing any numbers. Sure, sure, sure, absolutely. Yes, Yes. Before the easy comes down like for example case of Asadara Bhumai, I understand that our trackers at the assembly election did say that he has been a unpopular Chief Minister and BJP is likely to lose the assembly election big time. But let’s also face the one fact unpopular Chief Minister at that point of time is still a big hero in his own district. You know, please Please remember that that he is not right now a factor in the statewide voting of Karnataka. The only factor statewide voting of Karnataka is Prime Minister Modi. Mumbai is a singular factor in his own home ground, in his own own territory where regardless of the assembly election result, he is still considered a local hero because of a son of a local soil. You know who became the chief minister and you know these things. I only brought it up Yashwant. I only brought it up because of because of the fact that, you know, the local Lingayat leaders have come out against him. The sincere has come out against him and said all kinds of things. He that’s important. Yeah, that’s important. That’s important because when when when certain major communities look at certain leader in the long or short run as a candidate who is against the community, you know, or if the community leaders feel that OK, if you want to safeguard your own community leadership, then these leaders should be defeated. That kind of a structural campaign might have a different kind of, but I think BJP after the GPS alliance actually was not really bothered about Voka Liga. So they they did well by bringing in the son of Mr. Yeddyurappa to head the. So they they tried to tracking the, you know the the Linga. Yes. And largely speaking, I would say that you know, Lingayats do remain to be a very strong voting bloc of the BJP in Karnataka at this point of time. I don’t see any indicator qualitative or quantitative whatsoever during the run up to this election that they would be. There is a huge dissent in the Mandalangayas or a good chunk of them are I I actually want to move on to Gujarat because Karnataka is a very exciting battle. So I just spent a lot of time there, but I think I’m just going to take your word, Mr. Balram, because you wanted to come in at one point. You raised your fingers so quickly, your word, and then we can move on to Gujarat. There are 55 constituencies which everybody is watching, very key constituencies, one of course Pranad Joshi’s candidacy, he being seen as some kind of a even lingoist against him, against him. So there is a crucial what you call seat which we everybody watching. Second seat is Shimoga where Yejiruka son is interesting. There one is Bhangarapa is contesting, contesting against who is in. You know Bhangarapa was in Congress. Then he moved. He started his vote party then again went to BJP and she is this lady. She is also wife of yes star in Karnataka, Shivraj Kumar. So she is often big star. Then third candidate, there is Ishwar Appa who is creating promise for the BJP. He is a rebel candidate just because his son was not given a seat. He is fighting the BJP though he is not. He has not joined the Congress but he has. He is fighting. So we have to see whether Yedirupa’s son managed to tackle these two candidates. 2 strong candidates there is. There is, apart from Bombay, which I think spoke about, you know, Bombay is a former CM who is contesting the election. There is one more CM who is contesting in Haveri Haveri that shutter. Sorry, Belgium, Belgium I think is Ayaram. Gayaram, You know he was. That is Bombay. Bombay is different. But just talking about Jagdish, he was former chief minister. Now he joined the Congress. He contested assembly election but was defeated badly then. Now he has gone back to BJP. Now he is contesting Lok Sabha election. We have to wait and see whether people will accept him for going here and there and coming back. Right. Let me, let me, let me at this point bring in Rahul Verma. Sir, I’ll come back to you Sir. Let me bring in Rahul Verma from the Center for Policy Research who joined us a little late right now for the conversation. But thank you for joining us, Rahul. Rahul, I want to move focus to Gujarat. Last time, even in 2014, BJP had won all the seats in Gujarat. Are they invincible this time? What is it looking like? There are reports of Causeway of local discontent. Nearly 50% of the MPs. BJP also knew that they changed nearly 50% of their MPs there. Do you see any, Any what? What are you reading on the on the on the ground from there? So couple of things. Aditi first, you know this formula of changing incumbent MPs has been very old for the BJP. This has been happening when Prime Minister Modi was CM of Gujarat. It used to happen even then, almost 1/3 to 1/4 sitting MLAs used to be sort of like being nominated because what it does is one in BJP’s own version is to fight local anti incumbency but also shift the focus of the campaign on the leadership rather than to keep