Why Modi is still a heartthrob of people in India

New Delhi (India) : Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader ruled his home state of Gujarat for more than 12 years, winning three consecutive assembly elections before relocating to Delhi in 2014. Since then, he has steered his party to two resounding victories and is now India’s undisputed ruler.

Prime Minister Modi is still actively campaigning for the Gujarat state assembly despite this. The BJP’s historic victory on Thursday, when they received more than 50% of the popular vote and 156 of the state’s 182 seats, set the stage for a seventh term in office. That Mr. Modi is, as many commentators have put it, “synonymous with Gujarat” was also demonstrated.

As is his custom, Mr. Modi turned the Gujarat election into a personal test. More than 30 campaign meetings were held, and he went on a long road show to meet with voters and garner media attention. In his campaign speeches, he appealed to the voters’ sense of asmita, or pride, in Gujarat by asking them to “trust” him and the BJP government. Amit Dholakia, a professor of political science at Gujarat’s Maharaja Sayajirao University, says, “You don’t expect the prime minister to expend so much time and energy in a state election.”

Perhaps Mr. Modi had to put in more hours than usual. Strong Hindu nationalism and his promises of economic growth continue to be popular with voters. Shortly after he first came to power in 2002, religious riots erupted in the Indian state of Gujarat, but this did not appear to hurt his popularity. Indeed, Gujarat has a higher investment rate and higher per capita income than the rest of India, not to mention the fourth largest economy in the country.

Yet, just like the rest of India, employment opportunities are dwindling and costs are climbing. In terms of health indicators like infant and maternal mortality rates, Gujarat has fallen behind less wealthy states. The local governments led by Mr. Modi’s successors have not enjoyed the same popularity he did. To win the state election in 2017, the party had to overcome a resurgent opposition Congress and a rebellion by supporters from a powerful landowning community, but they did it.

“But once Mr Modi is on the ticket, the script changes,” says Shekhar Gupta, editor-in-chief of ThePrint, an online news and current affairs site.

Mr Modi, say commentators, knows a setback for the BJP in Gujarat would hurt not only his party, but his own image. One reason he may have expended so much time and energy campaigning in the state this time could have to do with the arrival of the opposition Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), led by Arvind Kejriwal. The AAP has been ruling the city state of Delhi since 2015 and earlier this year won the key state of Punjab. On Wednesday, it wrested control of the cash-rich municipality of the capital, Delhi, which the BJP had ruled for 15 years.

Mr Kejriwal is a feisty leader who relishes throwing down the gauntlet to Mr Modi: he moved to Varanasi to contest against the BJP leader in the 2014 general elections. (He lost.) In Gujarat, his party debuted with a paltry five seats but picked up close to 13% of the popular vote, much of it at the expense of the main opposition Congress party. “It has built a space in the opposition. It needs to build a grassroots network and credible leaders,” says Prof Dholakia.

A survey by YouGov, a global market research firm, and Delhi-based think tank Centre for Policy Research (CPR), in more than 200 cities and towns earlier this year found the AAP was gaining a foothold as a national alternative to the BJP, taking over the opposition space that Congress had enjoyed. “They’ve got a foot in the door. It doesn’t mean that they are going to win the next election, but they become political contenders in the state,” says Rahul Verma, a fellow with the Centre for Policy Research.

But Mr Modi’s BJP remains a hard act to beat. His unquestionable appeal as a vote-getter is complemented by his party’s Hindutva ideology, a powerful organisational apparatus, abundant resources, a record of governance, a strong social coalition and a largely supportive media.

Mr Modi is also helped in no small measure by a weak opposition – the Congress party’s abject performance in Gujarat shows voters no longer find it appealing, say commentators. The party’s narrow win over the BJP in the small mountain state of Himachal Pradesh – where voters have a reputation for kicking out incumbents – offers only a rare sliver of hope to an enfeebled party. However, the vote in Himachal Pradesh also “exemplified the limits of Mr Modi’s formidable ability to singlehandedly push BJP through in state elections”, according to Asim Ali, a political scientist.

What the BJP’s sweeping win in Gujarat shows is that the rainbow coalition – upper, lower and middle-ranking castes, also called the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) – that the party has stitched together continues to fetch dividends. OBCs alone make up about half of Gujarat’s more than 60 million people and now form a bulk of the party’s voters.

Mr Modi’s charisma and connect with voters remains the BJP’s greatest strength. “But the party’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. Take Mr Modi out of the equation, and the BJP looks vulnerable,” says Prof Dholakia. “The dependence on Mr Modi is also an admission of the weakness of the local leadership. The other state leaders are not popular.”

The BJP is now set to rule Gujarat without a break for 29 years – only the Communist Party of India (Marxist) ruled a state (West Bengal) for a longer time, a record 34 years. And Mr Modi, 72, continues to be a political outlier, defying anti-incumbency, both in his state and outside.