Japan K Pathak, Gandhinagar: The optics for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Gujarat’s local body elections have turned somewhat complicated than triumphant in the aftermath of the nomination withdrawal deadline.

On paper, the party has reason to celebrate. State BJP chief Jagdish Vishwakarma has highlighted that around 700 party candidates have been elected unopposed nearly three times the figure recorded in the previous cycle. Such numbers typically signal organisational strength and electoral dominance.

Yet, beyond the headline figures, a parallel narrative has taken shape. Allegations circulating widely across social media as well as sections of print and television media suggest that opposition candidates were managed for withdrawing nominations through a mix of inducement and coercion, often described in political parlance as ‘saam, daam, dand, bhed’. Opposition parties have pointed to multiple instances to back these claims, framing the outcome not as organic dominance but as managed consensus.

This duality statistical success versus perceptual discomfort lies at the heart of the current moment. There is a growing sentiment, even among some neutral observers, that the BJP’s electoral strength in Gujarat is sufficiently entrenched that such a large-scale push for unopposed victories may have been unnecessary. Instead of reinforcing inevitability, the scale risks conveying excess.

The contrast with previous elections is instructive. A rise from roughly 260 unopposed seats five years ago to 700 now is not merely incremental-it is exponential. While unopposed victories have historically been used to project momentum and control, their over-concentration can alter perception. What might once have been read as organisational efficiency is now, in some quarters, being interpreted as political overreach.

Perception, in politics, is rarely linear. Dominance, when pushed beyond a threshold, can begin to resemble hegemony. And hegemony, particularly in a competitive democracy, often generates a countercurrent of sympathy for the underdog. In this case, the opposition, despite its organisational weaknesses finds itself positioned as a victim of circumstance.

There are precedents that continue to inform such readings. During the high-stakes Rajya Sabha contest in Gujarat in 2017, the intense political manoeuvring for BJP’s victory attracted huge public attention. The perception that extraordinary methods were deployed had, at the time, fed into a broader narrative that complicated the BJP’s otherwise strong electoral machinery in the subsequent Assembly elections.

The present situation is not identical, but it echoes a familiar lesson: scale matters, but so does restraint. Electoral politics is as much about image as it is about arithmetic. A party that governs “from gali to Delhi” carries an additional burden—to appear not just powerful, but also measured and fair.

In that sense, the BJP’s current achievement may be numerically impressive, yet politically ambivalent. If the objective was to project invincibility, it has partly succeeded. But if the goal was to reinforce legitimacy and broad-based acceptance, the perception of excess may have complicated that effort.

In politics, as elsewhere, outcomes are often judged not only by what is achieved, but by how it is achieved and whether it appears proportionate to the need. The organisational weakness and limited acceptability of opposition parties continue to work to the advantage of the Bharatiya Janata Party. However, the perception around the ruling party appears to have somewhat soured amid what is being seen as an overemphasis on securing unopposed victories.

It needs to be added here finally that electoral behaviour is not shaped by present optics alone. Many voters, continue to recall the instances of booth capturing and election-related violence associated with the rule of opposition parties in the last century. At the same time, limited access to information and varying levels of political awareness mean that many may not be fully informed about contemporary allegations of unfair practices in states governed by opposition parties. DeshGujarat