The instant analysis of the Haryana Assembly elections illustrates the problem with our political commentary. To borrow a cricket metaphor, we seek to explain the outcome of every match as if it was an “innings defeat”, where one team outperformed the other in every respect. Whatever the winner did was right and whatever the loser did was wrong.
What makes the BJP’s victory in Haryana so politically consequential was the staggering gap between expectation and outcome, not the gap between winner and loser. The vote share gap between the BJP and Congress is less than 1 per cent. In cricket terms, the Haryana election was a T-20 match that should have been won with two overs to spare, but was dragged till the last ball, and then lost. So, we need to explain three things: Why did we expect it to be an easy affair? Why was it dragged till the last ball? Why was it lost? So, for Haryana, we need to understand the structural reasons for Congress’s perceived advantage, the strategic factors that helped the BJP neutralise it and the tactical moves that resulted in an unlikely victory for the BJP.
A statutory clarification before I turn to these questions. I write this on the assumption that the result as declared by the EC is a fair reflection of the way people voted. Congress has raised serious objections to the results, presented some evidence to support its claim and promised more. The onus is on the EC to clarify. For now, I have taken the official results, counter-intuitive as they are, at face value and bracketed all other concerns about manipulation.
Let us begin by understanding the structural shift Congress enjoyed at the beginning of this election. The party suffered........