The economist turned psephologist Surjit Bhalla, who has been in the business of statistically analysing voting behaviour since the 1980s, has long held that economic interests and concerns matter for more than caste loyalties in Indian elections. Bhalla repeats this argument, mobilising data, in his recently published book How We Vote: Factors That Influence Voters (2024). His argument, as a Modi supporter, is that economic factors in fact favour the BJP in the ongoing elections. Most Modi critics do not agree. They believe that unemployment, middle class distress and rising inequality have made Modi less popular.
https://thewire.in/politics/caste-class-and-a-suit-boot-ki-sarkar
Modi may have suddenly discovered that while he continues to mobilise Hindu votes deploying anti-Muslim sentiment, Rahul has deployed a two-pronged attack using caste and class. This may well have revived the discomforting memory of Rahul’s ‘suit boot ki sarkar’ jibe. Could this have prompted Modi to distance himself from big business?
The charge of ‘suit boot ki sarkar’ has come to stick. The slogan ‘Adani-Ambani ki sarkar’ mimics a communist slogan of the Nehru-Indira years, when their governments were dubbed by the communists as ‘Tata-Birla ki sarkar’. Indira Gandhi ended that with her turn to the political left in the late 1960s and the wave of nationalisations she authorised. Modi will find it difficult to make such a turn to the left, given the class and caste basis of his support.
by Sanjaya Baru
13/05/2024