on on candidates. You, I would sort of like, you know, take Yashwanth Bhai’s point and this is very important in Lok Sabha elections because the constituency sizes are very, very large and you are mobilizing around 25 to 30,00,000 voters. Ultimately these small local factors don’t matter. Mobilization happen through parties and leaders and so while you will keep hearing of dissent in every nook and corner and against this candidate and other candidate, this is the reason why you don’t see Independence winning in Lok Sabha elections. You will hardly notice 3 or 4 Independence very strong. Out of 5/14/2014 and 2019 there was this Modi wave. Modi wave everyone talked about. I don’t know if people talked in the run up to elections. The problem with a word like wave is that there is no definition to the word right. So post election everyone could say what the wave was and define that they saw it. So wave does not have a definition first to begin with. Gujarat in that sense, if you just want to talk about Gujarat is a is a sort of like core of BJPS politics of last two to three decades. In that sense, BJP is a dominant party in Gujarat. They have been in power there for now almost 3 decades barring couple of years since 19 90s and they have been winning Vidhan Sabha elections at least The last 2/20/17 was tough but 2022 is very, very big and then 20/14/2019 they swept the streets. So given that kind of sort of like dominance that BJP has in Gujarat, I don’t see any major changes happening there, especially that they have won Surat without any contest. Prime Minister comes from that state, Home minister comes from that state. So in that way, Gujarat is the nerve center of current BJP politics. Big, you know, celebrity sort of seats there. There is Amit Shah. There is Manasukh Mandviya. You know, Amit Shah from Gandhi Nagar, Manasukh Mandviya from Porbandar, the reason? And there is also CR Patil from Narsari. Now again there is of course there is no contest as far as people like Amit Shah and Amit Shah and Masuk Mandvi are concerned. It seems obviously they will sweep. It seems like it so far. But what about Navasari? Navasari is a very, very, again a very contested seat and there is sorry again, I think CR Patel will win with the highest margin. Last time 2019, he won with close to 7,00,000 which was second largest margin in the history of Indian elections. Right. And putting him a brilliant election in brain and whenever you talk to him. I access him a couple of times, he says my Kabhi buddy rally and he never does a big rally, he never does a big rally and he wins with the 7,00,000 and he is now the state president. And in fact as as Rahul mentioned after 2017 BJP did stumble a little bit after that, did a lot of course correction and lot of those faces like which were the Congress faces now and BJP or they are irrelevant right? And CR Patil who is winning election, his Gujarati introducing, he’s saying for me it’s only the seat margin. I’ll make sure every seat will win by three to 5,00,000 margins, right. So he’s talking that grammar. He’s talking that grammar. Let me bring in, Deepal at this point. Deepak, Deepak joining us from Ahmedabad. Deepak, you’ve been hearing what Rahul said, what Shantanu said. You’re in Ahmedabad. What’s what are you reading on the on the ground there? I can’t get you. I don’t hear you. Deepak. Hi. Hi, Aditi, can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you now. I completely agree with what Rahul and Shantanu observed that BJP is absolutely comfortable in Gujarat. Gujarat is BJPS model state and in 2014 and 2019. OK, there I think. I think she’s stuck, right? But this time I think the only thing that is going to be different is that as of now, it seems that the voting percentage, the polling percentage in Gujarat is likely to be at least 10% lower than, say, 2019. But this does not place BJP in any uncomfortable position. The Congress, yes, is giving sort of a tough fight in certain seats, but it’s just a fight that it is giving. It’s a situation little similar to 2017 when Congress did give up a spirited fight. It is not as intense as that. But in certain Lok Sabha seats, the Congress is definitely posing a keen fight. And what particular seats are you talking about in particular, if there’s any fight? For instance, one of the seats where I hear there could be a fight is Rajkot where? Where, you know, I think you have Purshottam Rupala from the BJP versus Paresh Dhanani who many years ago it was Dhanani who had who had defeated Mr. Rupala. You know, its a very interesting story. But having said that, it seems that from whatever I’m hearing Mr. Mr. Rupala is clearly, I mean there’s there’s no threat per say definitely Aditi. You know, Rajkot is the epicenter of the ongoing Shatriya agitation in Gujarat, where Union Minister Parshottam Rupala made some comments against Rajputs about them breaking bread with the British and marrying off their daughters for self-interest. And this sparked off