THE assembly elections in the five states of Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Puducherry are extremely important. But the context and the objective which the BJP is trying to pursue is unique in many ways. For the neo-fascist characteristics it has come to assume, for securing a stronger grip across the country, the impulse to draw them into the vortex of a Hindutva straitjacket is even more compelling. This is time and again reflected in the slogan for ushering in a double engine government.
The slogan of a double engine government is inherently anti-democratic, anti-federal and obviously insensitive to the need for celebrating diversity. Even then, justifying the slogan warrants some explanation, elaborating the benefits. But alas! That was not to be.
A contrasting approach has marked the campaign theme of the Left Democratic Front in Kerala and the DMK-led alliance in Tamil Nadu. Particularly in Kerala, the LDF anchored its defence of incumbency on the basis of its governance which perceivably touched every sector of productive and social life. Pointed charges of how the Modi government has brazenly violated the constitutional premise of legitimate financial powers of the state government have been dispensed with by denying legitimate share of GST collections. On the political front, the BJP has failed to account for the blatant abuse of the gubernatorial powers by governors appointed by the Centre.
Therefore, the slogan is devoid of any legitimacy in the absence of accountability on this count. On the other hand, the BJP’s accountability on the record of its governance is conspicuous in its complete absence. The striking example is the BJP’s discourse in Assam, where it is faced with the most damning charges of corruption, particularly in usurping large parcels of land for corporates and the eviction from legitimately held land rights of people of different communities, including tribes and minorities. The noise of the bulldozers was sought to be used to drown the charges of large scale personal aggrandisement of Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and his family.
The issue of infiltration was replayed in the most cynical fashion. Even when the overwhelming bulk of the Bengali speaking population had settled in Assam during the first four decades of the twentieth century, Sarma embarked on a diatribe against "Miya Muslims", a derogatory reference to Bengali speaking Muslims. Despite being enabled by a double engine government, there was not a semblance of stating the truth and coming out with an objective finding about population influx. The reason is clear. The BJP was only interested in communalising sensitivities over infiltration. With the process of the NRC already backfiring leading to the SIR being put in abeyance, the BJP’s electoral discourse has traversed predictable lines.
In West Bengal as well, the narrative for deepening the communal divide has revolved around the question of infiltration. In the entire sequence of developments, the SIR process has been weaponised to aggravate a sense of uncertainty triggering mutual hate. The Supreme Court unfortunately saw the dispute as one between the EC and the State Government, without proritising the right to vote – a constitutional right of the citizen. This has led to a second round where huge numbers who were cleared, having established their links with the 2002/03 rolls, were shunted to a new category of “under adjudication”. The basis was un untested software driven algorithm which could not distinguish minor differences of spelling or change in the titles of married women, post marriage. However, any simple reading of the under adjudication list makes a deeply disturbing pattern amply clear; as compared to the overall roll, those who have been put under this category belong to the minority, and to a lesser extent the SC and tribal communities. Additionally, it is the poorer economically vulnerable sections who have been disproportionately excluded.
Despite the SC’s overall permissive attitude towards the flawed and misconceived exercise within a compressed timeline, one of the judges during the final phase of judicial examination did raise the question as to why this second phase to find so-called ‘logical discrepancies’ was initiated in West Bengal, unlike in any other state. The EC’s stoic silence was ‘eloquent’! The BJP’s election rhetoric in the final phase is driven by a sinister jubilation over these exclusions.
Apart from its hate filled narrative, the BJP had very little to offer in terms of any vision for the future. It sounded more like old commitments which remain unkept. A prominent instance is the promise to provide one crore jobs annually.
But a striking aspect of the BJP’s electoral discourse which came into sharp focus was its reluctance to be accountable for its record of governance at the central level – a major component of the double engine architecture. Even if we disregard the backdrop of the outcomes on growth, jobs, social cohesion and strategic autonomy which look bleak, data on employment, manufacturing and inequality point to a dubious reality: misplaced claims of GDP expansion coupled with stagnation in productive employment and a widening gulf between a thin urban elite and a precarious majority.
This background has come into dramatic focus in the run up to the elections. Particularly two aspects which directly impinge on the daily lives of people have come to the fore. First, the outbreak of the war in West Asia, between US-Israel and Iran has resulted in great volatility. The spike in price of fuel, particularly cooking gas, has triggered a direct impact on the lives of migrant workers. With stagnating wages, the drought of cooking gas has led to a mass exodus and spontaneous labour activism. The unprecedented repression let loose particularly in BJP led states cannot be an appropriate response. These are issues which flow from the foreign policy approach of the Modi government. How can the BJP speak of double engine governance without being accountable on these vital questions of livelihood?
Therefore, far from presenting a coherent and meaningful roadmap for the future in the poll bound states, the BJP’s electoral discourse betrays a challenge for all those who cherish democracy, harmony and secure livelihood.
(April 23, 2026)
