Union Minister Amit Shah during a public meeting. File
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PTI
Despite a fierce Hindutva push, the BJP failed to retain the level of Hindu support it garnered in 2019
There is no denying that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has massively increased its vote and seat share in West Bengal compared to the 2016 Assembly election, and this has largely been on the back of a strong Hindu consolidation behind it (50%), as per the Lokniti-CSDS’s post-poll survey. But the party failed to retain the level of Hindu support (57%, or nearly three-fifths) it had secured in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, thus ending up faring way below its own expectations and its performance in the last general election.
Updated:
May 05, 2021 08:56 IST
They didn’t yield much for the party but may have softened the blow of the electoral defeat
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Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam. File
| Photo Credit: M. Vedhan
They didn’t yield much for the party but may have softened the blow of the electoral defeat
On February 26, just hours before the Election Commission of India announced the schedule for the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections, the AIADMK government in Tamil Nadu made a series of last-minute populist announcements clearly aimed at wooing voters. The most prominent among them was the Legislative Assembly’s decision to pass a bill to provide 10.5% reservation for the Vanniyar community in education and jobs within the 20% quota for the Most Backward Classes and denotified communities. Just a day earlier, with an eye on the votes of government employees, the State government had decided to increase the age of retir
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AIADMK seems to have miscalculated in allying with the BJP
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K . Palaniswami. File
| Photo Credit: R. Ragu
AIADMK seems to have miscalculated in allying with the BJP
Apart from the fatigue of two terms and the public’s general dissatisfaction with the State government on various counts, one of the major reasons for the AIADMK alliance’s disastrous performance seems to have been the presence of the BJP in the alliance. The BJP, it seems, ended up being far more of an electoral liability for the AIADMK+ than an asset, and dragged their seat tally down. Not only does the election result bear this out, given that the AIADMK-led alliance did far worse in the BJP-contested seats than seats contested by its other constituents, the evidence from our post-poll survey also confirms this.
Local factors determine electoral outcomes in States
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Updated:
May 04, 2021 00:04 IST
While national leaders can provide support, the ground work needs to be done by local leaders with a mass base and sustained presence in local politics
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While national leaders can provide support, the ground work needs to be done by local leaders with a mass base and sustained presence in local politics
Even as the nation battles the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, Assembly elections have been completed in four States (Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Assam and West Bengal) and one Union Territory (Puducherry). Though citizens and governments came to be exposed to the debilitating impact of COVID-19 in the course of these elections, voter turnout did not see any major decline. The five electoral outcomes mirror the diversity that the country represents.