Despite facing a strong anti-incumbency wave against the state government in Uttarakhand, the BJP managed to secure a comfortable victory largely due to the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and satisfaction from the central government.
Although the incumbent Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami himself lost in his constituency, Mr Modi’s campaign has saved the party.
The prime minister was the direct face of the BJP’s campaign in the state.
high satisfaction
The post-poll survey data for Lokniti showed that there was relatively greater satisfaction with the work done by the Modi government at the Centre.
On the other hand, the state government produced a low level of satisfaction (Table 1). It needs to be emphasized that more than half of the voters in the state are completely satisfied with the work done by the Modi government at the Centre.
If one looks at the net extremes (those who are completely satisfied and those who are completely dissatisfied), the net satisfaction with the central government was 34 per cent higher than during Mr. Dhami’s tenure.
Modi government’s performance became vote choice criterion Another strong indicator highlighting the influence of the party’s central leadership was that most Uttarakhandis voted on the basis of the performance of the Modi government (Table 2).
Four out of every 10 voters said they valued the work done by the central government and statistics show that their vote went largely to the BJP. On the other hand, only two out of every 10 valued the work done by the state government and among them the Congress had the greater edge.
After five years of experience of a double-engined government in the state, support for the idea was still intact (with a slight decline).
More than half of voters (54%) supported the idea of a double-engined government, with only three out of every 10 opposed (31%). Back in 2017, two-thirds (63%) supported the idea of a double-engined government, with two in 10 opposing it. The BJP had a greater edge among voters who supported the idea than those opposed to the idea.
The BJP changed its chief minister thrice during its five years in power, its campaign strategy clearly to project the leadership of the prime minister.
This was clearly a key factor that helped the party come back to power, it was the first time since the formation of the state, that a ruling party was voted back to power.
(Vibha Atri is Research Associate at Lokniti-CSDS, Delhi and Sandeep Shastri is Vice Chancellor of Jagran Lakecity University, Bhopal and National Coordinator of Lokniti Network)