Unlike 2014, the BJP isn’t setting the agenda this election. Congress has seized the initiative | The Indian Express

Unlike 2014, the BJP isn’t setting the agenda this election. Congress has seized the initiative | The Indian Express

Written by Harbans Mukhia |Updated: April 16, 2019 8:56:34 am

The writer taught history at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.

Unlike 2014, the BJP isn’t setting the agenda this election. Congress has seized the initiative

The conspicuous absence of euphoria is now matched by the equally conspicuous absence of any reference to sab ka saath or sab ka vikas in the BJP's current campaign. It gets highlighted in the face of the Opposition’s centring of farmers’ distress, joblessness.

The Opposition, especially the Congress under Rahul Gandhi, combined the two issues of economic distress as the centrepiece of its campaign in last year’s state elections in Gujarat and later in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, yielding impressive dividends. (Illustration: CR Sasikumar)

In the plethora of impressionistic narratives around the elections, here is one more: Has the hawa acquired a different tone this time round?