The Missing Modi Wave as Livelihood Issues Dominate | MK Venu | Yogendra Yadav

hello and welcome to this uh special conversation with yogendra yadav uh National convenor of bhat joro Aban uh but uh the reason why I'm talking to yogendra yadav is uh because he uh has traveled uh through uh parts of large uh parts of Western up harana uh now he'll be going to Rajasthan uh later to into Bihar easn UPI Etc and yogindra yadav is uh bringing a lot of insights from the ground uh now there's people sitting here uh in their drawing rooms in in Delhi or Bombay or elsewhere U are very anxiously speculating about what's going to happen in 2024 and the the the general narrative uh uh is that uh a Modi he now now that is the that a general uh U uh that's a general feeling that has perception that has been generated uh by the by the massive media Machinery uh that the ruling party today has uh but but yogendra yadav uh from his ground experience uh is bringing us a different perspective uh which he has captured in in a recent article in the print uh where he he talks about what the people on the ground are feeling uh and what do they think about the 2024 elections Welcome to our show yogendra uh and and I'm also U I'm I'm I'm a bit partial to yogendra because of my own recent experience when I was in katica to cover the kartica elections yogendra had uh had called out uh uh the the Karnataka election correctly against the uh against the current actually in fact the extent of Victory uh is something that uh yogendra Yad was one of the very few who had predicted and subsequently I was in Telangana to cover Telangana ass relation there also Yogen yadav had called the elections right uh he got the the sense of the ground very accurately and in fact in one of my pieces I I quoted yogendra so so yog you please tell us uh uh you've captured in your print article uh two basic things you're saying that that the Modi man IC does not exist anymore and you you're saying this after talking to people and you're saying that you're quoting some people saying that that the expiry date for Modi magic is over uh just as there's an expired date for everything uh Modi now I I found that very interesting and the the second thing you arguing is that we are returning to normal politics in abnormal times uh now can you just explain to me the the Nuance that you bring trying to bring out uh this is this is very interesting here please thanks Vu thanks for taking note before I come to that uh can I begin with just two clarifications one is since you spoke about forecasting and election and outcome and getting it right Etc uh let me clarify you know here we are not into an exercise of election forecasting uh what I've have said is based on a fairly limited set of observations which I'll explain how uh now does that necessarily counter the opinion polls that are being touted that are being presented not necessarily uh I found in my travel that uh some of the observations that I made were quite in keeping with what I read in opinion poll especially the Hindu csds extensive opinion poll that has been carried out many of the observations there matched what I saw on the ground but in some instances I don't quite see a match between what the polls in general are saying and what I observed on the ground and what I did was the following uh uh v um you know we were five six friends who were who went completely unscheduled unstructured making sure that we do not meet any politician or any journalist just very ordinary people in their Village in their homes or uh in the you know uh in the small village markets places where people gather and spoke to them differently would come back every one of us would report what they heard then we move to the next spot and that's how we did it uh is that a substitute for doing scientific opinion fals no but does it get a sense of the ground I suppose it does over the years I've seen that it does uh but I just wanted to clarify that this you know when I used to do opinion FS very many friends would say but I didn't see this on the ground so these are two different things and I used to say then that these are not substitutes for each other so I don't mean to say that what the opinion polls are saying is worthless but this is a supplement to what they might be saying does Mr Modi uh extinguish all of the conversations this is what we experienced in 2019 you know you would go start speaking to people about Mei bosar or anything and the only answer would be Modi that finish the conversation or pulama that finished all conversation you could actually speak to people about anything else uh in 2014 it was Modi in 2019 it was pulama balakot and Mr modi's decisive leadership uh this time it was different Modi was popular has been popular but his name does not push everything else under the carpet people talk about other issues people Express unease anger disire candidates own work matters it did not matter in 20149 you could put a lamp post and he would win from the BJP this time candidates own performance matters candidates cast community and local social equations matter local issues matter yes and this is uh this is Happ this is significant it is likely to work against the BJP because all the local candidates at least in these areas that we visited most of them are from the BJP because BP swept this region so if candidate work is evaluated obviously the ruling party is unable local issues as and when economy related local issues come up things get very very difficult uh when