 Hello and welcome to Newsclick. Today we are going to discuss with the halfway mark having been crossed in the number of polls that have been already held in the seven-phase elections in India. What is it that we are seeing? And of course, the bulk of the, shall we say, the strong BJP base, a large part of it is still yet to vote, which is behind the UP and certain other states. Siba, what is the general sense after this four rounds of polls, as opposed to the total number of seven? Do you think that you are seeing any trend or it's still very difficult to map? Well, you know, there are two things that are happening. One is, of course, what you are getting now is a flood of unsourced assessments on the social media with slugs, like if I am sending it to you, I say it's come from the IB, somebody else says it's a BJP internal assessment, somebody says Congress, and those are going all over the place. So, there's obviously some kind of disinformation that is happening because none are really matching. Some are giving a huge number to the NDA, others are giving nothing. So, you know, but if you go by ground reports, in these four phases, there doesn't seem to have been any kind of a wave. So, it is not a Narendra Modi wave, but it's not an anti-Narendra Modi wave as well. So, you have had real contests. I mean, that's what when the reporters went in, what happens in the last 24 hours, we can't always say, but it is like there is on issues, you know, like in Orangabad, people said that they're only going to vote for drinking water. You know, the farmers issues and the farmers belt, they are talking about the problems that they've been facing. Now, to what extent that's going to become the final verdict? Because I think we were just discussing that even in demonetization, we thought it would have a major impact. And then when the results came out, at the end of the day, the people didn't seem to have voted for it. Or against it. They're angry about it, but they still gave the vote saying that it must, if it has caused so much problem, must have some benefit, which we'll see in the long run. That seems to be the end of the time. Yeah, and I think the main thing is there's no BJP, it's all Narendra Modi. So, he's already converted it into a presidential form of government, but the party is somewhere in the bag. He could have, I mean, the whole thing is they've dropped so many of the sitting MPs. They have also got rid of the old guard. So, it's a new BJP, which is subservient and which is behind Narendra Modi. And Narendra Modi is the guy who goes on the stage, he speaks alone. So, it's a vote for Narendra Modi, not for the BJP, not for the local MP. And even the BJP organization has become more and more Amit Shah, in physical terms. Okay, you know, that brings up the next question. These are the two who have also made a huge number of statements, which the opposition have complained about to the election commission. The election commission, now it appears there was at least a division in the election commission, but the election commission has been appears to be supine. For a long time, they did not address it till the Supreme Court said, why aren't we going to hear about this petition. Earlier, Supreme Court said you had powers with the election commission, said we really have no powers, you know, we're just body who's doing nice, but there's really not much we can do. And we are a toothless body, according to the election commission itself. But after having accepted they had powers, after having been wrapped on the knuckles, on vis-a-vis Modi and Amit Shah, they have been significantly soft while on others, at least they have shown some, shall we say, some attempt to take action. I think the casualty, one of the biggest casualty of this 2019 Lok Sabha polls has been the credibility of the election commission. And that is tragic. I mean, in a democracy, regardless of what has happened in the past years, with all the allegations of malfunctioning, boot capturing, EBMs, etc, the election commission has always been seen as a body where you felt that that's a sort of court of justice where the ballot is concerned. That's gone. That seems to have gone. Everybody is so hassled about it. Everybody is so worried about it. You have the election commissioner, the chief election commissioner, the chief election commissioner of India not taking a position on issues, even so motor. It's always, you know, somebody dragging their attention to it, then them spending several days and then coming out with some kind of like a set supine ruling, which is so biased. And now we don't know you're actually writing a new code of ethics, you know, where you can say so many things. And you can use military issues or you can hint, even if you don't use the word, the actual term of a community, but you can say everything else about that community. And you have the election commission watching and not taking action. You know, of course, this was also the what the courts did, for instance, the famous Malta Krakis, if you remember, that this how much of the electoral rules and what could be considered corrupt practices that that has been stretched for a long time. So we are seeing the culmination of the process under this election commission, which under the presidential election, they are taking place as you are saying right now, the form has become more and more presidential. If you don't control more, the others really don't matter. Yeah, absolutely. And the point is that now you're we're now hearing in the papers that there is been a division, like you said in the election commission, and there is this one person who might have said no. But then what are those arguments? What is the division about? Also brings up later on, not today, but the later on, how should the election commission itself be inducted in? Because I like the judiciary, which is the body, which has some rules, shall we say, procedure, a collegium of people who decide. Then you have the CBC, the Lok, Lokpal, all of them have now procedures. Here there is really the government selection. That's all that is there. Yes. And that allows for this. Such an important body. I mean, you know, now people are writing reports of blogs or Facebook posts or social media posts suggesting that the election commission is in collusion with whatever. But that's not a good thing to happen. And it's not, it destroys your fundamental faith. I mean, we had one thing, which was the five-yearly, or even our state elections, where there was this something, a credibility which the world came to observe. And also the Indian electorate and the Indian people