The Pan-Indian ‘Panchayat’

The upcoming Assembly polls are more of a test for the Congress than the BJP. And the Opposition has failed its first test.
The Pan-Indian ‘Panchayat’

By December 11, an architect’s draft outline of May 2019 is expected to emerge. The results of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, the three heartland states, plus Telangana for the mood south of the Vindhyas and Mizoram in the Northeast will be known.

The Congress and the BJP are in a straight fight in the heartland; the former has a rare state where it comes in as the ruling side in Mizoram; and it has forged an unusual alliance with the TDP and the CPI to try and wrench Telangana from a well-entrenched TRS. In short, it’s a high-stakes election schedule for the Grand Old Party, perhaps more so than for the BJP, the defending side in three heartland states.

These elections have been on everyone’s watchlist for two reasons: one, to see whether the GOP could carry forward the mahagathbandan theme; and two, to test whether it still has enough fire in its belly to win elections. The first has proved to be a spectacular dud. The Congress failed to stitch up an alliance with Mayawati’s BSP to ensure a consolidation of Dalit voters, who are seemingly upset with the BJP, particularly in Chhattisgarh and northern Madhya Pradesh. The second, though it was partly reliant on the first coming through, is still an open question.

Teaming up with the BSP would have made a difference in about 22 seats in the Bundelkhand areas adjoining Uttar Pradesh. In case the alliance had fructified, these seats would have gone to the BSP. But would the Congress, with its support base of dominant castes, OBCs and minorities, have been able to transfer votes to Mayawati’s party? A clue, perhaps, lies in the fact that it’s the local unit of the Congress that vetoed the alliance, for which Mayawati did hold talks with Sonia Gandhi.

The gathbandan, maha or not, therefore may have looked good on paper, but was a non-starter on the ground from the beginning.

The fact that she chose to blame Digvijaya Singh (incidentally, as the ruling satrap, he was instrumental in giving Kanshi Ram the first safe seat for the BSP to contest in MP) —and not the Gandhis—shows she has kept a window open for a possible tie-up in 2019, but on her terms. Much of the later story would depend on how the Congress fares in the coming Assembly polls. The regional parties, the BSP for certain, would try to restrict the GOP’s future bargaining power and the Assembly chessboard has been set to ensure that.

Another state where Mayawati could make a tangible negative difference for the Congress, and may have already damaged its prospects by helping to splinter the anti-incumbency vote, is Raman Singh’s Chhattisgarh. The BJP is far safer with the BSP aligning with renegade Ajit Jogi, leaving the Congress to fight a lone battle.

The voteshare difference between the two national parties was minuscule in the last Assembly polls and the BSP’s voteshare has been consistently dwindling. But the fact remains that, even while factoring in all the infighting, Jogi was still with the Congress last time, and a seat-by-seat analysis shows the votes polled by the Congress and BSP candidates together were more than that of the BJP. The aggregated opinion poll showing a favourable result for the Congress in Chhattisgarh, therefore, needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. Raman Singh’s battle against a visible anti-incumbency mood may have just become a bit easier. Besides, the state’s demography has altered in a way that the political centrality of the tribals and their relations with the old non-tribal population is a thing of the past. And Mayawati, by insisting on a three-state alliance with the Congress, may have overplayed her hand.

In Rajasthan, the third state, the Congress would have to try very hard to lose the elections. The little help the Election Commission lent by postponing the announcement of poll dates by an hour, whereby the Vasundhara Raje government could promise free electricity to farmers, does not seem to have dimmed crowd enthusiasm around Congress roadshows. Besides, Rajasthan usually swings between the two national parties.

BJP chief Amit Shah’s formidable two-pronged assault strategy—booth-level micro-management, enhanced by massive use of social media messaging to reach the people, the youth in particular—may come up against a formidable counter from the Congress. This is one state where Rahul Gandhi made the right move of sending Sachin Pilot to set up base camp in Jaipur way back in 2014, a good leeway which Pilot used to the hilt to keep the Raje regime on its backfoot. Still the uncertainty over who the CM face is (Pilot or Ashok Gehlot?) and the X-factor posed by the prime minister’s campaign could prove an issue.

In Telangana, the ruling TRS’s gamble to advance the Assembly elections may go in its favour. KCR seems to be sitting comfily in his chair with the Congress waking up to the game rather late in the day. Getting Jaipal Reddy to address the national media at this late stage may not accrue votes in Telangana. CPI general secretary Sudhakar Reddy, however, thinks otherwise. Whether the Congress can put its house in order and the alliance its act together would be somewhat known from the candidate announcement itself.

In all these, Mizoram does get relegated to the background. But make no mistake, it’s a survival battle for the GOP there as well. Once its taken-for-granted bastion, the Northeast has already been breached. Much more than the BJP, the Congress desperately needs to retain its little foothold or face the prospect of being relegated to a cipher.

The result of the coming battle may have tangible and intangible effects on the psyche of the Congress party. As for the BJP, a stray loss will not impact its prime mascot Narendra Modi’s image or vote-pull too much, as long as it’s not a washout. Against the Man Who’s Not There, he perhaps continues to have a lead for 2019. As of now.

Santwana Bhattacharya

Political Editor, The New Indian Express

Email: santwana@newindianexpress.com

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