you must have observe that but if you have any conversation about unemployment anywhere in this country it is impossible for anyone to argue that this is not a problem BJP may not acknowledge the in Manifesto the Prime Minister may not mention this word in his long speeches and his long contrived interviews but the fact is that everyone in the country is worried about it you can convince people about whatever you want to say on ladak you can convince people about India's growing International reputation because obviously people have no firsthand experience of any of these things but unemployment is something about they have firsthand experience inflation is something they experience firsthand these are issues which are surfacing and this disqui is coming now which is related to the uh second point that you had made uh you know drawn from the article that I said mentioned which is Rise of normal politics you know 2014 and 19 were very unusual elections there was no all normal politics considerations were just set as set aside uh this is not happening anymore and the return to normal politics uh is a significant development uh this could have turned the entire election around but then we don't live in normal times this is a very abnormal election we cannot forget while discussing all the swings while discussing vot shares while discussing popular moods and Coalition we cannot Overlook the big picture the big picture is that in our country uh the normal Democratic Protocols are being given a goai that uh opposition leaders are being picked up that uh opposition party accounts have been frozen that there are serious questions about evm in election commission's uh neutrality so all this is gives a very abnormal context which leads to a very strange situation when you say normal politics has returned in abnormal times of course times are abnormal that we all know but when you say normal politics has returned you are also trying to say uh if I understand you correctly uh that that livelihood issues real issues have come to the for and uh uh Modi magic uh is is on the vein as compared to say 2019 or uh 2014 and also uh would I be right in saying that this is the least presidential kind of election in character uh are we are we are we are we to understand from your formulation that that this is going to be a largely a state to state con constituency to constituency election uh that would be reading too much uh and probably drawing too much into what we are witnessing uh but compared to 2014 and 19 uh it seems that it would be a little less presidential because in 20 14 and 19 as I said Mr modi's name was enough to silence all conversations uh that doesn't seem to be happening and that's the point this young person made which I quoted in the article he said there's an expiry date and that seems to be coming which is not to say Mr modi's popularity has expired I didn't see that but uh but uh a certain you know preeminence of uh as you rightly called presidential election where everyone is talking about one person personality whether you like it whether you dislike him Etc and that is the core of the election I I felt that there was less of this compared to 2014 and 19 how how much less uh that would be captured by opinion polls how much less and uh uh it is I did not get a sense that any of the opposition leaders was coming close to Mr modi's popularity levels that I did not exp feel uh but yes the kind of der derision in which people spoke about Rahul Gandhi earlier there was less of that there was criticism but not that kind of Papu kind of image which you used to hear earlier uh that has changed uh people spoke a lot about their own local candidates uh that mattered so many of these things made a difference to the manner in which we uh saw uh this so yog I you so are you suggesting uh that this this election is is less presidential than the the the previous two uh say 2019 and 2014 and and number two uh how do you compare uh purely in this regard uh how would you compare this with say 2004 uh you know a lot of people are trying to see some parallel between 2004 and now in terms of uh uh in terms of you know the India shining you know there's a Mah uh that uh that this is a one-way election and and uh and there's only one way that this election is going uh so was the case in 2004 and uh and vajpai was popular in 2004 uh but of course we were not in abnormal living in AB abnormal times as you said so so how would you uh do you see any parallels in this regard uh some parallels are very easy to notice uh Vu uh like in 2004 uh there was an overall Mahal climate that you know India shining Mr vaj is coming back Mr vaj was popular all this was the case however uh below the surface there was uh resentment there were issues there were disqui and and uh that isqu expressed itself more powerfully than the dominant Narrative of India shine uh something they is an element of that however to draw a complete parallel would be mistaken there is an element of that as well here because Mr Modi is popular uh and there's lot of hav about the BJP however if you look at if you speak to Ordinary People there is very serious disqui disquiet about unemployment that I mentioned uh this belt where I travel is also a belt that sends lot of young people to the Indian army uh I noticed and heard enormous disqui about agiv be scheme for example uh very unhappy about this there's diset about inflation no matter what the official inflation figures might be ordinary people feel that they are