Narrative Slips: Is SIR The New ‘Samvidhan Khatre Mein Hai’ Moment For The BJP?

Elections are not often won by the depiction of truth and reality. In a country like India, where a vast section of the population relies on the government to meet its basic needs, it becomes easy to tamper with their minds using extrapolations of the problem.

INDI Alliance Twisting the Narrative

Recently, Tejashwi Yadav, Leader of the Opposition in the Bihar Assembly, issued a castigating attack on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) being conducted by the Election Commission of India (ECI).

Addressing a large gathering, he said, “People of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Nitish Ji want to snatch your voting rights from you. If somehow your name does not show up in the voter list, you would not be getting either ration (free food) or pension. That would simply mean that you won’t be a citizen of this country. When you cease to exist as a citizen of the country, your land and other properties will be handed over to capitalists by the BJP. No matter what, make sure that your name is added to the voter list. There is a huge conspiracy going on to remove the names of backwards, extremely backward classes, and Dalits from the voter list.”

By invoking the narrative of helping capitalists at the expense of poor people, he has tapped into pent-up anger and envy cultivated by politicians like his father, Lalu Yadav.

Additionally, linking SIR to the BJP has significant ramifications for the long-term credibility of independent institutions in the minds of average voters.

Sanjay Jha, Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)) Parliamentarian and its National Working President, believes that it is an attempt on Yadav’s part to evade accountability for an anticipated electoral loss in the upcoming Assembly Elections (AE).

However, ignoring the wider implications of such narratives could prove decisive for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). No matter how genuine the cause is, its utility and acceptance ultimately come down to how it is communicated to the crores of individuals participating in it.

At present, the trickle-down effect in political communication is shaped by the advantage of being the first to communicate. The intrinsic merit of a democratic drive can be overshadowed by negative messaging from those who oppose it.

Health workers and other administrative staff involved in the COVID vaccination campaign would attest that their biggest challenge was convincing remote villagers to ignore rumours about infertility and heart attacks.

Similarly, for the ECI's SIR exercise, the challenge is to counter what Yadav has said. Many elderly and educated individuals in Bihar’s villages are now being asked about the possibility of losing land and other benefits after SIR.

During one of his programmes on a local media platform, senior journalist Ajit Dwivedi, reporting from Bihar, stated that poor villagers are receiving the impression that the government will withdraw many free benefits after SIR is completed.

Yadav’s statement makes it clear that he intends to use it to motivate a negative vote, a vote against the BJP-led NDA, rather than inspire a positive vote based on a vision or mandate.

Even before Yadav spoke, left parties had jumped onto the issue in the very first week of SIR and linked it to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Within days of the announcement of SIR, Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation (CPI(ML)) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya vowed to make it a defining issue akin to LS 2024.

Speaking to Press Trust of India (PTI), he described SIR as a surgical strike on common voters and stated that it would be the central issue in Bihar AE 2025. This would be similar in tone and impact to the Samvidhan Khatre Mein Hai campaign in 2024. Notably, he was one of the key figures given prominence during the Indian National Developmental Inclusive (INDI) Alliance protest against SIR in Patna.

"The issue of the Constitution being in danger has now been brought to the fore by the Election Commission. Everyone now understands why the Constitution is so important and why we are saying that the Constitution is in danger today. So, maybe this will enthuse voters," said Bhattacharya.

Among all INDI Alliance members, Bhattacharya’s articulation of his party’s stance and his reference to LS 2024 carry particular relevance.

Left parties in Bihar (and elsewhere) maintain the most loyal and disciplined cadre base. This is their greatest asset in a society that increasingly disregards their traditional rhetoric. During election campaigns, one can easily see cadres aged 40 and above managing the core responsibilities of election work.

This aspect of ground-level messaging, along with support from other corners, poses a real concern for the NDA. The NDA has previously paid a steep price for underestimating the impact of cadre-driven negative communication. NDA strategists failed to act when such a narrative began forming ahead of Lok Sabha elections last year.

Samvidhan Khatre Mein Hai

The Samvidhan Khatre Mein Hai (The Constitution is in danger) narrative went through several iterations before it ultimately reached the masses as a deeply emotional and existential theme.

When the Modi government promoted transparency in welfare delivery through the Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, and Mobile framework, the opposition began to lose its traditional grip on poor Indians as a political constituency.

Very soon, a narrative on intolerance and curbs on free expression was shaped to portray the NDA as anti-democratic and anti-Constitution.

Although incidents such as the lynching of Akhlaq and the reactions they provoked became turning points, translating these into tangible concerns for beneficiaries of government schemes was a challenge.

