The diminished voter turnout in constituencies across North India, where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) demonstrated strength in 2019, aligns with a pre-poll survey projecting the party's defeat in the 2024 elections. These developments are perceived to have unsettled Modi, who is vying for a third term in office.

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The dip of five to six percent in voting especially in Muzaffarnagar, Rampur, Saharanpur, Moradabad, Kairana, Nagina, Pilibhit and Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh and Nawada, Aurangabad, Jamui and Gaya in Bihar—which were among 102 seats going to the polls on April 19--  is said to have unnerved the Prime Minister. It’s because the Hindutva party had bagged all these seats in the previous elections and the pollsters observed the signs of ‘Modi magic’ are fading.

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The BJP was believed to have exploited the communal riots at Kairana and Muzaffarnagar in 2013, polarizing the voters on Hindu Muslim lines. The tragedy, besides causing loss of lives, vitiated the age-old communal amity in the region. But it provided a foothold to the Hindutva party, to widen the chasm between the Hindus and Muslims, spread its tentacles across the most populous state with 80 Lok Sabha seats and reap a political harvest in successive elections from 2014 onwards.

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Linking the riots with the “incapability” of the Manmohan Singh led Congress government at the centre and Akhilesh Yadav led Samajvadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, and creating the hope for bringing inflation down, doubling farmers’ income, creating two crores jobs every year with ‘fresh-faced’ Modi in the vanguard, the BJP created a wave in its favour, winning the polls.

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However, instead of fulfilling its promises on the parameters of human development, Narendra Modi who became Prime Minister in 2014, shifted  gears, focusing more on the divisive issues and indulging in anti-Muslim rhetoric to polarize the voters. The Union home minister, Amit Shah and Yogi Adityanath who became chief minister in 2017, supplemented Modi's moves, intensifying their tirade against the minorities. In the ‘nexus’ with the police administration and various radical wings of the Rashtriya Sevak Sangh, they targeted the minorities unabatedly.  

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The simmering discontent on the issues of spiralling rise in the price of fuel and other commodities, burgeoning unemployment, youth unrest and farm crisis surfaced in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. That manifested in  the BJP losing three states—Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan—in 2018 assembly elections. But the terrorists attack on an army convoy, the “surgical” strike in Balakot (Pakistan) and the dramatic release of the Air Force pilot, Abhinanandan Barthaman, gave the opportunity to the BJP to fuel ‘nationalist sentiment’ that led it to sweep the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

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Emboldened by its repeated electoral success, the BJP began playing the communal card more brazenly at the cost of ignoring its myriad promises related to life and livelihood. On the pretext of the Supreme Court’s verdict allowing the construction of the Ram temple at Ayodhya, Narendra Modi dressed like a Hindu priest—attired in ceremonial robes and adorned with multicoloured rosaries—presided over the consecration of Rama’s statue at the under construction temple at Ayodhya, sidelining the four Shankaracharyas and other priests of the Hindu religion on January 23. His party expected that the consecration ceremony would once again create a wave in its favour, fetching it a bigger victory as he coined the slogan of “charsau-paar (over 400 seats)” which his cadres began trumpeting.

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But beneath the surface of the Hindutva cadres’ cacophony over the Ram temple and overtly communal operations, the disquiet on the issues of farmers, unemployment, price rise, disparity and poverty kept growing. The failure of the Modi government to fulfill its much vaunted promise of doubling the farmers’ income and the minimum support price (MSP) on the agricultural products manifested itself in the protracted farmers’ stir that brought the Jat and Muslim farmers together in western Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan.

Traditionally, the Jats and Muslims shared an amicable relationship and largely acted like one during the elections. The 2013 riots had set them apart. But the prolonged farmers’ stir, back-breaking inflation and unprecedented unemployment seem to have brought them together again to fight for the ‘common cause’. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court’s verdict on the electoral bond scheme, preceded by large-scale induction of a slew of tainted politicians from other parties in the BJP and selective use of the investigating agencies against the opposition parties have exposed Modi and his mandarins in the eyes of the electorate.

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The first phase of elections took place in the background of the rebellion from the powerful Rajput caste-men against the Modi and Yogi-led dispensation in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. The Rajput rebellion combined with the disquiet set in among the Jats, Muslims and also Dalits at the receiving end of the saffron dispensation. Modi-Shah’s “vice-like” control over the media further bottled up the discontent at the ground level.

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However, the substantially low turnout of the voters in its strongholds, particularly in western Uttar Pradesh and Bihar appears to have rattled the BJP, particularly the PM, leading his party’s campaign. What seems to have unnerved the BJP more is a “confidential” survey linked to the Axis My India headed by highly rated Pradeep Gupta. The survey is doing the rounds on social media even after Pradeep Gupta has categorically denied any link of the survey to Axis My India, saying that his agency doesn’t do opinion polls; it only does exit polls.

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Prof  Abhay Dubey, a political commentator of repute, while accepting Pradeep Gupta’s denial, has commented on the content of the survey that Bhadas.com , another news outlet has aired on a digital news channel “4PM”, while describing the survey that is also doing the rounds on social media, as "confidential".

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According to the survey, the BJP had in the 2019 poll, registered over 93 percent strike rate in 13 states including Maharashtra, Bihar, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Goa and Karnataka, winning 238 of 257 seats. Curiously, Pradeep Gupta while denying this survey’s link to his Axis My India, did say in an interview to Money-control.com that the BJP has little scope of improving its tally in these 13 states.

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Interestingly, the survey shows that the BJP had a 60 percent strike in Uttar Pradesh, north eastern states and Bengal. If it suffers a loss in the 13 states, the BJP will have to improve its strike rate in Uttar Pradesh and other states to compensate for the loss. The big question  -  will the BJP improve its strike rate in U.P and other such states?

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Observers believe that gripped with the fear of losing the polls in north India, Modi has resorted to twisting Manmohan Singh’s statement to sharpen the Hindu-Muslim divide. Manmohan Singh’s statement that the Congress has given to the Election Commission is as follows: “I believe our collective priorities are clear: agriculture, irrigation, and water resources, health, education, critical investment in rural infrastructure, and essential public investment needs of general infrastructure, along with programs for upliftment of SCs/STs, other backward classes, minorities, and women and children…..”

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Now, Modi quoted Manmohan Singh at a rally in Rajasthan on April 21 to say, “The Congress could distribute the nation’s wealth among the ‘infiltrators, those who have more children and Musalmans’, outraging the grand old party and the people at large. The party has complained to the EC describing Modi’s speech as “blatantly defamatory and false”. Over 2,200 members of the Civil Society too have put their signature on the memorandum to the EC seeking action against Modi for his communal rhetoric.