unable to afford things that they want in life basics of Life they cannot afford there is disqui uh on growing inequalities uh there is also disqui for the first time Vu I heard disqui on the issue of tanash Shahi this word I had not I mean I stopped sharing this word uh in ordinary people's conversations for a very very long time although people like you and me keep mentioning these things but this did not figure in the conversations on the ground this time after a long time I heard people talk about Tanasha with reference to what the BJP is doing to the opposition so all that does create something of a parall but where you do not see a paral t it is not a parall mr's government but dis Qui below a overall impression of uh uh one part ruling party coming back Etc there is a parallel where you do not have parallel is of course the strangle hold of the ruling establishment over the media over Administration and I'm sorry to say over the election process itself uh that was not the case in 2004 uh that that abnormality did not exist and also I think the kind of meticulous micromanagement uh both in the good sense and in the bad sense which is going on did not exist Mr vaj P's time uh so all this may mean that despite this disire things may not come out in open but you there are different levels we uh the first level is disqui now disqui even deep disqui doesn't always mean that you go and vote against the ruling party the disqui must be expressed itself in aggregated forms and then you must feel that okay someone else is better than this one in order to address my unease my question my disqui uh the first is definitely there that I can tell you after visiting these places and incidentally of what we are discussing is reflected in the cstds locti survey that was carried in the Hindu unemployment on the issue of price rise on the issue of uh grow of falling credibility of the election commission Etc all these things were and on even on the evm all these things were reflected in the in this survey as well so there's dis there cannot be any question how that dis plays it itself out in in the election whether it Aggregates itself and whether it finds an alternative to which it attaches itself are the questions to be seen in the yeah here yog I I you make a very interesting point and this is the Nuance that I I want to discuss uh little more in detail with you in your article you there's one sentence where where you exactly culate what you just said where you say that that a lot of individuals that you spoke to were in distress they were saying and we all know that livelihood livelihood issues have come to the four you quoted the csds survey and this is a common refrain anywhere you go I've spoken to many Uber drivers they say that they are worse off than they were 5 years ago their incomes are stagnant and the costs have gone up tremendously whether it is food whether it's gas whether it's whatever you take you know the you know input for their uh you know petrol diesel for their cars which they're using for commercial purpose and of course the other people who are self-employed people also use gas energy for their work now you in one sentence you say that individual choices uh that you that people expressed uh to you uh even saying that they going to vote against the BJP this time although they voted for BJP the previous two general elections even after that you said there seemed to be a disconnect between individual choice and the the collective the perception of collective preference so that's where you bring in this slogan a Modi so basically what you're saying is lot of people that you spoke to they are in stress they are saying that they will vote against BJP but they are they also have a certain sense of collective perception uh or Collective uh perception which which suggests a Modi now now this can you explain this dichotomy to me uh well this is exactly what I mean by normal politics in abnormal times and the dissonance that it creates uh the dissonance expresses itself in multiple ways you ask someone how are you very bad second is are you going to vote for BJP no I won't are your friends your family going to vote for BJP no uh what's the trend in your village well BJP would lose at least 300 400 votes in our village so what's going to happen so there a this is the dissonance uh between individual feelings preferences likes and voting preferences and a perception colletive is something disconnected from me I'm going in One Direction is going in another Direction I Modi uh you also see it in a couple of other things that uh things that are happening on the ground do not make it to the top that's something you and I know and that's why you know media houses like wire exist because in the mainstream media things that are happening on the ground do not manage to get to the television headlines do not make media front pages so uh news does not travel from bottom to the top and interestingly in a strange sense things also do not travel from the top to the bottom electoral bot which is a major Scandal I think one of the biggest scandals that we have had in Independent India political scandals especially those which have some evidence to it now that does not percolate down media does not uh get information from below media does not reach information below so people are discussing all kinds of things other than electoral bonds which would have made a difference this is what I mean by dissonance and this is actually uh so so this is the sharp contrast from 2004 