have both asserted their identity through the elections. They have always given verdicts, which you could respect, even if you didn't agree. But that process, whether the verdict is real and just, itself comes into question. This would be very sad day for democracy. But getting out of that mode, because that's really something we have to take up also after the elections. Looking at the election mapping itself, as we were talking about earlier, what are the state, the two states, which is what could be called the Hindi heartland, UP and Bihar. Put together, they have very, say, 120 seats in the parliament, which is, in that sense, the largest number of seats, which has gone to BJP and forms a core problem with Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Kharkhand and Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan. These are the states, which really have contributed to almost 90% of the BJP seats. In this Bihar, how do you see Bihar? See, this is what is so interesting. You have UP, Gadbandhan, and you have a Bihar, Gadbandhan or the opposition. You have, unexpectedly maybe, the UP, Gadbandhan doing very well, because it sort of works out, the stats work out, the fact that the two have established a certain very harmonious kind of functioning, Akilesh Yadav and Mayawati, and of course, Ajit Singh as well, and a certain kind of chemistry that has developed between the three leaders. So, that's very evident. And just sheer stats brings it together. So, a combination of stats, numbers, which matter of course, and also the organizations. Both seem to have organizations on the ground, and Ajit Singh's party. They have solid organizations on the ground. They have a good leadership. They have a credible leadership. Mulan Singh moved and, you know, earlier it was whether Akilesh Yadav is going to be acceptable or not. He's totally in charge of the Samajwadi thing. He's kept his father also alongside. So, you know, it's a far holistic, you know, whole Samajwadi that is contesting the election this time as compared to last time. Mulan is a discordant note still, but a much less important one. Much less, except for that one statement, now he sort of was there with Mayawati. You know, he had a public meeting with Mayawati, which is in itself a major indication of how things are going. So, there it seems to be working for them. And last time the BJP got 72 seats. So, there's no way, even by sheer numbers of just plain stats, it's not going to get that. It's coming down. The problem is a little bit with the Garpandan in Bihar, though they've got Manji this time and they've got the this Kushwaha also there. Small outfits. I think the absence of Lalu Yadav is being felt. As you said, as you also said, there is also the arithmetic which is not as favorable as the arithmetic in UP was. That the Garpandan put together does not have the number of votes. The Garpandan put together has a UP. It's interesting. Last election in UP, you had the impact to Musafanagar and communalization actually impacting on the voter. Now it seems that because UP sort of became the laboratory with Yogi Adityanath of communalism in which the marginalized were all feeling the pressure, suddenly the caste identity of the people and the communities has become more important and people seem to be voting more on caste lines. Even in Bihar. No, this is UP. UP, but it comes to Bihar. Now if you go back to Bihar, in the last election, you had the caste playing a role and keeping the vote non-communal, but this time we are not really sure how it's worked out. If we look at what the ground reports seem to be, the communalization has gone deeper in Bihar this time. Yes, and without the encounter deaths, without that level of lynching, so they have started and why the communalization I feel is more is because now Nitish Kumar is slipping and whatever reports we are hearing, it could be wrong, but these are not totally verified, but the ground reports from journalists that the BJP is increasing at the expense of Nitish Kumar. You know that was also the other part of Bihar and that's distinct from UP, where the left, then that includes the socialists, the CPI, the liberation, the CPIM, all of it put together, had a much bigger presence in Bihar for longer than it had at UP. UP did have that presence in the 50s, 60s, but it had really slipped down quite a bit and the socialists that went to identity politics of certain kinds, the other and so on. But in Bihar, that was shall we say a block to communalization. This time it does appear that Bihar has been more communalized and partly Nitish, as you said, losing ground because Nitish was seen as a figure who also had support amongst all communities and that's because socialists slipped. So now we are looking really, there is a slide anyway, the BJP is not going to and you know they're not going to get the same kind of seats in the end. Oh yes, Nitish and BJP put together was about 37 seats. But whether the drop is going to be as much as expected earlier, well it's not sure. RJD is claiming it will be, but you know we'll have to wait for the ground. And what you said the Lalu not being there, Tejaswi and others have do not have the courage to have it. He doesn't have it, he's just about held the party together, he's a good guy, he's not such a you know novice as some might say, but at the same time without that whole flair and that authority and the campaigning style, if you're not hearing that from Bihar anymore, we heard that last election coming from Lalu. And we thought that Lalu being put in jail, there would also be a sympathy factor, we have to see how much that plays out. Yeah I think the Yadav vote is still where it is, it's still with RJD, it hasn't really shifted but Lalu had the impact of further consolidating not just the backwards but I mean the others were the other backwards as well. So now we'll have to see how it has worked out. And do you think Kanhaiya and Begusarai is going to make a difference? Make a difference, he should win, I mean he should win. He should win because I think he's got a lot of things going, I mean apart from the, we all know what the national campaign is and what kind of good politics he represents and the fact that he is you know in his election is really embodies the resistance to communalism, to authoritarianism, to the kind of politics we have been experiencing over the last five years. Having said that it's a real fight you know because that kind of charisma is there in Delhi and with others but it wasn't there in Begusarai. So he had to fight a hard fight but every week the campaign went up and picked up and you know