India: Hindu nationalist party wins election
The ruling party won a sweeping victory today in state elections in western India – a landslide that could boost Hindu supremacists in national politics and challenge the nation’s secular traditions.
With 125 seats, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party retained control of two-thirds of the 182-seat legislature in Gujarat.
The return of the Gujarat’s BJP leader Narendra Modi as chief minister came just months after the state suffered India’s worst Hindu-Muslim rioting in a decade. A thousand people were killed, mostly minority Muslims by majority Hindus.
Today’s result triggered only minor outbreaks of violence in two cities.
The opposition Congress party accepted defeat but accused local BJP leaders of exploiting religious differences to garner support among Hindus.
Critics fear that now that this tactic has worked for the BJP in Gujarat, the party might use it in a series of forthcoming ballots across India, including a general election due within two years.
The BJP victory ended a losing streak of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s party in four state elections this year.
It also makes Modi a hero with hard-liners in the BJP as well as Hindu supremacist affiliates of Vajpayee’s national ruling 19-party coalition.
Analysts have said Modi supporters consider him a likely candidate for prime minister.
The BJP repeatedly referred to attacks on Hindus by Muslims throughout the campaign, distorting the fact that nearly all those killed in the rioting were Muslims. Modi attended a rally last week in which local BJP officials said Muslims – who comprise 13% of India’s population – were traitors and should go to Pakistan.
After today’s victory was declared, however, Modi appeared the peacemaker.
“For the sake of God, for the sake of Allah, stop dividing Gujarat,” he said.
Despite this, a leader of a major BJP’s affiliate, the World Hindu Council, said the voting in the troubled western state was a turning point in Indian politics.
“Now politics in India will be based on Hindutva (Hindu-ness),” United News of India quoted Praveen Togadia as saying. His group, which issued virulent anti-Muslim propaganda during the campaign, had said that Gujarat was “a political experiment” to be emulated in other states.
Modi has been criticised for saying that Hindu revenge attacks against Muslims during the rioting this year were understandable. The rioting began in late February after a Muslim mob set fire to a train carriage in the town of Godhra, killing 60 Hindus.
The opposition Congress party won 52 seats, only one less than it had in the previous assembly.
“People have responded to the BJP’s strident Hindu-nationalist campaign,” said Shankersinh Vaghela, head of the Congress party in Gujarat.
BJP supporters began celebrating by setting off firecrackers at party headquarters in the state’s main commercial city Ahmadabad, shouting, ”Long live the BJP.” Police were concerned that victory parades might lead to new clashes.
Violence erupted in two cities. Police said Muslims threw bricks at a BJP victory parade in Baroda, 125 kilometres (80 miles) south-east of Ahmadabad. The two sides fought, four Muslim-owned shops were burned down and police responded with teargas shells and a curfew.
In Ahmadabad, rival mobs threw stones at each other before police dispersed them with teargas.
The two-thirds majority gave the BJP, which has governed Gujarat since 1998, the right to claim solid support for its policies from most Gujaratis and to easily pass finance bills or change state laws.
Many regarded the poll as a challenge to India’s secular constitution and the tradition of religious tolerance preached by independence leader Mohandas Gandhi.
Mahesh Rangarajan, a leading political analyst, said: “The scale of the BJP’s victory ... means that the voices that are for more assertive Hindutva will be more strident in the coming period.”
“For the Congress, it is a period of deep introspection,” he said. “This is the eighth state where they have lost twice in a row.”
The BJP said that it won by giving people more water and roads, although economic development suffered after the riots.
National party leaders said the voters had also responded to the party’s concerns about terrorism. The state borders Pakistan, India’s rival, where the government says Islamic terrorists are supported in their assaults on India. Some BJP leaders in Gujarat, however, said Indian Muslims were disloyal citizens and pro-Pakistan.
About 61.7% of 33.2 million eligible voters cast ballots on Thursday. A BJP candidate died of natural causes just before the voting that district will vote in January.