Shatriya agitation. But I’ve been to Rajkot and I don’t actually see a fight there. I see. Despite the agitation, despite you know, it being a controversial seat, Forshotam Rupala as of now seems to be comfortably placed in Rajkot mainly because of two reasons. At least since last three decades, Rajkot has always voted for BJP minus a Kohli leader, Kuwarji Babaliya in the late 80s, it has always been the BJP second. It is always a party that leader. So both Rupala and Paresh Dhanani, the Congress candidate, are party dars. But Rajkot has been a traditional BJP seat. Even when Narendra Modi took over as the chief minister of Gujarat, Rajkot was he contested his first election from. So I don’t see a fight in Rajkot. The seats where I see Congress supposing a fight to the BJP are Anand where the Congress candidate is Amit Chawda. Then Valsad where there is a tribal Congress leader Anant Patel. And I see some fight from Banas Kata where there is a feisty Thakur woman Ganiben who is posing a challenge to the BJP contestant Dr. Rekha Chaudhry and Ganiben has crowdfunded her elections and shes giving a good fight. But it is again I say she wants to fight. Let me, let me, let me bring in Yashwanth Yashwanth Swaroop, Deepal, giving us that perspective from the ground, Gujarat voting percentage till 3:00 PM is 47%, maybe till 6:00 PM, you know, which will obviously reach a respectable number compared to let’s say Maharashtra, which well go to next. Do you do you agree that there are some seats where the Congress might be you know able to topple the BJP this time around with the low turn out, thinking that this low turn out is going to help the Congress. I mean going from the anecdotal evidence in the electoral history, you know Aditi, the low turn out 20 of the times in particularly in the states or areas where any party has a has a definite advantage of being a cadre based organization. Then the party with the kind of support or the very good infrastructure in that way to you know actually gains from the low turn out and particularly in the case of Gujarat deeper would confirm me if if I am correct me if I’m wrong. But as far as I remember plenty of the times whenever the turn out has dropped in Gujarat, actually it has benefited the BJP not the Congress because they have a cadre which there is a minimum number of people that will come out. The question is whether Congress has the capacity to increase their own turn out and you know BJP turn out goes down and so on the relative turn out of thought Congress gains. Now that that to that to happen Aditi, we have to see very very clear evidence of a Congress revival, huge revival of Congress in Gujarat. So far we have not seen any evidence of that Congress revival in Gujarat. But you know Rahul wanted to come in. Rahul there are there are talks that there are 7 parliamentary seats including what she said Anand, Patan, Junagarh. A few of these seats where where the contest is fierce. It may they may not slip out of BJPS grasp but the vote margin might sort of shrink. See that is always possible. One, we have to remember that in Gujarat the BJPS vote share was around 62 percentage point and Congress was 32, right? That’s a 30% point gap and and to be able to so so there are going to be seats with BJP must have one above 30 point and some below 30 point. So some of these seats which are being listed, yes the victory margin have been narrower but even with like 2025% margin what we are talking about a state where victory margins were bigger than the national victory margin. National victory margin was around 15 or 18%. So its needs as Yashwant was suggesting about big revival, you need a very heavy swing against BJP and in favor of Congress for that to happen. 2nd, we don’t know whether AAM Aadmi Party which is contesting some seats. Of course they will be marginal to this contest but they might be picking off some of the votes that Congress would have been what hoping for. So it makes the job tougher. Third Point and just to add to since the Deepal mentioned about Valsad, seat Valsad in in sort of like for election analysis, well weather seat since 1957 whoever has won Balsad has also ruled Delhi and so that becoming sort of like a contested seed is interesting to think about. But ultimately which way it swings will you know. I’m not saying there is a causation that Balsad basically determines what happens in Delhi, but its a interesting seat to look from 57 to 2019 on Valsar. I’m glad that he mentioned it. You know, the kind of confidence that the BJP as an organization has. You know, they literally pulled out a complete device candidate in Valsar. You know completely new fresh young candidate. You know which which many of the people were really surprised. You know Dhaval Patel, you know he did just pull him out and the kind of with the with the of course clean slate. You know and the and the kind of confidence that they have that OK, we can go ahead give a candidate you know who might not be a big