It is no coincidence that Prime Minister Modi’s road-show should be organised around downtown Shillong where the demography suggests that support for the Party is more palpable. There is no denying that a sizable chunk of non-tribal voters in this city are drawn towards the BJP because they are looking at this Party to provide them the sense of security they believe has evaded them since 1979. A good number of Bengali families had to leave hearth and home and were labelled as aliens in a place where many were born and grew up in. That spectre still haunts them even today. The fact that violence revisits the non-tribals every now and again for one reason or the other and that no political party has been able to assure them of an equal playing field and a fair deal has pushed them to repose their faith in the BJP with its larger than life leader – Narendra Modi who has a hands-on understanding of their situation. It’s a different matter that the BJP leadership in Meghalaya has shown very little concern on the issue of security of the legitimate non-tribal population here.
Modi made the right moves by paying tribute to the Khasi freedom fighters. His road-show was meant to draw crowds and when he spoke he triggered an emotional reaction where the crowd responded to his every question. This is not the Prime Minister speaking. Modi even today is the BJP’s biggest vote-catching and crowd drawing mascot. And the timing of Modi’s arrival at Shillong and Tura on the very last leg of the campaign also means that the BJP has left very little space for the rival parties to counter the BJP’s fiery campaign.
The rally in Tura was equally impressive and there too the BJP’s message resonated with the crowd. This is a different kind of election campaign where the crowd were not just spoken to in a drawl by politicians who don’t trigger any thinking. Modi’s election message is pitched to raise people’s expectations from the Party and to vote for it with the hope that there is a better future to look out for. In fact this election is for the citizens of Meghalaya a tightrope walk between a dystopia about the five year run of the MDA Government and expectation that the next government will prove to be better and more responsive to people’s needs. In Meghalaya today there is a huge urban-rural divide and voting will reflect this divide. Mr Modi has raised people’s hopes. So have the TMC and the Congress. Until March 2, when the last vote is counted it could anybody’s game.