New Delhi:There are reasons for the opposition parties to fear that BJP might reap electoral benefits from the Citizenship Amendment Act passed recently as it might lead to a much sharper polarisation of the voters on religious lines mainly Hindus and Muslims.
But the electoral gains may not be the extent as BJP may be hoping or the kind of gains opposition suspects. The gains for BJP would depend upon how the opposition responds to the new law. I suspect, sharper the opposition to this new law by the opposition, greater could be the electoral gains for the BJP, milder the opposition lesser could be the electoral gain for the BJP.
Strong opposition to the new Citizenship law by the opposition parties could help BJP in polarising the voters on religious lines ultimately helping BJP in reaping electoral gains.
While we have witnessed large scale protest across the country against the Citizenship Amendment Act, but still there is a reasonable degree of support for this new act amongst common people.
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A sizeable number of people are in support of this new law because for them the new law is as simple as this—those Muslims have come to India from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh and living here illegally should be sent back to their respective countries. Common man is hardly bothered about which religious communities are exempted and what is the cut-off date.
While the opposition parties are charging the BJP of playing politics by Citizenship law, but the opposition of the new law by the opposition parties is being seen by the common man as opposition parties playing game of minority appeasement.
This might ultimately polarise the people in support and opposition of the new law which eventually would help the BJP. There is no doubt that the support for new Citizenship law is greater than its opposition, but the electoral gains for the BJP may not be in proportion to the amount of support.
Reasons are simple, even though BJP managed to win 303 seats with 37% votes share during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, but the party still found it difficult to expand beyond the Vindhya, Karnataka being the only exception.
The new Citizenship Act is hardly an issue amongst the people in southern states, even though states like Kerala, Andhra and Telangana has sizeable number of Muslims.
Since these states do not share boundaries with any other country from where possible illegal migration could have taken place, it may not become a big issue for the common people in these states.
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The BJP might expand in Southern states, there is always a possibility of BJP increasing its support base in some of the southern states, but that would not be due to people’s support for BJP because of the new citizenship law.
Even though some of the states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Bihar with varying degrees of Muslim population witnessed protest against the citizenship law, but such protest has been curbed successfully.
While there was wide-scale protest soon after the bill was passed, but slowly and gradually this issue might lose significance in these states as these states do not share boundaries with other countries from where there could be illegal migration.
There may still be people who may have infiltrated to Indian territory in some other states sharing “porous boundary” with other country and may have settled down in one of these states, but the numbers of such people would be very small, and could not be an issue for common voters.
Even if it becomes an electoral issue in these states, the electoral gains may be limited for the BJP, as it is important to note that BJP has already registered a massive victory in most of these states both in 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
There is a limited possibility of BJP increasing its tally of seats in many of these states. The BJP has won all 25 Lok Seats in Rajasthan, 28 of the 29 seats in MP, 9 of the 11 Lok Sabha seats on Chhattisgarh, 11 of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in Jharkhand, 62 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP and 39 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar (in alliance with JD(U) and LJNSP).
There is not much scope for the BJP to improve upon its electoral performance of 2019 even if BJP become much more popular and gain larger support on account of the new citizenship law.
The gains for the BJP from the two states of the west Gujarat and Maharashtra could be very limited for two reasons—one BJP has already won all the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat and 41 of the 48 seats in Maharashtra in alliance with Shiv Sena.
The states to watch would be Assam and West Bengal, as the new law would impact the politics of these two states. The two states account for a total of 55 Lok Sabha seats (13 in Assam and 42 in West Bengal) and BJP has been able to make inroads in these two states. During the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, in Assam BJP won 9 Lok Sabha seats and polled 36% votes while in West Bengal it won 18 Lok Sabha seats and polled 40% votes.
There is still scope for the BJP to increases its tally of seats in both in Assam and West Bengal. The National Register of Citizen carried out in Assam last year was immensely controversial and we also witnessed a massive protest in Assam against new Citizenship law.
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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee response to this new law is well known. She has publicly announced her opposition to citizenship amendment act.
It is important to note that both these states share boundary with Bangladesh and these two states also have a very large Muslim population, some of them allegedly being illegal migrants.
This issue is certainly going to be the biggest election issue when both these states goes to poll in mid-2021. Only time will say how this issue is going to play up in forthcoming assembly elections in these two states and that would give us an indication of how big this issue could be for the big fight of 2024.
