Why a Congress defeat in assembly polls spells doom for 2014

Ahead of the actual counting of votes for four Indian states on Sunday and that of Mizoram on Monday, there is a certain buoyancy in the BJP as against an increasing sense of despondency in the Congress. While the BJP hopes that the 4-0 scenario will turn into a reality, a realistic assessment for the Congress party has failed to generate any optimism. The newcomer in the electoral arena, Aam Admi Party has all reasons to be happy, irrespective of what the final numbers and which position it might grab. It has already made its impact felt among the people in Delhi and among the political class. Post poll feedback from their own cadres and exit polls made by various pollsters clearly indicate that Sheila Dikshit does not have a chance to create history by winning Delhi for the fourth time consecutively. Delhi, which saw an unprecedented voter turn out, are expected to see heavy losses for Congress. The party’s best case scenario is no longer 2-2 but 1-3. [caption id=“attachment_1272961” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi. PTI[/caption] The Congress leaders never seriously believed that it would win Madhya Pradesh and Rajathsan. Post poll, their concern for these states is not a win or loss but what numbers the Congress would get vis-à-vis the BJP. Under the circumstances the Congress is pinning its hope only in Chhattisgarh where party leaders think that they have a fair chance because the Bastar region might not vote for the BJP in same way as it had voted the last time. Should Congress win Chhattisgarh, even if that’s the only state that comes to its kitty, the party will find ways to defend its losses in the other three states. More than that they will have a reason to claim that there was no Modi wave that swept all across this region. That’s why the Congress will also be looking at the final numbers that the BJP gets in all these states. It is interesting that the BJP, which was initially playing down all suggestions of these Assembly polls as a referendum on UPA government also on Narendra Modi’s charisma outside Gujarat, has now started chanting NaMo mantra. The party leaders are now enthused by the emerging post poll survey trends and believe that final outcome should be no different. The final results is likely to throw a situation where the Congress may have a tough time explaining fall of party vice president and supposed youth icon Rahul Gandhi both as a leader and also as an organiser. The Congress still finds it difficult to explain why his rally in Delhi generated such poor response and why people didn’t even wait to hear him speak. Some Congress leaders including Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath have been arguing that the outcome of these assembly elections will have no impact on parliamentary elections. Even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday at a function organised by Hindustan Times said, “the Congress party is going to the election with a sense of self-confidence and that should not be mistaken whatever may be the outcome of the provincial assembly elections. As an organised political party, we cannot underestimate the power of opposition to unsettle the ship.” Others party leaders have taken a step further to keep morale of the party cadre high. Kamal Nath’s reasoned argument is that the BJP had won these states (except Delhi) in 2003 and buoyed by the outcome the Vajpayee government went to early elections in April-May 2004 and lost it. He is right on facts of what happened a decade ago but he is wrong in assessing that the history of 2003-04 will repeat in 2013-14. The two scenarios are completely different. In 2003-04, the BJP forced the nation into an election, which was due later in 2004. It was in any case facing anti-incumbency. Despite all the positive hype of about then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, he did not look to be in the best of health and did not come across as someone who could carry the burden of being in office for another five years. The government credentials was mired by a series of scandals including the one exposed by Tehelka tapes. This time around the nation has been in poll mode for long and it is Congress with some deft floor management has kept the numbers on its side on Lok Sabha and kept the government going. The UPA government has lost its sheen and Manmohan Singh has lost his Teflon-coated credibility of an honest economist prime minister. People in vast parts of the country have been itching to express their preference and these assembly polls gave them an opportunity. The Congress-led UPA faces 10 years of anti-incumbency on corruption and price rise is too severe. The kind of traction that Modi is getting, there is all likelihood that this momentum will continue, or even rise further by the next few months when parliamentary polls happen. If the Congress suffers defeat with a 0-4 or even a 1-3 score, then it is going to affect their morale in ongoing Winter Session of Parliament and manifest the weakening of the ruling UPA’s authority and diminish its political will for governance for the last few months of its current term in office.