4 uh in 2004 uh you media was not playing this kind of a role although media was quite partis to Mr Media was quite favorably inclined however things would not be blocked this is what we are witnessing here and this is the dissonance which is causing a strange situation in our country today but but but yra in 2004 I recall there was there was a one-way perception you know that that what that BJP was coming back and the bulk of opinion polls suggested that bulk of media sorry was also anticipating it um uh if you recall I I I mean you you at that time of course you were uh you were part of the uh the csds uh loti you you were running the theology uh uh you know uh segment there U do you recall any Al internet any other voices uh contrary voices at that time in the media uh not so much in opinion polls in fact V you would recall I had written a piece at that point I think a couple of months before the election to say yeah forget opinion polls this election is still open this is an open race and for which I got a lot of flack initially uh because that was not the perception clear uh that is that was not the dominant perception even till the exit polls that was not the perception even in exit poles people said mostly that uh NDA was coming back to fall uh so yes there was a systematic U misreading of the situation however the kind of situations we are looking at today uh in terms of uh say something like electoral bonds how is it that such a big National Scandal does not reach Villages does not reach people who watch news on a regular basis it is because television channels have completely started blocking out any information which is inconvenient to the current regime that did not happen in the times of Mr B okay so so so you again again coming back to the earlier point about uh I mean your your observation that individual individuals are saying that they are distressed they they and the families Etc unemployment problem and they want to vote against the BJP uh and at the same time uh they they have a sense of the the collective perception which is that I mod he now uh doesn't this run contrary to the general uh received wisdom that that when there is a Mah that one party is uh it's a oneway kind of uh election only one party is going to uh take all the winnings uh then people voters tend to go with that perception but here the interesting contradiction is the people that you spoke to your 400 uh you know the sample whatever people they they they themselves are saying that that they are voting against the BJP but they saying there's a collective perception that that that a is this a is this something different from from behavior that we see or that we believe different different in two ways one is I mean normally you know what you see is people say of that's the usual but here you see a very interesting dissonance those who are those who are voting for BJP are of course saying BJP will win but those who are not voting for BJP also say you know they might sayc Congress but nationally they are not saying so which is to say bjp's psychological propaganda game has actually put everyone on defensive and uh that is what the opposition needs to break you know you need to tell people look if you are not voting BJP if she's not voting BJP if he's not voting BJP then maybe the country is not voting for them you know you need to give voter that assurance that they are part of a larger trend which they don't have as yet and unless that happens you do not have election waves that happen and uh uh number two someone has to also uh give them this sense that look for example for the unemployed most of the unemployed youth think that they are unemployed because of their own mistakes because of their Misfortune because of their own inabilities because of things that they fail to do someone needs to come and tell them that look all of you cannot be misfor unfortunate one person can be unfortunate not everyone that what we are dealing with a systemic issue that you are victim of something which is large or which is happening to all of you that is where politics comes in and as someone keeps had told me once ISS there is lot of disqui on the ground there are lots of issues on the ground but they come political issue when the opposition or someone comes turns these into issues someone tells this person this is not your individual problem this is systems problem this is not your individual preference everyone thinks the way you think that is when you create waves that is still waiting toen so you're you're essentially Yogen you're saying that the the opposition is yet to foreground all these uh issues which the people on the ground are are desperately talking about is that what you're saying uh yes so in a sense as someone said told me on the ground in the sense that people have grievances people have disired there is a felt unease and I can tell you Vu if the BJP was in opposition and Congress was ruling at this level of disquiet and unease BJP would have overthrown Congress government because they know to convert these issue ex I mean you know that so they know how to convert half unease into an issue they also know how to convert an anes which they suspect may have existed 500 years ago into an issue today and the trouble is that the opposition cannot sometimes is insufficiently geared to convert an issue which exists right now which exist in the face they can't convert that into an election issue that is where the problem lies the problem is not at the level of popular perception