Amit Shah and a newspaper

Shah has acquired a formidable reputation for election management, based on the lead role he played in winning the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Pic/PTI

Journalists in Delhi had been wondering whether a prominent national newspaper would once again feature an extensive interview of Union Home Minister Amit Shah early November, in conformity with its established norm of doing so before every significant bunch of Assembly elections. They were not disappointed: days before Madhya Pradesh voted last week, Shah popped out from one of the pages of that newspaper, smiling, with his fist in the air, reeling out his predictions for the elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

The interview with Shah opened with the question: "How do you assess BJP's prospects in this round of state polls?" No prizes for guessing Shah's answer, for would any leader of the top two contending parties in any election accept defeat amidst campaigning? Sure enough, Shah said, "I think BJP is on a strong footing in all three states and we will win all three, margins can vary."

During the course of explaining why he thought the BJP would win, Shah said he found anti-incumbency operating against the Congress in all the three states. Even in Madhya Pradesh, where the Congress is not the ruling party! This esoteric theory about voter behaviour, never heard before, should stump even erudite political scientists.

Shah, nevertheless, explained, "People vividly recall the misrule, corruption and non-governance that defined the 1.5 years Congress was in office after 2018." Thereafter, the BJP toppled the Congress government, grabbed power, and turned Madhya Pradesh into a veritable paradise, or so Shah would have the newspaper's readers believe.

Shah's poll prediction is an example of partisanship for which he cannot be blamed. Any other politician in his place would have exploited the opportunity of an interview to boost his or her party's prospects. This is one reason why on-the-record conversations with politicians are terribly boring to read. They are rarely honest, or glow with wisdom. Even the prominent newspaper seemingly cannot be faulted for interviewing Shah on his poll prediction. Shah is not a nobody; home ministers, after all, do not grant interviews to the media every other day.

But herein lies the rub: the interview of Shah on the BJP's prospects in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan was not a rare one for the newspaper. Each cycle of state Assembly elections, in the last two years at least, has had the newspaper publish a lengthy interview with Shah. In each of these interviews, Shah predicted a BJP victory. He got as many rights as wrongs.

In May 2023, eight days before Karnataka voted, Shah said to this prominent national newspaper, "I can vouch that BJP will get 15 seats more than the halfway mark of 113. You can put it against my name." The Congress clobbered the BJP and formed the government there.

Five months earlier, in November 2022, the same newspaper had spoken at length to Shah on the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections. The interview began with the question, as if it was being posed to a psephologist in a TV show: "What's your assessment of the Gujarat elections?"

Shah predicted the BJP would "come to office once again with a thumping majority". The BJP did indeed record a stupendous victory in Gujarat, winning 156 out of the 182 Assembly seats. In the same interview, Shah was also asked: "What is your assessment of Himachal Pradesh?" What could he have said other than this: "We are coming to office with a thumping majority". The Congress formed the government there.

In February 2022, five states were going to the polls in different phases. It was time for Shah to return to the pages of this newspaper. He predicted a sweep for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh; he was proved right.

He was bang on about the BJP forming the governments in Uttarakhand and Goa. Nobody then remembered that Shah, in a 2021 interview to the same paper, had said the BJP would bag over 200 seats in West Bengal. It won only 77 seats. He also said the National Democratic Alliance would form the government in Tamil Nadu; it didn't.

Shah has acquired a formidable reputation for election management, based on the lead role he played in winning the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. It is possible he can figure out in advance whether his party is on a weak wicket in an election. But this he cannot admit in a media interview, for it would shatter the morale of his party workers and turn a defeat into a rout. That is why, in all his interviews to the prominent national newspaper, he predicted, without any exception, a thumping or comfortable victory for the BJP.

It is, therefore, inane for the prominent newspaper to interview Shah before every election, knowing very well he cannot but predict a BJP victory. It suits Shah fine, for it helps create a perception among voters that the BJP is ahead in the electoral race. A segment of voters, psephologists say, vote for the party popularly perceived to be the likely winner. But what puzzles is why the journalists who interview Shah for the newspaper should be willing to play his game.

The writer is a senior journalist.
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