The winning template is here to stay

THE winning template is here to stay. The BJP’s package of welfare doles and schemes with an underlay of Hindu asmita (pride) — which delivered Uttar Pradesh to the party in 2022 — worked again in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, and will possibly endure as the formula around which its future battles will revolve. Added to this combination are accusations of turpitude against the incumbent chief ministers of the Opposition; it apparently worked so credibly that the opponent’s timorous attempts to answer back in kind against his BJP peer fell flat.

The losses in the heartland have weakened Congress’ claim to being the only pan-India force capable of taking on the BJP.

What does this prove? In the imagination of the majority, the BJP can do no wrong and the Opposition can do nothing right. That seems to be the principal message flowing from the BJP’s sweep of the Hindi heartland states where votes were counted on Sunday. The outcomes reaffirmed the BJP’s hegemonic hold over this all-too-crucial belt which largely determines political fortunes in the Lok Sabha battle. The only source of solace for the Congress was wresting Telangana from the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), but that’s a regional party and not a monolith like the BJP. The rout in the heartland has weakened the Congress’s claim to being the only pan-India force capable of confronting the BJP. It is no match for the Narendra Modi-led warship.

The Congress competed with the BJP over popular welfare. Programme for programme, promise for promise, it matched its adversary in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. Emboldened by the success of the multiple guarantees enshrined in its Karnataka manifesto, it practised the agenda in the two states where it was in power and unveiled it in MP. The Congress’s manifest failure to convince the voters of its belief and pursuit of an egalitarian welfare model raises questions over the conventional certitudes of incumbency and anti-incumbency. Delivering even on a few pre-poll promises does not necessarily guarantee another term to an incumbent; similarly, being short of redeeming assurances does not imply rejection by the electorate.

The verdict in the three states inverted other beliefs embedded in recent Indian politics. The Congress was convinced that the quasi projection of its CM candidates in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, particularly the latter, where Bhupesh Baghel was fancied as a favourite, and of a putative one in MP, Kamal Nath, was more than a befitting answer to the BJP’s decision to go without naming its leaders. The BJP’s move was the byproduct of perceived tensions between its central command and the ‘powerful’ regional chiefs of Rajasthan and MP, Vasundhara Raje and Shivraj Singh Chouhan. In Chhattisgarh, there were signals that Raman Singh, a three-time CM, was eased out after the 2018 rout.

So, what worked for the BJP and didn’t work for the Congress? MP was purportedly suffering from a ‘Chouhan fatigue’ because he had ruled almost uninterruptedly since 2005 but for a year’s break, when the Congress was in power. In March 2020, many Congress legislators were spirited away to reinstate a Chouhan-led dispensation.

The choice to go leaderless was fraught with risks for another reason. Chouhan and Vasundhara had deep roots in their political terrain whether they were in power or in the opposition and it was not easy to shake off the roots. Each time Vasundhara’s position was challenged under previous BJP regimes, she mobilised enough legislators to unnerve Delhi. Obviously, the present central command was unmoved by history. Still, there were negligible reports of dissension inspired by the two leaders. It looked like Chouhan was mindful of safeguarding his prospects of a comeback, while Vasundhara had to think of her son and Lok Sabha MP Dushyant Singh’s future.

The Congress, on the other hand, was beset with the perennial friction between Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot in Rajasthan and Baghel and TS Singh Deo in Chhattisgarh. In MP, the relations between Kamal Nath and his supposed chief aide, Digvijaya Singh, were outwardly cordial and inwardly discordant.

Above all, the results underlined what one might describe as the difference between an original and a copycat. In MP, the Congress attempted to outdo the BJP in the Hindutva game, a standard practice with Nath since the days when he oversaw the Gujarat poll campaign. In Chhattisgarh, Baghel adopted the Ram mantra in numerous forms. Only Gehlot focused on his welfare agenda. Can a party seriously expect to beat a long-time and serious Hindutva proponent by sporting a similar garb? The fallout was that Baghel fell between two stools.

He could not respond to the BJP’s campaign against the alleged proselytisation of Adivasis by the church, a charge that the BJP never proved but succeeded in convincing people about it. When communal violence erupted in the Adivasi-majority areas of Surguja and Bastar, Christians accused the Congress government of failing to protect them and often acting on complaints filed by RSS-aligned outfits like the Janjati Suraksha Manch. The BJP took advantage of the Congress’s predicament, sympathised with the Hindus and fielded Ishwar Sahu, the father of a youth who was killed in a communal flare-up in April.

Telangana was the only bright spot for the Congress; it afforded space to Revanth Reddy — who had defected from the Telugu Desam Party — to grow and helm the elections. A decimated Congress’ quest for revival will have to begin with identifying and nurturing state leaders — no mean task for a party that’s unlikely to attract talent.

With months to go for the Lok Sabha polls, the immediate challenge for the Opposition is to revitalise the INDIA bloc. The Congress had hoped that a 3/5 outcome (counting will be done in Mizoram today) would bolster its position vis-a-vis the regional parties. A sole win is not good enough to sell the claim.