As Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Madhya Pradesh and Raman Singh in Chhattisgarh rode back to power on the “development agenda”, BJP president Rajnath Singh, conceding that local issues and not terror had turned out to be the clincher, said that the next Lok Sabha elections too would be decided “primarily on local issues”. But other senior party leaders like former party president M Venkaiah Naidu and general secretary Arun Jaitley said that an anti-terror plank would play a significant role in parliamentary elections.

“Local issues and Assembly-level candidates counted the most in the state elections,” Rajnath Singh told The Indian Express. “Terror and national security are important but not necessarily for elections. We don’t do politics on the issue of terror. The Lok Sabha elections too would be fought primarily on local issues, where terror may have a tad greater role,” he said.

Jaitley, however, felt that terrorism was, and is, a real issue, but “there was a basket of issues” in the state elections. Naidu too agreed that there would be “no let-up in the party’s anti-terror campaign”. L K Advani, the NDA’s PM candidate, has often said that Lok Sabha elections have come to be known as “an aggregate of local elections in recent years”.

While the party’s attempt to find an overarching theme in terror in four states may not have yielded results, the BJP nevertheless took took solace in victories in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh where it beat anti-incumbency. “Our governments in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have come to power on a pro-incumbency wave,” said Jaitley. The party’s loss in Rajasthan was attributed to chief minister Vasundhara Raje’s “disconnect with the organisation” and rebels, but the Delhi loss hit the BJP particularly hard. Rajasthan and Delhi went to elections after the Mumbai terror attack.

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