the problem is at the level of political translation so you so yogendra I another question I want to ask you it's interesting you're saying that that tanashahi has gone down and people are talking about it and it's gone down to the to the level of to the Grassroots uh the manner in which Chief ministers have been sitting chief minister have been arrested in the last couple of months uh so so if tanai has actually gone down uh to the people then do you rule out the possibility that it it it may turn out that that that PE people will fight this election it be it'll be it'll be the it'll be Modi versus or the BJP versus the people as it happened uh during Inda Gandhi's time when you know when she became when she's imposed emergency and then she after the elections happened essentially the opposition was hardly organized that time it was it was an election uh fought by the people essentially isn't it so do you think something of the that sort is possible uh in the in the current uh situation uh that would be my hope Vu and that should be the hope of any Democrat in this country uh but I think I would be careful in trying to uh pin too much on that hope at this stage because when I say Tanasha is being talked about it is not your daily wage worker who barely comes back home and doesn't get to know about news uh he or she is not talking about tashai but someone more educ Not educated someone more politically aware person in the village you know who engages in these political conversations in the village who takes sides who has some information they are beginning to talk about it I saw that I heard that mostly you know these uh among jarts as a community uh I heard that uh with people who with have some education people who would be Village teachers people that perception has gone down while people don't know about electoral bonds they know about's arrest they know about what's being done to opposition so at that level it has has it percolated down to everyone as I witnessed as a child in 1977 where it did percolate down to the last first you know at least in the world that I lived in in the heartland of the N mid 1970s uh there it percolated down has it percolated down as yet I don't know I don't think it has percolated down to the extent to which I would like it to so finally you I want to ask you uh all your experience on the on the on the ground that you have seen in the in the last many uh weeks uh you'll be traveling 1500 km now you'll be going into Eastern up biar Etc so we we'll we we'll be in touch with you U as you travel and would want your feedback uh you also argue uh from your experience so far that that the BJP had bjp's performance uh 2019 performance uh cannot be exceeded if anything there will be a fall from that so uh so so therefore you are kind of ruling out this uh this haa that BJP is created of 370 Plus for it for itself and 400 plus with allies uh so so so what do you what's your sense uh which are the states where the BJP is likely to decline and U and how would the declines in different states how how would they aggregate what's your sense I mean broad sense I'm not sort of of course you can only speculate at this moment yeah we're not talking election forecasting it's just a broad sense that one is talking uh and uh you know BJP can do whether BJP can get 370 on its own or not can be answered with just a piece of paper and pencil you don't need to go to the field just look at the BJP seats how many seats they are contesting where they are placed and you get an answer that's an impossibility of course uh but the more serious question is uh How does it go beyond what it scored in 2019 or can it go below the 272 Mar these are the realistic ranges that we are looking at yeah and my only uh uh observation so far is that when I look at what opinion polls tell me most of these opinion polls that are saying BJP gets more than 300 BJP would improve upon 2019 they assumed that BJP would sweep the entire North Indian Bel which is to say Hindi belt plus Gujarat BJP would sweep the way it did last time or in 200 part yeah in the travels that I have done in these areas I don't see that uh W in Western up the areas that I travel which is from meach to saharanpur in those areas yes uh BJP seems to be ahead but if someone says are they scoring the kind of Victory they scored in 2019 I did not see that if anything I saw a marginal decline in harana I definitely see uh challenge to the BJP in so many areas in harana ever since the farmers movement is there is a very serious challenge to the PJP and if someone tells me they are going to sweep I wouldn't know how and in eastern Rajasthan now mind you Eastern Rajasthan is an area where the opposition is expected to do a little better than the rest uh but if BJP is going to get is going to sweep Rajasthan they obviously would need to sweep this area from Sri ganga nagar churu junju sear doar jaur rural Alber harpur and saai mad I challenge you I would ask anyone to travel take four BJP workers with you and and stop in any Village speak to Ordinary People do you see a sweep no if anything in these areas an ordinary travel would suggest you that it is the Congress which has an hand in these areas now okay does this observation of Mind out rule all the opinion poles no I have done opinion polls I respect opinion polls but I just want to register uh I mean I I because I've done opinion polls and I respect them I also happen to know their limitations and therefore I would just register my um different