The limits of electoral saffron

Following the Bharatiya Janata Party's electoral successes in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh during the recent assembly polls, India's national press seems intent on trying to impress upon its readership that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is on the comeback trail. That certainly seems to fit in with the party's own public-relations attempts; at this point, it is important explore whether what is being fed to the readership appears to add up to anything. Ultimately, it does not, given the fact that there are limits to voting success when the focus is not on economic or social welfare, but communalist division as a means of electoral advancement. Meanwhile, the BJP's allies seem to have added this factor to their calculations, which has led to their distance.

In recent months, L K Advani, the BJP's newly anointed candidate for prime minister, has been hectically trying to galvanise the party with a pledge to bring the BJP to victory in the Lok Sabha polls, currently scheduled for May 2009. Advani is currently on a campaign, heavily flavoured with Hindutva ingredients, that is now crisscrossing the whole of India. After the BJP's National Council endorsed his prime-ministerial candidature last December, in his first speech, at Jabalpur, he described "Jihadi terrorism" as one of "the biggest threats facing the country". Inherent in this is an idea on which increasingly heavy emphasis will be placed as the campaign gets underway: that Hindus are under threat from Muslims, and that only the BJP can 'save' them.