BJP national spokesman Syed Shahnawaz Hussain was confident till the end that the NDA would get two-thirds majority. He talked to Bula Devi about the errors of judgement and the way ahead.
What went wrong in Bihar?
We were still overwhelmed by the crowds at the PM’s rallies. We didn’t realise even after the second phase that the ground was slipping away from us; we weren’t in full grip of the reality that it was not an easy election to win.
The BJP faulted in its poll arithmetic also?
There wasn’t much difference in our vote percentages. Of course, we did not foresee the way the grand alliance was able to transfer their votes to each other. They did tactical planning in the 2014 LS elections in certain constituencies and won; they repeated the same formula in the entire state this time. But we did no course correction even after losing these places in the Lok Sabha elections.
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Strategically too the BJP seemed to be on the backfoot?
Yes, I think so. There were bypolls following the 2014 LS elections which we had thought we would win. But we lost. In the assembly polls we focused our agenda on ‘padai, dawai and kamai’ so that the Biharis don’t have to travel outside Bihar. We did not succeed. When Laloo Yadav said Hindus also eat beef, we immediately reacted. We should not have. Also, Dadri was a law and order problem of the Akhilesh government, but we walked straight into the trap.
And the course correction?
Zero communal tension, no loose statements. When we want to send out a strong message, we should do it in a sober way; A.B. Vajpayee also used to speak strongly, but in a sober way. There is huge propaganda that the BJP doesn’t care about the minorities. We need to convince the people of India that we are friends of the minorities, Dalits and the economically backward classes. Lastly, the PM’s mantra of ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas’ has to be established on the ground.