The BJP appears keen on shielding its mascot, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, from the impact of a possible defeat in Saturday’s Haryana Assembly polls, the party’s first direct tussle with the Congress since the general election.

Indications of an effort to underplay the Modi factor were visible in the handful of rallies — just four — that the Prime Minister addressed in an election to a 90-member House.

Modi has been known to virtually carpet bomb state elections with his rallies, so the deviation from the norm in Haryana is being construed in party circles as a conscious decision to put the onus on the local leadership.

Modi had addressed 10 rallies during the 2014 Haryana elections, when the BJP wrested power in the state for the first time, winning 47 seats. The BJP's slogan then was "Haryana me bhi Modi sarkar (A Modi government in Haryana too)".

In 2019, his rallies were scaled down to six — an apparent result of the party's reading that the ground situation was not very favourable. The results bore this out, with the BJP winning 40 seats — 6 less than the majority mark — and being forced to tie up with the 10-MLA local outfit, Jannayak Janta Party, to form the government.

"The party leadership seems to have anticipated a further decline this time, and has therefore lowered the stakes for Modiji," a BJP leader said, adding that the accumulated anti-incumbency of 10 years was palpable on the ground.

Haryana is the first state to go to the polls since the April-June general election whittled the BJP’s Lok Sabha tally down from 303 to 240, denying it majority and leaving its government dependent on allies.

The outcome in Haryana is, therefore, expected not just to be an indicator of the strength of Brand Modi but to influence the upcoming elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand, too.

Realising this, the BJP leadership has sought to play up the importance of the Haryana government’s performance and local factors to the poll results, marking a departure from its usual practice of portraying state elections as a virtual referendum on Modi.

The BJP is fighting this election with its OBC chief minister, Nayab Singh Saini, as its mascot to counter the resurgent Congress's Jat and Dalit-centric strategy. Its slogan of "Phir ek baar, BJP sarkar (Once again, a BJP government)" makes no mention of Modi.

At his rallies in Haryana, the Prime Minister focused on attacking the Congress and urging the voters not to risk their state’s future by bringing about a change of government.

Absent was the "Modi ki Guarantee" pitch that had marked the BJP's campaign not just in the general election but the preceding Assembly polls in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

In contrast, the Congress's campaign in Haryana was, in the final phase, led by an aggressive Rahul Gandhi in his new avatar as the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

Rahul addressed two election rallies on Thursday, the last day of campaigning, but none of the top BJP leaders were seen in the arena.