PM Narendra Modi is most dominant political leader in country, his appeal is pan-Indian: Congress leader Chidambaram

Delhi: A day after 'Modi wave' hepled BJP storm to power in Uttar Pradesh after 14 years, securing three-fourths majority in a keenly-contested Assembly polls, Congress leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the most dominant political leader in the country at present.

He also said that the scale of the BJP’s victory in UP and Uttarakhand was unprecedented and mind-boggling. 

Writing a column in The Indian Express he made the following observations -

"There is no doubt whatsoever that the victories in UP and Uttarakhand have re-confirmed that Mr Narendra Modi is the most dominant political leader in the country today. The scale of the BJP’s victory in these two states is unprecedented and mind-boggling. No one had been prepared for this -  until the exit polls put out these numbers. I have to admit that, this time, the pollsters got it right and the election experts (including Mr Prashant Kishor’s team) got it wrong, reversing the Bihar experience."

He further wrote, among other things, "The man of the moment is Mr Narendra Modi. He has convincingly demonstrated that his appeal is pan-Indian. It extends from Gujarat and Goa to Assam and Manipur. After slipping badly in Bihar, he has regained his prime position as a master of communication. The text of his message in 2014 was development, in 2017, he has cleverly altered the text to development+ and the debate has to now focus on that elusive and indefinable element that he has added to the text of his message. The sab in ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas’ has been subtly altered to include certain sections of the people and exclude others."

"...I must also acknowledge that Mr Narendra Modi, after nearly three years as Prime Minister, remains an indefatigable campaigner. He is, at his core, a pracharak and he loves prachar. He set aside convention and conventional wisdom to campaign for three full days in his constituency, Varanasi. Since he has delivered an unparalleled result, I suppose no one is complaining."

Showing astonishing performance, the BJP got 312 seats in the 403-member UP Assembly. Its allies Apna Dal(S) and SBSP bagged nine seats and four seats, respectively, taking the total tally of the combine to 325.

On the other hand, the SP won 47 seats while its ally the Congress got 7 seats. The BSP won just 19 seats, finishing a dismal third.

Significantly, the Congress lost all the four assembly seats in Amethi district, the pocket borough of Nehru-Gandhi family, with BJP bagging three of them.

The BJP-led alliance swept all the eight assembly segments falling under PM Modi's Lok Sabha constituency Varanasi.

On the other hand, BJP also scored a massive victory in Uttarakhand winning 56 of the 70 seats in the state to storm to power, reducing Congress to minuscule minority in the state Assembly with a poor tally of 11 seats.

It is for the first time in the 16-year history of Uttarakhand that a party has emerged with an impressive tally like this.

(With PTI inputs)