This explains why a range of policy decisions—such as modifications to land acquisition laws, amendments to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), or changes in educational policies—were framed as attacks on constitutional values. This gradual buildup of anxiety among the public became effective just as labharthi (beneficiary) politics had reached its peak.

For beneficiaries, whose numbers run into hundreds of millions, the schemes had become the new normal. As their standards of living rose, expectations moved from survival to aspirations for societal participation.

In that transition, the Constitution emerged as the single most important instrument for active engagement, particularly for Dalits and Other Backward Classes (OBCs). Even though the Indian National Congress (INC) failed to deliver and the BJP succeeded in governance using the same Constitution, nobody from the BJP-led NDA explained that it all came down to intent.

Instead, the public was informed by the opposition that the Constitution, not the BJP, was the source of the benefits. As a result, even the BJP’s move to provide reservation for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) was painted as an attack on the Constitution.

It is not as if the NDA’s leadership was unaware of these developments. Rahul Gandhi’s display of the Constitution during the Bharat Jodo Yatra was not a random act, but part of a calculated effort to move past his Pappu image. For many grassroots NDA workers, this was the first time they encountered tough questions from the electorate.

Despite this, the top leadership stuck to its strategy of highlighting Gandhi’s and the Congress’s historical failures. This ignored the shift in perception and the groundwork the INC had laid, especially in Uttar Pradesh, where its communication network won the trust of Dalits and backward communities.

At that point, any additional effort by the NDA to consolidate power began to be seen as a point of diminishing returns. A large segment of the population had been led to believe that giving more power to the BJP would erode the gains achieved by their communities.

That is why the slogan Abki Baar 400-paar failed to generate popular enthusiasm beyond party workers. For many Dalits and backwards, it appeared as a threat to their rights and livelihoods.

Lallu Singh, the BJP’s candidate from Ayodhya, made an appeal for 400 seats in order to amend the Constitution, which further harmed the BJP’s position.

His status as one of the BJP’s most ideologically aligned candidates backfired. His remarks were interpreted as a threat to reservation. Thus, according to Axis My India’s survey, the NDA’s loss of six per cent support among Scheduled Castes became a near certainty rather than a statistical anomaly.

What the NDA missed was the need for a strategic approach to messaging. It only realised the erosion of support when its workers began fieldwork during the elections, between the end of March 2024 and the middle of April 2024. Until then, the Samvidhan Khatre Mein Hai narrative was viewed as an urban myth that could be countered through social media alone.

By the time more grounded campaigners were deployed, it was likely too late. Even the campaign highlighting threats to mangalsutra did not produce the intended results.

NDA in Bihar at Graver Risk

The NDA’s position in Bihar is even more precarious than it was nationally during 2024. While the national campaign featured Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a credible OBC face, Bihar does not have that advantage.

Nitish Kumar, the coalition's 'backward' face in Bihar, is increasingly being marginalised due to age. His earlier appeal of zero tolerance for crime and corruption has been diluted so significantly that even the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) now finds itself in a position to challenge the Jungle Raj narrative. Kumar’s declining popularity in surveys reflects this shift.

This jeopardises his support base among Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs) and non-Yadav OBCs. EBCs make up 36 per cent of Bihar’s population, while non-Yadav OBCs account for 13 per cent. A shared characteristic across these communities (and Dalits) is their dependence on government schemes.

Although Kumar’s two decades of leadership have prevented this from becoming a hand-to-mouth situation, few would be willing to risk losing these benefits. The Bihar Caste Survey 2023 indicated that despite such support, most of the population remains on the verge of falling back into poverty. The wounds of deprivation still lie close beneath the surface.

In such circumstances, SIR’s original purpose of ensuring transparency in electoral rolls is vulnerable to being perceived as a mechanism for benefit withdrawal. It is not an exaggeration to foresee a bureaucratic initiative escalating into a political crisis.

Politically, this opens the door to an Agda vs Pichda (forward vs backward) narrative, much like the one Lalu Yadav leveraged to garner support in the 1990s. Bihar’s complex social structure allows for such mobilisation, especially if Nitish Kumar ceases to be a decisive force.

Fear-mongering serves this agenda effectively. It cultivates a sense of deep anxiety that the INDI Alliance can easily exploit. The anxiety is not about the SIR initiative itself, but about its potential ripple effects.

Even while the ECI conducts the process with complete integrity, narratives around it are generating negative sentiments for parties aligned with it. Ground-level communication must become a priority, not just during elections but well before voting begins.