time political character in the constituency yet he has a clean slate and if the organization pulls through then he will mark on. So it shows the confidence. You know when you have you know the confidence of giving a complete fresh candidate. You know of course there is a strategy of counting the local anti incumbency by giving a fresh face. I understand that. But still you know it it you you need to have that kind of organizational capacity and confidence in that organizational capacity that way out of the seven assembly segments of Valsad, if I’m not wrong again, I will go back to our expert on Gujarat. She might correct me if I’m not wrong. I have seen the trend of barring one assembly segment in in Valsad. Rest of the assembly segments Aditi the the margins have been three out of them have been polling in the last few elections more than 70% for the BJP. You know and there is only only one segment if I am not wrong where Congress has been consistently kind of getting a getting a better right than than the BJP. If I am not wrong, its probably that’s probably one segment where the Congress has been pulling it otherwise four of the seven almost touching 70 or 70 plus margin for the BJP, that’s organizational strength for you. But, but let’s just move to I see no point discussing Gujarat to A to a very large extent because as Deepal you Shantanu Rahul, everyone seems to be in agreement that there is no there is no way that anything is slipping out of BJPS grasp as far as Gujarat is concerned. And let’s move to Maharashtra where things might be slipping out of slipping out of hands is being called a swing state. This time I do not want to dwell a lot on it but I I just just the voting percentages. If you look at you know in Bengal, the voting percentage is at I think till three O clock it was almost 63% and till three O clock in in Maharashtra it was 47%. Now that itself shows you that there is the for me that that’s just confusion by among the voters maybe or is it just like it’s always been for Maharashtra, Yashwat Aditi, I I always maintain with you that you know the two states which are actually the battleground states this time of course one is 1 is West Bengal, another one is Maharashtra. But look at the turn out you just mentioned and the turnouts are pretty evidently showing a very, very keen contest in West Bengal seed by seed, really tough fight over there, you know. But and there is the, I just want to bring in one point, sorry, sorry, please can you finish your point. I want to bring in one point. Since I’m speaking now let me bring it out. The thing is last time around Mamta Banerjee did not give it that much of importance. The the may be the Lok Sabha contest but suddenly seeing the rise of the BJP in the in the the seats, I think Roshi is going over in tongs. And while the BJP leadership is campaigning in Bengal, right they are going there, they are. They are sort of campaigning but and the elections are also very phased out in Bengal. Sarto phase Mkhisi Mitshar seat Kisi Masat seat Kisi Shatru. Isn’t this isn’t this a problem And I’ll come to everyone for you Who is this a problem for Because Mamta Banerjee constantly campaign career who are constantly voters keep as jarring but we have also we have. We should also realize in last five years BJP which is famous for the electoral machinery, they have also tightened their electoral machinery. They put a very unassuming state President right. Who is? Who is the MP and Suvindu Adhikari is doing all the all all the boisterous stuff and all the nut and bolts. Now if you see the social media of BJP, Bengal, they have multiple posts of Karakatas from when there was no election. So they have also tightened their their election machinery And when the election is slow its advantage BJP but so has the other side. Now they have. Now they have a very prominent Delhi journalist who’s their member of their rank and file. I don’t know how much he’s helping the council. No, no, no, because they they are also very strong on social media and they’ve also picked up the rank and file. So two points one I think on the turn out see W Bengal always had a higher turn out than Maharashtra like eastern States and southern states in this country turn out around 75 to 80% on average North and West turns out around 5055. Sixty So that has been so Bengal turn out is going to be higher and Maharashtra turn out is going to be lower. But I think Yashwant was making an important point. Turn out is also driven by level of political competition and given Bengal is going to be highly competitive, you will see more participation from both sides in the electoral process. Whereas in Maharashtra what we are seeing and like voters there might be able to confirm this much more. A kind of confusion also because political parties have been dodo NCP. You know I remember there was this very old Bollywood movie Yashwanth. It had Sunil Shetty and he came mere dodo baap and now suddenly there are these two NCPS 2 