Post-debacle, Congress finds reasons to rejoice
Author: A Surya Prakash
Although the ruling party at the Centre has been comprehensively beaten in the Assembly election in Gujarat, its leaders are busy spinning the yarn that the party actually performed wonderfully
The cycle of victory and defeat is part of democratic karma and the Indian voter remorselessly hammers this point home year after year, but some parties like the Congress simply refuse to learn this basic lesson. That is why leaders of this party were so petty and graceless and behaved in a manner that was devoid of democratic etiquette when the Gujarat Assembly election results came in last week.
Unlike Mr Premkumar Dhumal, the defeated Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh who greeted his opponent, not one leader of the Congress had the decency to congratulate Mr Narendra Modi, who rode back to power for the third time in Gujarat. Instead, several of them advanced the most convoluted arguments to run down the winner and to deny him victory. The biggest joke on results- day was of course the statement of Union Minister for Finance P Chidambaram. He proclaimed with glee that since the Congress had improved its tally (by two seats) and since the BJP had not crossed 117 — the number of seats it held in the outgoing Assembly — the Congress was
“a clear winner in Gujarat”. The results (BJP — 115, Congress — 61), according to him, showed how exaggerated the claims of the BJP were. Also, by some strange reasoning which he alone seems to possess and understand, Mr Chidambaram claimed that while the BJP had won the State, large sections of the population in Gujarat “felt left out”. The Congress argues that when the BJP is in power, the religious minorities get a raw deal. On December 20, the Finance Minister claimed that many more communities felt disenfranchised — “Saurashtra feels felt behind; the tribals feel left behind”. From where did he get this gyan? How on earth can any party bag 115 seats (constituting 62 per cent) in the 182-member Assembly after excluding Saurashtra, the tribals and the minorities in a State like Gujarat? The hollowness of this argument is borne out by the fact that, while Saurashtra accounts for 54 seats, as many as 26 seats are reserved for Scheduled Tribes in this State, and there are over 30 seats in which the Muslim vote counts for more than 20 per cent.
But, Mr Chidambaram was not alone. There were several others who were on this delusory trip and in denial. Union Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal declared most ungraciously that, though Mr Modi ran a 3D campaign, he had secured only a 2D victory. These remarks stem from the Congress’s skewed sense of victory and defeat in Gujarat. It believes that since the BJP did not cross 117, it was “defeated”, although one needs just 92 seats for a clear majority in the Gujarat Assembly. Also, by the same token, since the Congress had 59 in the previous House, any increment would constitute a “victory”. The persistence with which so many Union Ministers kept using this strange yardstick to assess the electoral outcome in that State is indicative of the growing trepidation in the Congress about having ‘NaMo’ (the acronym that Mr Modi’s fans have given him) as its main opponent in 2014. They are already conceding that he is a formidable rival. Contrary to Mr Chidam- baram’s claims, the BJP did well in every region of the State and secured support from every social segment. Despite the Keshubhai Patel factor, it was way ahead of the Congress in Saurashtra. Yet, Mr Chidambaram says Saurashtra feels left out!
The BJP also picked up a majority of the 40 seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, as also a majority in Central and South Gujarat and in both the rural and urban areas. Its overall vote share was around 48 per cent, a clear eight per cent ahead of the Congress. Poll analysts found that the BJP had won most of the seats even in the 24 Assembly constituencies that were the worst hit in the 2002 riots. In constituencies having a sizeable Muslim vote (over 20 per cent), the BJP bagged 70 per cent of the seats. The Congress was completely routed in urban constituencies and performed poorly even in constituencies dominated by the Scheduled Tribes and the Muslims. So, obviously, the people do not buy the theory that the Congress is “inclusive”, but the BJP is not.
Also, such is the Congress’s commitment to secularism and inclusive growth that it never spoke about the post-Godhra riots of 2002 in which a large number of Muslims were killed. Strangely, throughout the campaign the party never uttered the M word. Ms Sonia Gandhi had described Narendra Modi as “Maut ke Saudagar” (Merchant of Death) in 2007, thereby holding him wholly responsible for the riots that broke out in 2002. However, strangely, she chose not to put this label on him in 2012. What are we to make of this? Modi is no longer the Maut ke Saudagar? Has the Congress exonerated him? Although everyone knew that the Gujarat Assembly election was due at the end of 2012, the Congress failed to get its act together in time for the big contest with Mr Modi. It did not position a strong State leader to counter the Chief Minister, nor did it stitch up clever electoral alliances that could have meant an accretion to its vote share. For example, the Congress secured 38 per cent of the votes as against 49.12 per cent of the BJP in the 2007 Assembly poll. This time around, the party has got 40 per cent of the vote (an increase of two per cent), while the BJP’s vote share is down by one per cent to 48.
Thus the gap between the two parties has narrowed to eight per cent. Mr Keshubhai Patel may have lost badly, but he appears to have bagged over three per cent of the votes. These figures show that with some clever electoral engineering, the Congress could have given Mr Modi a credible fight. But the party was so dispirited that it chose to rest its guns on the shoulders of NGOs and social activists. Even its so-called national leaders — Ms Gandhi and Mr Rahul Gandhi — registered only a token presence in the State during the campaign. Here again, the party ensured that the Gandhis campaigned largely in the party’s bastions. Having done this, they proclaimed that the party had won every seat Mr Rahul Gandhi had canvassed in! Someone who heard a Union Minister saying this, asked, “Why didn’t they send him all over Gujarat then?”
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