NEW DELHI: It will be do or die for Rahul Gandhi in 2018, as congress president will be leading election campaigns in three states- Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh.
The big takeaway from the Gujarat result is that although the BJP has won, the Congress lives to fight another day. Having given the Modi–Shah duo the fright of their lives on their home turf and having pared down the BJP’s victory margin to the lowest in 22 years of saffron dominance in the state, the Congress has registered a mini revival of sorts.
After giving the BJP a tough fight in Gujarat, Congress president Rahul Gandhi is going to face rather big challenge next year, to maintain the rhythm within the party and drive similar high-pitch campaigns in BJP-ruled Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.
Though the states reflect a similar bipolar polity as Gujarat, the task is daunting. The new Congress president would have to aim at taking the party to the finishing line this time and form governments in the three states, which together account for 63 Lok Sabha constituencies.
RAJASTHAN: THE STRONG POSIBILITY
Out of three states, Rajasthan presents the Congress with its best scenario. The state has a tendency to alternate between the BJP and the Congress for decades. With a BJP government under Vasundhara Raje involved in a number of controversies – from an ordinance gagging the media to increasing incidents of violence against Dalits – the Congress has sniffed an opportunity in the 2018 elections.
In 2013 assembly elections congress was slipped down to its lowest figure 21 seats and BJP cornered 163 seats in the 200-member Assembly. There was a 12-point difference between the vote share of the two parties with the BJP at 45.17% and the Congress at 33.07%. This gap more than doubled to 26% in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. However, the share fell to 1.5% in the 2015 local body polls with the BJP still ahead.
Within a month of the 2013 assembly election, Gandhi had deputed his confidante Sachin Pilot to resurrect the organisation in the state which has seen a tussle between Congress veterans Ashok Gehlot and CP Joshi. With four years of groundwork behind him, Pilot is showing results. The party swept the local body elections in the state this week.
“I was given charge of Rajasthan at a challenging time. We had just lost the assembly elections and the Congress was reduced to 21 seats. Obviously, the morale of party workers was quite low. I started out from day one by touring every corner of the state and now we have put in intensive network from the booth level upwards in all 33 districts,” says Pilot.
One of the takeaways from the recent elections has been that projecting a chief ministerial face always helps the party. The common refrain in Rajasthan is – only the Congress can defeat itself in the state. The factionalism within the Congress is evident. Former CM Gehlot, who has just delivered a spectacular show for the party in Gujarat, is 66 and would be no pushover. Projecting Pilot for the top job may result in alienations of older leadership.
MP: PROBLEM OF OPULENCE
MP is a tough one for the Congress. With the Congress being out of power for 15 years, it faces a basic problem in the central Indian state — of having no grassroots organisation. The BJP under chief minister Shivraj Chouhan has come out unscathed from scam charges and farmers’ protests.
In 2013, the Congress was reduced to 58 seats as the BJP won 165 seats giving a third term to Chouhan. The Congress also faces a problem of plenty in MP. It has too many claimants for the top job. Party veterans Digvijaya Singh and Kamal Nath, leader of Opposition in Assembly Ajeya Singh and Guna MP Jyotiraditya Scindia – all want the central leadership to project a chief ministerial candidate who would lead the Congress in the 2018 elections.
Kamal Nath said, “The Congress is running out of time in Madhya Pradesh. Congress president Rahul Gandhi is aware of the problem. I’m confident a decision on MP would be taken soon.” “No single person — Kamal Nath, Digvijaya Singh, Jyotiraditya — can bring the Congress back to power. We all have to work together,” he said.
It is no easy choice for Gandhi. If Nath holds the promise of taking everybody along and line up good finances with his contacts in the business world, former CM Digvijaya Singh commands best control over MLAs and workers and Scindia is a youth leader. Choosing one over the other would require skillful handling by Gandhi as it would obviously antagonise another staunch and his loyalists.
CHHATTISGARH: EASY GOING TASK ?
Chhattisgarh presents a challenge of a different kind. If Gandhi is spoilt for choices in MP, in Chhattisgarh, the party does not have a single powerful leader to rally behind. Congress in-charge of Chhattisgarh PL Punia says, “Our top leadership perished in the Naxal attack in 2013, right before the elections. Second rung leaders are now emerging. But our problem now is to keep our flock together.” Senior leaders include ex- minister Charandas Mahant, state unit chief Bhupesh Baghel, Satyanarayan Sharma and Mohammed Akbar.
In the last asesembly election, the Congress missed the bus by a whisker. The difference in the vote share of the Congress and the BJP is just 0.7%. Of the 90 seats, Congress won 39 and BJP 49.
The Congress has started conducting several training programmes for its booth level workers and is working hard on agitations. “Our strategy would be different for each Assembly constituency based on the demographic profile and political history of each segment,” says Punia.
Punia has already identified seats that were lost by a narrow margin of less than 1,000 and how the party needs to work now. “We are working at the grassroots. We have already identified 199 block units and the same number of leaders who won’t fight an election and would be driving agitation programmes in the constituencies at all levels,” says Punia.