Eight Years Of PM Modi’s Development Politics And Emergence of New Vote Banks

A few days back, we witnessed PM Narendra Modi getting emotional on watching a school-going girl tearing up as her blind father narrated her dream of becoming a doctor. Prime Minister asked her about the motivation behind her dream. She told him that her father’s ordeal made her want to be a doctor.

Anyone watching the conversation would find it hard to not be moved by her determination and swell with pride, as PM Modi did, after getting to know her thought process. The emotional strength of a woman, who found her drive in her family’s strife, is not a one-off story. It is a common tale of an aspirational India, brimming with talent, enthusiasm, and a can-do spirit. The New India wants to break the shackles of its present and launch into a brighter future.

In the last 8 years, Modi government has been able to position itself as a administration that is in tune with the aspirations and expectations of a young India. From this interaction itself one could not help but wonder about the connection PM Modi has been able to forge with women and youth, turning them into some of the biggest cheerleaders for his government.

In the 2019 general elections, there was a shift in the voting patterns of women. Women almost equaled men in voting percentages, marking a change in the trend since 1962. Another interesting fact was that for the first time, BJP garnered the highest number of women votes, torpedoing the claim that BJP was a party of patriarchal men.

The intellectuals found the phenomenon inexplicable and temporary. However, those who have observed Narendra Modi since his Gujarat days would find this phenomenon inherent to his politics.

In the last eight years of his governance, and even before that, Modi has consciously tried to change the discourse on development towards women-centric outcomes. In his first speech as the prime minister at Red Fort, he made Swachh Bharat Mission a prime focus of national debates. He used his public rallies and media platforms to mobilise national efforts toward building toilets for girls.

Even though schemes such as Jan Dhan Yojana, PM Awas Yojana and PM MUDRA, were not designed to only target women, the maximum number of beneficiaries of these schemes turned out to be women, almost organically. The success of these programmes among women showed the deep lacuna that existed in policymaking when it came to addressing women and their aspirations.

When BJP returned to power in Uttar Pradesh in 2017, it was on the back of women voters expressing their support for the Ujjwala scheme, Modi government's flagship scheme. On the face of it, free gas cylinders come across as a simplistic idea. But, in its implementation, it was the pure political genius of PM Modi. For the first time, crores of women from poor households were freed from centuries of drudgery and smoke, vitiating their health as well as the health of their children. A gas cylinder, therefore, became a symbol of a government that not only cares but understands.

In the 2022 UP state elections, the silent women voters made their presence felt again. This time, it was not only gas cylinders but women's safety that inclined them towards the BJP over others. Even Priyanka Gandhi’s ‘Ladki Hoon Lad Sakti Hoon’ campaign, though specifically targeted young girls, failed to find any takers. The women voters seemed satisfied with the BJP government’s push for better law and order, among its other offerings.

Through its progressive policies, Modi government has been trying to eliminate bottlenecks that hinder women’s forward march in the development of the nation. Its initiatives are bearing fruit and are getting reflected in more and more women taking public space and assuming decision making roles, in all spheres.

The second crucial block of BJP’s voters constitutes the youth. In 2019, 41 per cent of first-time voters (between the age of 18 and 22) chose Modi government. The party’s vote share among those in the age group of 23-27 was 40 per cent. The groundswell of support among the youth panned across caste, class, and regional groupings.

Modi government emerged as the first choice of India’s youth because it spoke their language. PM Modi’s push towards digital India, building a startup ecosystem, fast-paced infrastructure development, and encouragement of sports are some of the factors that make him relatable to the young, more than the breed of young politicians we currently have in opposition parties.

The fact that the Prime Minister is not a child of nepotism and has risen through his hard work adds to his advantage. He is as much liked among the young populace of urban centres, as he is celebrated among the youth of rural areas.

His appeal is pan-Indian because his message is of ‘One Nation’, something that today’s youth see as India’s strength. Recently, we saw a young Indian student from Harvard University schooling Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on nationhood, showing how deeply the youth of India detests politics that aims to divide India into blocks, rather than see it as an indivisible whole.

The rubric of electoral maths in India has been transformed in the last eight years. New vote banks have emerged that are impossible to bracket within the divisive blocks of identity politics.

In the future, though it is difficult to completely do away with identity, its electoral outcome would remain limited in pockets. Modi government has captured the national imagination with its development agenda, which has the stamp of approval from two of its most critical vote banks, women, and youth.