Shiv Senas people are confused people and that’s the sense I got from some of my friends who are voters in. In Bombay and they’re like I we don’t know what’s happening. We don’t know. I mean and most symbol which is the real Shiv Sena which is the top of turn out in in in Maharashtra is nothing but peoples way of telling that all of you have got everything wrong. Not a single parties supporter he or she who voted for any particular party in the last assembly or the last Lok Sabha election has not been reached or has not been cheated by the post poll. You know the way the politics has worked out every single party. So I will not be surprised that this drop in turn out is coming from disheartened voters across all the political politics. Like how else will you think of it aditi think of the inherent contradictions. How can you think of die hard shifts in a voter to think that they have to vote for a Congress candidate to defeat the BJP. I’m talking about supporter of of the you know, I’m taking how can you think of a die hard BJP supporter to vote for Ajit Pawar candidate. You know these are such contradiction and this were what was actually was bound to happen. I would have been very, very surprised if Maharashtra would have come up with a really healthy turn out. OK, let me bring in, let me bring in Mr. Balram. At this point Mr. Balram your your sense, you know because for both I mean Bengal as well as Maharashtra 2 very critical states for both the NDA as well as the UPA because of the alliance mechanisms at play in these states. And both states are swing states. Now BJP needs to be winning big in both these states to be able to cross the 300 mark and the India alliance also needs to win big here if it has any hopes of beating the Modi, Amit Shah juggernaut, your your your your views on that. How do you see this? Well, see, we talk about Bengal and we have talked about Maharashtra. But we should keep in mind Karnataka is as crucial as Bengal or Maharashtra because both Congress and BJP trial of trends, BJP must be, I mean lots of seats to help the National Party at the Centre, that is BJP and Congress wants more seats from Karnataka to make a mark at the Centre. So it is, it is. I almost see that Karnataka is as important as Bengal or this one Maharashtra. Yes, we know that in Karnataka also the voting percentage was not as high. But I think that is the usual pattern. I think all these. Here’s what we have seen. People are little apathy, especially in states, cities like Bangalore and all. People are little after the take but not Karnataka. It’s little different from South Karnataka because people go out and vote in spite of lot of heat there. Heat, not the political but even the climate I’m talking about. It’s very hot, very hot. Even in it’s like Bangalore, it was very hot with time. Lots of people voted only in the morning. I think till about 9:00. People don’t venture out till about four in the evening or five in the evening. So I just think which I want to make it a point here. As far as BJP is concerned not the people say Modi is the B factor candidate in almost all the seats BJP candidate. So it is a test of Modi more than BJP Modi whether he can keep all those 28 seats in Karnataka or even 8 seats in Karnataka. For Congress, yes, it is a very valid point because for say for instance take Gulbarga where Khargis Kanila is contested. You know what is the message going around that constituency that if India Alliance comes to power, next car game will be the PMS candidate, PM candidate that has sent you some kind of becoming the Prime Minister, Hargi Hargi, Hargi as Prime Minister now. Yeah, yeah, that’s interesting Sir. That’s interesting Sir, because so, so in that sense when you’re saying that in all the seats where BJP is contesting, people are thinking OK the forget the local candidate, its Modi that we are voting for in all the seats where the India alliance is contesting or forget the India alliance this is the Congress is contesting. Then that similar feeling Rahul has not been Rahul. Your namesake has not been able to evoke that similar despite the yatra, despite despite a lot of talk and despite being I mean there Congress is up to social media antenna like tremendously over the last one year. So first, BJP would hope that voters don’t look at local candidates but they think of Prime Minister Modi. Because if elections become more local, less national, BJP wouldn’t have the kind of advantages it had in 20/14/2019, right? So so they would want. And it is true like Prime Minister Modi seems to be one of the largest vote aggregator of modern Indian politics and so he can galvanized more votes compared to any other leadership of any other party. Yes, Rahul Gandhi has not like his popularity ratings improved, but they improved against sort of like a downward falling popularity rating. So Bharat Jorayatra did give up Philip or Bump to his ratings but since 2019 they were going down. And in that sense Congress would also hope