it reached new levels every week because he got the support he needed. He got the right kind of people who needed to go and speak to the Muslim community which is a big vote bank there. He got the right kind of support for the Dalits in the Paswan vote where Jignesh and others helped and the Bhoomiya has a certain left presence in that vote and he himself his CPI has that presence. So I mean the later reports were that he should be winning. And also he seemed to have cut across caste community lines for the youth. Because his campaign you know for the youth. Yes. The youth seemed to have identified themselves with him much more. And no and what was very good is that he never brought the campaign down from the issues that really matter. He never became you know somebody who is pandering to some local hate or divisiveness or you know an appealing to communities. He kept the issues hard. He didn't let the campaign drift. And his hold on the campaign right from day one till the end was very very visible. And I would give him directly the credit because you know in an election it is the candidate who really determines how he wants to fight that election. And he knew how to fight it. So that's a positive sign that where CPI was third earlier that he has represented at least a significant fight and possibly winning that seat. So and if that happens it would probably also be the change of some kind in Bihar politics because he would have a national but also also pan Bihar presence. Absolutely. It will change a lot of things apart from your next look Sabha. It will change. It will be sort of an example and a demonstration of the counter narrative and how it can work and how it should work. And a very articulate counter narrative. Yes. Coming back to other areas Bhopal. You know a lot of people are seeing the Bhopal Pragya Singh Thakur in some sense as a kind of aberration of the BJP. Okay they shouldn't have done that. But what they are not representing that with Yogi Adityanath earlier in Pragya Singh Thakur. These are actually statements BJP is making. What is the direction they want to go. And this is not just putting up a candidate who is in the docks for terror charges. It's essentially signal to both communities the Hindu and the Muslim community. What's the way to go. It's the apologists for the BJP sitting in Delhi who are saying this you know who are making this argument. Because they don't know otherwise how to sit in those liberal chairs and actually say they're supporting the BJP because when they say they're supporting the BJP somebody comes up with but what about Pragya Thakur. And then they say well you know that's an aberration they need it. You know this kind of an argument. But the BJP leadership is not saying that. No. Modi is stood by her. Shah is stood by her. They have made it very clear that this is what their politics is. They have made it very clear through her to everybody that there is this thing of impunity which works for all the people who want to violate the law if they have to violate the law whether it be a terror accused or a lynching accused. As long as you support the BJP everything is good for you. Also a larger message that Hindu violence is not terrorism. If a Hindu does it it's somehow sanctified. I think that's been to be fair to Modi. He's always said that. He's made that. I mean when in the last election when he gave that call from Assam that only the you know migration that everybody who's non-Muslim is welcome is basically the same argument. You can also see it on this. So the Hindus cannot be violent argument now which is going on. Now of course we forget about communal rights and forget about various other things. If we take the population of jails of course it's quite secular shall we say whole communities are there and we've had also representation of all castes in jail and they're there for violent crime. So to say that crime violence is all Hindus are somehow not a part of that is flagging the face of reality. It's like the white thing. I mean if a white guy goes and picks up a gun and terrorizes an entire school and shoots dead about 50 people he's a little poor fellow. He's got a bad background. He had an abusive father. He's slightly mental. But if the same one soul Muslim does it he's a terrorist. So it's the same argument that's coming down here and playing itself out because this is a climate that was created by the right wing across the globe and it's an argument that is feeds into certain ideologies like the one we are seeing now. And interestingly enough when they say they can't, Hindus cannot be a terrorist. Well Godse was a Hindu and are they also arguing that was not a terrorist violence you know. Which is what came from Bhagat Gandhi. I mean there are a lot of people who worship Godse and they think that he's a good guy. But they won't say it in public. They will say it in public. The BGP will not. That's the difference. There's always that voice who will say it and then somebody will admonish that voice. So this election is also still a watermark in terms of the kind of campaigning, kind of messaging we are hearing and this is not just about both the winning or not winning the elections. The poison or the toxic nature of this campaign is going to also something we have to contest whichever way the election goes. See in 2014 you had the BJP in Modi contesting the election and development on Swaj Bharat and make in India in all those kind of slogans which had to do with a certain kind of development package and people came on that. Last five years and this election they're contesting on Communalism and the isolation of communities very clearly. I mean they're not even national security, the whole national security paradigm is connected with the local politics as well. If they get the mandate this time then the mandate is for this and this is much easier and very much part of the ideology to then pursue to its full help. You don't even have to pretend then for development because you didn't ask for the vote on development. You asked the vote for the invocative slogan which is which happened also which is not just Pakistan. Obviously they have the army. So that's the that's really the slogan and again of course whichever way it goes in other five years of struggles for you and me okay. Thank you very much Sivaat for being with us and we hope the voice of independent media which we discussed also last time will continue to play its part because I think we are very much a part of the new mix that's being generated. This is all the time we have with NewsClick today. Do keep watching NewsClick and visit our website.