Narendra Modi’s critics say that the prime minister keeps blowing his own trumpet. The visual evidence shows he prefers the drum.

On Saturday, while the voting was on for the Haryana state Assembly, Modi was beating a drum in Maharashtra, around 1,251 km from the national capital.

“In Washim, tried my hand at the Nangara, which has a very special place in the great Banjara culture. Our Government will make every possible effort to make this culture even more popular in the times to come,” Modi wrote on his ‘X’ handle around 1.54pm.

Last month, Modi beat the dhol during his visit to Singapore. In November 2021, before his departure from Glasgow, Scotland, Modi played the drum with the Indian diaspora. A year later, Modi’s venue shifted to Indonesia’s Bali where he attended a G20 summit and again played a drum.

The airwaves would have ensured that Modi’s drumbeats travelled from Washim to the towns and villages in Haryana, which 10 years ago was among the first states where the BJP came to power on its own, after Modi became Prime Minister.

Since last summer’s Lok Sabha polls, Haryana has started turning away from the BJP. Of the 10 Lok Sabha seats, the ruling BJP and the INDI alliance (Congress and AAP) both had an equal share of the seats at five each. It was a blow for the saffron party as it had made a clean sweep in the state in the two previous general elections under Modi’s baton.

This time, the challenge is much, much stiffer for Modi and incumbent chief minister Nayab Saini.

Protests by the farmers in the second term of the Narendra Modi government, the firing on protesting Sikh farmers by Haryana police that led to the death of a young man, Shubhkaran Singh, earlier this year, the images of female wrestlers squatting on the streets of Delhi, keeping down their medals, the tussle with police, the abuses hurled at the country’s athletes by the likes of actor-turned-BJP MP Kangana Ranaut are all weighing down on the mind of the BJP, however loud Modi might be beating the drum in Maharashtra, another state which should have gone to the polls by now but hasn’t yet.

Though the BJP had managed a clean sweep of Haryana in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, when the Assembly polls took place later the same year, the party fell short of the majority mark with just 40 seats and cobbled an alliance with the Dushyant Chautala-led Jannayak Janata Party (JJP), till the two had a falling out ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Over the years Haryana has been slipping out of the BJP’s hand. To what extent, could be gauged from the Lok Sabha polls outcome.

The disgruntlement among the farmers unhappy with the Centre’s not implementing the Swaminathan committee report fixing minimum support price had reached to such an extent that villages after villages had put up banners and posters proclaiming no BJP leader was allowed to enter the villages.

Among the BJP nominees in the fray for the Lok Sabha who had to face hostile villagers and flee was Ashok Tanwar, a former Haryana Congress head and Dalit leader. Tanwar returned to the Congress less than 48 hours before the state went to polls, after addressing a BJP rally at 2 pm. Just 55 minutes later, he shared the dais with Rahul Gandhi.

Tanwar’s differences with the upper caste and powerful Hooda family had forced his departure five years ago around the same time when he had made his return. The acrimony between the two factions had reached to such a stage that the followers of Hooda tied the pink turban, while those supporting Tanwar sported red ones.

While the Congress has indeed gained ground in the state, the run-up to the poll has not been easy. The Congress high command had to step in and bring about a truce between the former state unit president and MP Kumari Selja and former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

Congress candidate Vinesh Phogat during her election campaign ahead of the Haryana Assembly election at Devardh village of Hisar district on October 3, 2024. PTI

To cash in on the rage over the BJP’s clean chit to its strongman Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh over his alleged predatory sexual behaviour towards the female wrestlers of the country, the Congress has fielded Olympian and rookie politician Vinesh Phogat, who has had a taste of street protests, from the Assembly seat of Julana.

“People of Haryana have huge expectations from the Congress. Everyone should come and cast their votes,” Phogat said on emerging from the polling booth at Charkhi Dadri’s Balali.

“I appeal to the people of Haryana to come out of their homes and recognise their power,” she added.

Double Olympic medal winner Manu Bhaker became a first-time voter on Saturday at another booth in Charkhi Dadri district.

“Being the youth of this country, it is our responsibility to cast our vote for the most favourable candidate. Small steps lead to big goals,” she told mediapersons.

In the run-up to the Haryana Assembly elections Modi had addressed four rallies, each focusing on alleged corruption and parivaarvaad (dynasty politics), while the Gandhi family scion spoke on the problems faced by the farmers, the high unemployment and the lack of actual development under the “double engine” Modi-Manohar Lal Khattar and later Modi-Saini governments.

Did the beats of the nangara that Modi played on Saturday manage to ride over the shrill cries of the farmers and the wrestlers, those squatting at the Shambhu border between Punjab and Haryana which has been sealed for almost seven months now?