that rather than looking at the face of Prime Minister Modi, elections become much more localized. State level factors and constituency level factors start playing role where BJP where the opposition could put us sort of like some stop to BJPS 300 plus sort of like target. OK, Yeshwa, this entire caste census conversation that you know that is suddenly become the buzz between phase two and phase three. Suddenly caste census is the biggest thing that’s doing the round merit is doing the rounds. There are lots of videos of Mr. Rahul Gandhi going viral, talking about the caste census, talking about equal opportunity, talking about Pachas percent AP Ki janta hai to pachas percent AP is that is that, you know, BJP. Congress has always accused the BJP of polarization on the basis of religion. Is this not polarization in the on the basis of caste? And I’ve really asked myself this question a couple of times. We’re going back to the Mandal era, yes and no. I mean in a way that you know that that’s the only answer to the umbrella Hindutva policy of the BJP. You know, come to think of it from their perspective, they feel that if the BJP’s goal of of uniting the Hindu votes under one umbrella of Hindutva is going to be successful, then then probably in a country like India where almost 80% Hindu votes are there, what are the chances of others to, you know, compete and win? So obviously their their chances open up if they tried to micromanage the cost based word banks which will disintegrate the Hindu word bank into multiple persons and that’s where the the mandal and commander core issues come in. But The funny thing is Aditi that as 14 and 19 election results have shown us, you know it is the non Yadav consolidation of the OBC voters in states like Bihar and UP and similarly in a non jatta consolidation of Dalit voters. These are, these are the factors particularly if you go into say for example BJP politics in Haryana has been on the non Jat voters, you know So everywhere they have been doing that kind of a politics where they can take the umbrella of Hindutva. Yet going state by state whichever the the the dominant cast of that state is. They were trying to weave a politics which could at the caste, at caste level also could put up a counter to the dominant caste politics. You know, say for now the other politics in UP and Bihar, non Jag, politics in in Haryana, so on and so forth. And they have done that in a very creative manner. You know in a way that it is so funny and so classical to observe that BJP is anti Jat in Haryana but pro Jat in western UP. So and they are adjoining. But look at the the way they have counted it in different ways. You know, and they have taken into RLD, Jayant Chaudhry is in. So whichever way they could weave in they could they they they went for a new alliance partners. They, they, they and. But most important reality. I think what BJP has most creatively done is propping up new faces and new leaders of different caste spectrums. You know, it’s not just the smaller alliances. Yes, of course they are dominant in UP, but they did not forget to bring in Om Prakash, Rajbhar and you know that way inside they they prob. They certainly propped up the Apna El Soniala faction and they have kind of continued gaining votes out of that. So the the the idea of first of all alliance with the smaller parties even if you are a dominant force yet go for it #2 cultivate the local leadership from their own rank and file into different class spectrums yet maintaining the umbrella politics of Hindutva. So in in a very nutshell commandal ke under Mandal ragya like in Mandal wala. Commandal neopaya that’s the that’s what has happened. You know, the the commandal politics has taken in the pandal in the very in a very creative way. So Shantanu, you want to come in on this, on this whole, this, this entire talk about the caste census, The BJP has also said yes to the caste census in the past. Is that how, how? I mean what the Congresses rhetoric and Rahul Gandhis rhetoric right now about the caste census, about redistribution of wealth has been not taken very very kindly of course by the BJP who’s viewing over it. But a lot of, you know people have also come out and said that that is perhaps what India needs right now. I think to my understanding the in the in the pre 24 by 7 media politics were rather easier for Congress and this was their basic grammar that appease the Muslims divide Hindus into caste. Pick one or two caste and in first past the poll system earlier 2529 thirty percent you you make government. When Narendra Modi came in 2014 he he disturbed this. He disturbed this grammar. He consolidated voter on 2 counts. One is the beneficiary voter who is voting because he got a house or a toilet or multiple schemes very very efficiently right. So then they started voting. So if you if you increase the governance the entity politics and cast decreased drastically then for a lot of voters who are middle class and upper middle