Of pacts & poll wins: How Modi’s tryst with region shaped his graph
It was with his appointment as BJP in-charge for Chandigarh, Haryana, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh in the mid-1990s that Narendra Modi’s association with this region began. His arrival on the scene was marked by several firsts for the then struggling BJP which clocked quick poll wins under its in-charge’s stewardship. Old timers recall how Modi’s maiden experiment of fielding professionals — including former Indian Air Force officer RS Bedi — helped the BJP win the first-ever election to the Municipal Corporation of Chandigarh in 1996 — a year after the MC was formed in 1995.
At that time, Modi used to live in Panchkula’s Sector 7 house of Mahavir Prasad , the then BJP Chandigarh general secretary. Modi was also instrumental in getting a plot allotted for Kamlam, BJP’s now sprawling Chandigarh headquarters in Sector 33. A senior BJP leader told The Tribune: “When Modiji was in Chandigarh, he was struck by the fact that while the communists had a local office and the BJP did not. He made the establishment of Kamlam a priority.”
Former Chandigarh BJP chief Sanjay Tandon recalled how at that time, Modi asked him what his contribution to the party was. “I told him that I was a practising chartered accountant and during elections, I sometimes took leave to do party work. It was Modiji who insisted that educated people like me should enter active politics.” After steering the BJP to a win in Chandigarh MC poll, Modi stitched a winning alliance with Bansi Lal’s Haryana Vikas Party for the 1996 poll which the coalition swept, trumping both Bhajan Lal and Devi Lal. The most successful alliance the BJP stitched was in Punjab with the Shiromani Akali Dal.
The now scrapped SAD-BJP combine was formed on the eve of February 1997 Punjab elections which it swept. The Akali Dal alone won 75 seats, the highest-ever in the state and two more than its previous high of 73 in the September 1985 Assembly polls held against the backdrop of the Rajiv-Longowal Accord of July 24, 1985. The BJP won 18 seats in Punjab, twice the highest-ever tally of its erstwhile incarnation, the BJS, in 1967. During the February 1998 LS elections, the SAD-BJP combine won all 11 seats they contested. In Jalandhar, the alliance facilitated the win of IK Gujral and in Phillaur it ensured the victory of Satnam Singh Kainth of the newly formed BSP. The Congress was decimated in the 1997 Assembly elections, winning just 14 seats — lower than its previous low of 17 in the 1977 election.
Modi’s strategy again paid off in the 1998 Himachal Assembly elections, which threw up a hung house, with the BJP and Congress both winning 31 seats each. The BJP, however managed to form the first-ever coalition government in the hill state by allying with Sukh Ram’s Himachal Vikas Congress. BJP’s PK Dhumal took oath as CM.
Soon after his highly successful stint in the region, Modi was sent to Gujarat in 2001 where he replaced veteran leader Keshubhai Patel as the CM. The rest is history.
