Size doesn’t matter. Only 49 seats may be going to the polls in the fifth phase of the Lok Sabha elections, but these will also define headlines when the results are declared on June 4. For those looking for pure statistics, out of the 49 seats, where voting will take place, 39 are held by the NDA and eight by the INDIA bloc.
But, beyond the math, this phase will deliver a number of verdicts. Each of these will answer the most consequential questions linked to the election.
Is Hindutva still a potent organising principle of Indian politics? Are the Gandhis still politically relevant? Is the TMC’s appeal now confined to only Muslim-dominated seats in Bengal? Who is the true inheritor of Balasaheb Thackeray’s legacy? And, in the context of another satrap – Lalu Prasad Yadav – can the perpetual social justice “activist” establish influence beyond his social base to limit the NDA’s dominance in Bihar?
First, Ram and Hindutva, the BJP’s redoubtable hobby-horses, will be critically tested. Phase 5 electors will vote in Faizabad, which includes within its precinct Ayodhya. It is here that the ‘pran pratishtha’ of the Ram Lalla idol took place on January 22, barely 15 weeks ago.
In Faizabad and surrounding constituencies, including Lucknow – long described as the political gateway to Delhi – the Opposition has chosen to cast this election as a clash between ‘Ram and ration’. The word ‘ration’ being a metaphor for the allegedly demeaning and dependency-creating sops that the opposition claims the BJP supplied to the poor instead of empowering their economic prospects that was promised but never delivered.
But, the BJP disagrees. It believes that its ‘Ram and ration’ combination serves to fulfil more than just material needs. The newly inaugurated Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi never fails to remind, is the bridge between Indians struggling for an identity and their civilisational roots.
The BJP has always believed that the overwhelming support for its movement for the construction of the temple was the legitimate expression of a majority of Indians. Particularly, disillusioned Hindus looking to break free from the repressive straight-jacket forced upon them by Jawaharlal Nehru and his allegedly rootless as well as anglicised Congress ecosystem. That India’s Hindu civilisational soul was crushed by these templars of a westernised elite that equated any legitimate appreciation of the grandeur of Hindu civilisation as anti-secular and, in particular, anti-Muslim.
Voters will now pass judgement on this BJP-RSS thesis. The BJP will feel especially vindicated if, in this phase, voters defeat Rahul Gandhi – Nehru’s grandson and the inheritor of Nehruvian secularism – who is contesting from Raebareli, a safe seat vacated by his mother.
In Maharashtra, the state that sends the second largest contingent of MPs to the Lok Sabha after Uttar Pradesh, a war is being fought to establish who is the true legatee of Hindu Hriday Samrat, the late Bal Thackeray’s Shiv Sena. The icon’s son, Uddhav Thackeray, is fighting an existential battle against rebel Eknath Shinde who split the original party. In more than a third of the 13 constituencies – mainly in and around Mumbai – the two warring factions of the Sena will directly fight each other to establish their legitimacy in the public eye.
Over in Bengal, seven crucial constituencies will see a scrappy contest between the BJP and TMC. At present, the TMC has a one-seat edge over the BJP. But, the saffron party has pulled the CAA card from its sleeve that could change things in a phase where Mamata Banerjee will need to ensure that she can hold onto Hindu voters.
In Bihar, Lalu Prasad Yadav’s second daughter is contesting her first ever Lok Sabha election. Rohini Acharya has been tasked with retaining Saran constituency, which was her father’s stronghold. Can she become the third Yadav to successfully carry his legacy forward?
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