class right who are not dire need of government policies for them they consolidated based on Hindutva. What is That’s not that? Then what is the points to bring up? Bring up and the con. The Congress will accuse the BJP of polarization. That’s fine. Jihad in Karnataka, right? So from as in 1984, VHP started the Ram Mandir movement and then came the Mandal. A lot of people say no commandal came under Mandal. But the its evident that Mandal came after commander because movement was happening in 1984 only. The friction of the movement only happened in 199192. So now as Ram Mandir happened and they all knew the Ram Mandir will happen in January, right. So I think they already planned cast Census and their leader for cast census, so to say Nitish Kumar, he already left the party, right. So I think that’s the only plan Congress was left with that let’s say try to create some Fisher in the society, the some section apart from the Muslims can vote us based on this redistribution like archaic which even Chinas and the hardcore Marxist countries are not following redistribution now. So follow this old redistribution redistribution idea and the caste idea but it’s not flying. It’s not flying. Rahul, let me bring you in at this point as I started and you were not here at that point. The the 7079 seats or 72 seats of the 94 that are that are going for or that have voted today, done and dusted were part of the NDA with the majority with the BJP. 11 were for the for the Congress party or the you know the the opposite camp. Now after this phase of voting and this as I said now we across into the in the heartland so to speak. After this, this is like the South is almost done and now we move into the heartland where it’s a direct contest between the BJP and the Congress. Do you see this politics of polarization caste from here on that rhetoric, do you see going up, Let’s see, first of all there are still Telangana and Andhra which are going to poll in the fourth phase, so 40 to see right, so, so and and and UP and Rajasthan and everything was polling from the first phase. So yes, the weight of the burden from South is going to shift towards the north of Vindhyas. But you know, North was already voting second Point C Social fault lines of any society is always going to get reflected in politics. This is true for us. This is true for United States. This is true for Britain. Race has been defining US politics for 200 years and so caste and religion will continue to define our politics no matter what. I think the cleverness or genius or smartness of a politician is to use those social fault lines and weave into a narrative which makes you think, oh this is a new idea otherwise those social fault lines are always going to get used be it commandal mandal, Hindutva caste census, this is how like you know politics, politics has operated, will continue to operate even when you are going to use the language of development vikas and other things you are going to talk about oh, you didn’t get vikas, others got vikas. And so that sort of like mix is always going to be there, I think where Congress perhaps as a party should have thought about a little harder about the caste census. I’m not saying this is a wrong issue to raise, but Congress historically does not have a reputation on OBC politics, right? Kaka Kalilkar Commission in 1955, Congress was in power, didn’t do anything. BP Mandal Commission recommendation in 1979, Congress was in power. In 1980s, didn’t do anything. So across North India, other backward classes do not see Congress as a party which is going to champion the interest of Obcs second by just making rhetorics that we are now going to talk about social empowerment of these groups. People are not going to buy this unless there is more concrete steps that you are going to take. So to give you an example, BJP perhaps is able to better be is better at mobilizing these cast because it can show the face of Prime Minister Modi and say that it’s a OBC political right. So, so, so, So in Madhya Pradesh for example, in 2023, BJP has given more tickets to OBC than the Congress. And the the reason BJP is able to do this because BJP does not have to nominate Muslim candidates, right. So it basically allows extra 15% or 10% seats that Congress or other parties have to give to Muslims. BJP basically does it among Hindukas. So there is a smart way of sort of like doing this politics which BJP has been able to take advantage on that. Just a small point, the number of tickets that Congress has given to Muslims this time is drastically less in whole of Maharashtra. I think they have not given a single Muslim ticket and nobody is asking any questions, though. OK, that’s that’s interesting. Deepal, I think you’ve been, you’ve been a quiet participant in the conversation for a long time. What’s what’s your sense in the run up to the polls? Modi identified forecasts women, youth, farmers and poor right. But now after two phases of voting, we see Prime Minister Modi