2018 Semifinal covering five states is coming to end this week and results will be announced on 11th December.

In 2013 - Narendra Modi was the candidate for PM from BJP and had addressed far more number of rallies in these states specifically in Chattisgarh, MP and Rajasthan compared to 2018. In 2013 there was also one more state he had to contend with and that was Delhi. This time it is Telangana. But in Telangana, BJP has lesser stake - hence did not expect him to address many rallies there.

In 2018 below is the break-up of rallies he has addresses / planning to addressed.

  • Chattisgarh - 5
  • MP - 10
  • Rajasthan - 10
  • Telangana - 4
So covering 4 states is less than 30 rallies. In 2017 in Gujarat alone he addressed more than 30 rallies.
Below are my some random thoughts on why he has addressed far less number of rallies in this 2018 Semifinal

1) In 2013 before this election, Narendra Modi was announced BJP PM candidate for 2014 election. So bad performance from BJP in this election would have significantly impacted his candidature for 2014 election. He had lot at stake - hence had to be aggressive to win these states.

2) In 2013, Narendra Modi was still bit unknown to National audience except the core BJP  supporters. So he had to put in lot more effort to reach the voters in these states

3) Since 2014 Narendra Modi + Amit Shah combo has fought election in many states and only in 2 states they were incumbent. One was small state Goa - where they performed badly and came back to power through backdoor. In Gujarat - they just above scrapped through.
Both these states had common factor. Both probably had very weak Chief Ministers, and required Narendra Modi intervention to win. Which he did in Gujarat to win for BJP

Now in these 2018 states, all the 3 states have strong / popular Chief Ministers, so Modi only has to act in a complimentary manner to them and not overshadow them

4) Since 2014 - Central government schemes seems to have worked well in these states specifically in Chattisgarh and MP and probably banking on that for a victory

5) Has Fatigue set in for Narendra Modi - may be wants to keep himself fresh for 2019 campaign probably starting from Feb / March?

6) With strong anti-RSS stand by Congress, seems like now RSS fully behind the BJP (which was not the case in any of the state elections between 2014 to 2018).
So seems like he is banking on local leaders popularity, strong organization support  + RSS support to win election in these states

7) The above factor seems to be very strong in MP, and in Chattisgarh seems like it is combination of good work done by Central and State that is helping BJP towards victory

8) But in Rajasthan - all analysis seems to indicate heavy anti-incumbency, and do not see RSS fully backing Raje here.
So why still Modi / Amit Shah combo is not going aggressively in Rajasthan.

Even in State like Karnataka where BJP was in backfoot leading into the election the combo campaigned aggressively and turned it to BJP being single largest party. If not for that, Congress would have definitely won the majority.

But do not see any such effort from BJP in Rajasthan. So are we seeing something different, and may be something different is going in the background?

You never know, we will need to wait for December 11 to see whether this strategy from BJP / Modi has worked.


URL10
URL9
MegaFly 1
MegaFly 2
MegaURL 1
Ouo.io