While the BJP is still the single largest party, fought on the Prime Minister’s appeal, the man of the match is clearly from the Opposition. It’s not Rahul Gandhi, but instead Akhilesh Yadav, the Samajwadi Party leader who has played a critical role in stemming the BJP’s march back to power. I had met Akhilesh on the eve of the seventh phase of polling and at that time he told me that the 2nd and 6th phase had gone particularly well for the Samajwadi Party. He was not giving out numbers but seemed extremely confident, and as subsequent events have borne out, that clearly wasn’t a facade.
What made the SP Congress alliance click on the ground? The lion’s share of the credit not just for the state of Uttar Pradesh but also for the rest of the INDIA bloc should go to this leader from Uttar Pradesh. If you recall when Nitish Kumar quit the alliance and joined hands with the BJP there was speculation that the INDIA bloc was doomed and each leader would go his individualistic, opportunistic way. It was at this time that Akhilesh Yadav took the initiative and reached out and announced that the SP would be holding seat sharing talks with the Congress and that the alliance was definitely on. (In fact he even came up with a number of seats that he would allocate for the Congress, a number that was well below the 17 seats the Congress eventually negotiated for. ) After Akhilesh, other allies too came forward and spoke in favour of allying with the Congress.
If you see the SP-Congress campaign on the ground, Rahul Gandhi did not hold a single rally without the Samajwadi Party leader sharing the stage with him. And incidentally most if not all the rallies were held in seats where the Congress was contesting. Again it was the SP that persuaded Rahul to contest from Uttar Pradesh, while AKhilesh too contested the Lok Sabha from Kannauj even though his ambitions lie at the state level.
The Congress-SP campaign was well fought, focusing more on issues rather than falling into the trap of taking on the Prime Minister. They realised that the PM still remains popular, despite running for a third term. And so, they didnt get into the debate of Modi Vs Whom, neither did they take any potshots at the Prime Minister. Instead, they focused on the issues that they wanted to talk about -caste based reservations and the Constitution. The INDIA group of leaders also stayed clear of any narrative on religion. Instead, they reached out to their caste based vote banks, as the SP did by carving out its PDA coalition of Pichde, Dalits and Adhivasis. Although the first choice of the minority community, the SP only gave 4-5 tickets to the Muslims, for they did not want to further polarise the vote.
In the end, the BJP still remains the single largest party but short of the 272 halfway mark, and well short of the ab ki baar, 400 paar slogan. At any other time, winning a third term as the single largest party would be an achievement in itself. But the BJP scored a self goal of sorts by hyping expectations and fell into its own marketing trap. In all probability Modi would be the PM again. But, this time around the RSS will have a greater say as will demanding and mercurial allies such as Nitish Kumar and Chandrababu Naidu. The last but not the least, the Modi Government in its third term will be facing a vibrant and aggressive opposition. The dance of democracy will continue in parliament.