assuring that the BJP will safeguard reservations for OBCESCST of course its in its in retaliation to Mr. Rahul Gandhis caste census clarity and call. But clearly, BJP is not any ignoring or not taking any chances, not ignoring Mandal, so to speak, along with commandal. Yes, like as I’ve been hearing everyone speak on this issue, I agree. And BJP always, you know, takes elections very seriously, even if it’s a small ward election. I have been a witness to this since a couple of decades. Even if it’s a small single ward election, wherever it is, you know that this is the reason of primary, the primary reason of BJ, PS success, because it takes its booth management, it takes elections very seriously, scientifically and for everything there’s a strategy. So this reservations to OBC even consolidating minority votes because almost all panelists would agree with me that CR Patel, the Gujarat BJP president who won with the highest victory margin of over 7,00,000 in 2019, it was not possible for him to get this high. A victory margin without support from Muslims, without support from Dalits, tribals, obeses. So you know, unlike the general offhand remarks that BJP is just a party of the savannas, I think a lot of things have changed and BJP has become more accommodative and this experiment was initiated from Gujarat. The reason why BJP has been consecutively winning various elections, you know, from panchayat to Parliament. This is one of the primary reasons. All right, that’s that’s, that’s interesting. Yashwant, would you, would you concur your your last thoughts on this, this entire caste census conversation? Do you think it is making an any impact on the seats that went to vote in phase three AB do you think the? The BJP is not just sticking to the commander, but also bringing in the Mandel when required by Prime Minister Modi going out of his way assuring people that the BJP will safeguard reservations for OBCSEST, especially in states like Karnataka where where it’s become a big issue. There’s a fundamental issue out there in the Narrative Building Aditi that Prime Minister Narendra Modi happens to be an OBC. You know when you talk about that he is the tallest OBC leader in the country today. I mean when you when you look at Prime Minister from his caste side of you then all of a sudden you realize that Rahul Gandhi claiming to be have a Brahminical Kashmiri brahminical upper caste lineage targeting Narendra Modi OBC leader on the commander lines. Unlikely to happen in that way. You know because it’s if we did the question of symbolism Aditi we know for sure the symbolically Mayavati Mayavati becoming the chief minister of of Uttar Pradesh or symbolically speaking Ranuji or Mulan Singhi becoming chief ministers of their own state. These were the landmark things to happen, I guess. Narendra Modi becoming the Prime Minister of this country for the OBC politics. It was also we see it because BJP talked about the Mandalit umbrella, Hindutva. So we see Modi as a Hindutva mascot. But we forget that when we talk about Hoodi as a Hindutva aspect. There is a part of this narrative as Modi as a OBC leader as well. So this entire campaign on the caste lines, the caste census and basically the narrative of defeating commandal with the Mandal thing. Its not happening simply because Narendra Modi happens to be a tallest OBC leader in the country today. Its as plain as simple. Forget about Hindutva. He is in a position to score over this command mandal politics just by virtue of being an OBC. Interesting. And as as the as the battle now shifts to the heartland as I was saying and you know it is just going to get more exciting from here. I do not know why. I have the feeling that the campaign is campaigning is going to get even more fiercer because now a lot of the seats that are going to go to polls from here on are a direct Congress versus BJP fight. Of course the regional satraps in the South and of course Telangana, as Rahul sort of pointed out, Telangana still to vote Andhra, not Andhra, Andhra to hogya Sarath NI adha bachai. OK Andhra. State elections. State elections. Yeah. OK. So, So yes, so that and of course nobodys really talking about this is 1 nation one vote that they are everyone is contemplating. Its going to be make making things very difficult because as I said the parli the parliamentary elections are going on but nobodys really talking about the state elections that are happening simultaneously and which are also equally important and very you know battle for survival for many people and again as I said battle for survival for many and battle for prestige for the others. But thank you so much for joining us everyone and thank you Deepa. Thank you, Yashwanth. Thank you for your time. Thank you Rahul. Thank you, Shant. And we will come back to you with more. Stay tuned to the Times of India. We will come back to you next on the next voting day on the next big announcement and phase four polling is the day we see you next. Thank you.