A Bitter Defeat For The Congress Party

Two weeks into the Madhya Pradesh campaign for the Assembly elections we heard that Congress chief Kamal Nath was relying almost entirely on a soft-Hindutva campaign to bring him and the party to power. At that moment itself many of us with experience covering elections for decades knew that he had lost the battle. As it is precisely this failure of the Congress party to put forth a new progressive narrative that has seen it lose ground dramatically in the north of India over the years, and literally hand over the baton to the BJP that is seen as the more genuine entity on this front.

The Congress party led itself to believe that it would be winning all the four major states going to the polls.( Mizoram is another story to be discussed later in these columns). But it started going wrong rather visibly in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh for the Congress party.

Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot is a solid organiser and continues to enjoy goodwill in the state. As such there was no visible anti-incumbency, none of the usual ‘chief minister is corrupt, the government is useless’ rhetoric from the voters. But at the same time there was a desire for change brought about by two main factors.

One, the unpopularity of several Congress legislators who had done little to no work on the ground and ensured that the Chief Minister's schemes did not reach the masses in real terms. A leaf should have been taken out of the BJP book say in Uttar Pradesh where the rations for BPL families is actually reaching the people; or the ladli behna scheme introduced by Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan that succeeded in a big way as it went into every village in the state. With the RSS putting its entire machinery to work.

And that brings us to point number two - organisation. The Congress party has a relatively strong organisation in Rajasthan thanks to Gehlot. But it spent a large part of the campaign weeks in assuring potential rebel Sachin Pilot for his Gujjar vote. Pilot has lost touch with the masses, as per reports from the state, and the BJP has clearly won over the community with TV cameras travelling through the Gujjar dominated constituencies reflecting support for the BJP that has won the state. In Madhya Pradesh the organisation was left to fading Kamal Nath, who is too old and too authoritarian to accept a new path. He was unable, and perhaps even unwilling, to rally the entire party together with the strong factional differences preventing him from extending a comprehensive embrace which was the only way forward. CM Chouhan is also a master organiser, and with the support of the old guard and the RSS, was able to leave the impact of factionalism within the BJP far behind.

The Congress party organisaiton is in shambles in the north. It does not have a visible state leadership in states as important as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and now Madhya Pradesh to be able to contest the 2024 general elections with any degree of equanimity. Rahul Gandhi and his Bharat Jodo Yatra has managed to enthuse the south that has strong regional Opposition leaders; but has not been able to make a substantial dent in what television anchors describe as the ‘Modi magic.’ Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s charisma continues to mesmerise the masses in the borth; and the BJP has the ability to plug issues before these reach breaking point. Such as factionalism. And address hunger and deprivation through schemes such as ladli behna and free rations.

Rahul Gandhi has also announced several schemes, but his governments and the party does not have the will to climb down the ladder to the poor and the marginalised. Caste census thus, became a slogan with the BJP directly addressing the OBCs and the Dalits with freebies and targeted schemes that had more impact than the promise of a better morrow. In fact ever since the Mandal Commission, the BJP moved into the backward castes in UP and started working on their support from the early 1990’s. The Janata Dal that lost the government on its promise to implement the Mandal Commission recommendations was unable to penetrate the deep areas of UP, lacking an organisation and the political will. Needless to say the Congress party at the time did not even make a basic effort. The BJP is reaping the caste harvest of this now.

Chhattisgarh has come as a surprise, as everyone seemed to believe the Congress narrative of an easy victory. Clearly Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel had allowed power to make him complacent, and again the BJP cut into the Congress base diligently and with comparative ease. The rest is semantics. It is the BJP’s organisation and ability to reach the masses that has paid it in good stead. Along with its refusal to take an election for granted where the Congress party is often found faulting.

The Telangana victory has offered some balm for the wounded Congress party. And on the larger scale heightened the growing north-south divide. The party’s message of unity, federalism as is being stressed by Rahul Gandhi currently, has worked to assuage the increasing suspicions of India’s southern states against a dominant north. Besides, the Congress has been able to enthuse the youth in Telangana, as well as Karnataka earlier, by bringing in a mix of young-old leaders who have energised the political space.

I.N.D.I.A too unravelled with the opposition parties fielding candidates in all the states against the BJP, but also against the Congress party. These state elections could have been a platform for seat adjustments; and a joint campaign but neither happened. The reasons are many and can be discussed in another article, but this did not happen and hence gave a lie to the many bold statements made by the I.N.D.I.A leaders after their initial meetings. The Opposition has to somehow realise that the BJP is a formidable foe, that PM Modi still commands huge support, that the BJP organization is buttressed by the RSS cadres in all the states, and in the final analysis the party comes together regardless of infighting and rivalries within.

And most importantly crowds alone cannot win an election. It is crucial to mop up the votes and only a solid organisation with heavy poll booth presence across the states can do so.

Cover Photograph from the files- Gehlot, Kamal Nath, Baghel with AmarinderSingh who has since left the Congress party.