observation in the case in the case of East Rajasthan anyone who tells me that Congress that that BJP is sweeping this region I can only say maybe we went to do different countries uh this much I would have to say and in Karnataka when I speak to my friends who are on the ground who are conducting surveys who are doing face-to-face surveys they confirm that Congress is very much uh uh in the in the running so here are the states where I do expect uh BJP sweep not to be repeated Rajasthan would be one harana is another state uh Karnataka is a third state Maharashtra if you look at NDA BJP St may stay because BJP is contesting far many more seats than they contested last time yes uh but ND as a whole is bound to go down in Maharashtra and their tell is bound to go down in Bihar now someone needs to tell me how BJP would be able to retain what it did in 2014 or 19 in these days or how what where BJP would make up for for the losses that It suffers in these states that's a question that Still Remains insufficiently answered people just assume I'm saying because there is a return to normal politics that kind of sweep at least I don't see that I could be mistaken but I don't see that and I must honestly put it on record that I don't see that happening here uh and we need better evidence we need to travel and therefore I would invite all of the of your viewers everyone uh let us not judge what's happening in this country only by what we see on television only by what we read in the newspaper headlines let us make the effort of stepping out speaking to Ola driver is one way speaking to someone who comes to work at your home is another way we could also take a third way namely uh spending a few hours just going out and speaking to very Ordinary People and I can tell you Ordinary People In This Love Country love to talk they tell you what is on their mind let's listen to them before we form an image of what's happening in India let us speak to Indians so basically Yan what you're saying is from all your travels so far uh and after talking to ordinary people uh and after of course as you said speaking to people in Karnataka uh your sense is that that BJP will definitely drop uh number of seats uh in places like Eastern Rajasthan harana Karnataka Maharashtra uh perhaps Bihar so if that were true then then the logical conclusion is that BJP may be even lower than uh What uh what it was in 2014 in terms of its seat stally if if if one uh if if one takes your your argument to to a more logical end you know isn't it uh in order to convert what I'm saying into precise number of seats you would need a lot of arithmetic you need a lot of precision of data which I don't have so I would limit myself to uh and and the fact is I'm a political worker so I'm not no longer that neutral analysts orthologist That I Used to Be and there are many in this country so I would just urge them to please provide us with better information uh and rely and one point I did want to make cve most of these big opinion polls that are being presented on television now this point does not apply to csds because they actually go to Villages and speak to people face to face but most of the opinion polls that are being presented to us in the last two or three days are simply based on telephone calling now you tell me how many telephones do you receive when someone calls you I'm calling from this agency don't you just say thank you very much you just put the phone down who is it who has the time to answer these phone calls what kind of people have phones and is there not still a significant small chunk at the bottom of this pyramid who still do not have telephone how their opinions are being counted so let us not so all I'm saying is that on the basis of what we see on the ground what we hear as political activ as people who uh you know people like you who are in the media this does not seem to confirm the picture of an a third wave that's going to sweep this country no I'm afraid it does not confirm that how it might translate into exact number of seats is something we need to wait and see uh but this is a moment just as people of India are res are registering a dis quiet with this regime it is it's time for some of us to register dis quiet with this uh impression this Mahal of a sweep for the BG yeah I I got your point you again so basically you're saying that you you your sense is that that they they will lose votes but how how they convert to seats and all of course will only be known uh through a more uh empirical kind of of study but you're Mainely giving us a sense of what people on the ground are saying and what they what they're feeling so uh so so let's uh I mean it's it's a good good point to sort of uh to uh good place to start at least go out and uh get more and more feedback from the people as you said Ordinary People and then and then wait and see uh how the whole election uh uh how the actual voting uh happens uh in the course of the next month and a half uh thank you again for talking to us and uh and uh uh please uh uh keep it in touch with us we'll be keeping we'll be keeping in touch with you uh during uh your travels to other parts of the uh of the country uh we would particularly be uh interested in uh in in your uh observations or in your in your interactions uh with people in Bihar and and what you gather from there we'll be in touch with you thank you Yogen for talking to us thank you thank you thank you

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Published: Fri Apr 19 2024