Politically, 2022 is ending with the results of the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh polls coming in on December 8, just a day after Aam Admi Party wrested the Municipal Corporation of Delhi from the BJP. The year had other high-profile elections, including Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.
The big picture as the Narendra Modi government completes the third year of its second term is that the BJP’s electoral juggernaut is unlikely to halt soon. The Congress – which heaved a sigh of relief as Himachal Pradesh gave it some reason to cheer – still has committed voters, but its reluctant politics has turned some of its voters into fence-sitters, who are open to trying another party when they feel that the Congress cannot take on the BJP.
Gujarat signified this dilemma of the anti-BJP voter, as the Congress came down to 27-percent votes and AAP got about 13-percent, largely from what was earlier the vote base of the Congress. In Himachal Pradesh, which still has a bipolar politics, Congress got lucky as it could win 15 seats more than the BJP with less than a percentage point difference in vote share.
Earlier this year, Punjab voters – many of them Sikhs who had been unhappy with the now-repealed farm laws brought by the Modi government – resolved their dilemma by voting en bloc for Aam Admi Party.
So, it is the anti-BJP voter of the country who is in a dilemma. The vote base of the BJP is intact and even growing. The Congress hasn’t been able to shed the perception that the party does not have a well-greased electoral machine to halt the BJP’s juggernaut.
The much-talked Bharat Jodo Yatra of Rahul Gandhi does not seem to be having much electoral impact, as it has consciously avoided the electoral arena. Not just Gandhi but Congress spokespersons have been saying that it isn’t a political yatra. Why it isn’t one is difficult to fathom.
Had Rahul Gandhi walked for a month covering constituencies of Gujarat, would the Congress not have fared better? While some say that Gandhi does not have much electoral appeal any longer, there are those who believe that in states without a powerful regional satrap of the Congress, Gandhi is still the most visible face of the party and his visit would have created enough buzz in Gujarat to ensure that AAP did not walk away with a significant chunk of Congress votes. Whichever theory is correct, Gandhi as a leader of the Congress should have visited election-bound states rather than largely skipping them. The latter decision only adds to the image of a reluctant politician that he is trying to shake. Walking alone isn’t enough. It is crucial to walk where the stakes are high. A much-better idea would have been to time multiple yatras through poll-bound states. While it is true that he has walked through parts of MP and is walking through Rajasthan, the assembly polls there are still several months away.
Sensing that the Gandhi scion’s politics lacks focus and a sound strategy, there are parties that are trying to eat into the vote share of the Congress. Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM has been trying this for long, but without much success. However, it is Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP that has placed itself as the most likely replacement for the Congress some years hence, unless the Congress can bring a sense of urgency to its politics before more of its leaders quit.
However, till either the Congress revives or is replaced by another party, the BJP has a clear advantage as voters who dislike it are likely to repeatedly split their votes in confusion over who is best-suited to take on the BJP. This dilemma of the anti-BJP voter, coupled by the rise and expansion of the BJP, makes Modi the favourite for the next Lok Sabha polls.
The reason there is no united front against the BJP despite lip-service to the idea is that opposition parties are competing for the same vote. Gandhi’s long walk through Kerala was criticised by the CPI (M), as the disproportionate time given to the state seemed to suggest he wanted to bolster the chances of the Congress against the Left Front there. In Telangana, he called TRS, a party that has been highly critical of the Centre, the B-Team of the BJP. This is reminiscent of the Congress’ inability to tie up with SP in UP or TMC in Bengal. The fight is for the anti-BJP votes till now, something that shields the BJP against opposition unity.
The Congress will have to pull up its socks in 2023 and make a strong bid to win Rajasthan, MP and Chhattisgarh with singular electoral focus if it wants opposition parties to see it as a fulcrum for an anti-BJP front. For this to happen, Gandhi will have to be clinical in his planning. While many accuse the BJP of being in constant electoral mode, Gandhi should realise that being in the opposition, and not holding any government or party post, he must be seen as trying his best to win elections. As the leader of the Congress, this is his prime task. As a Congress leader told me in a personal conversation, the Yatra is more a spiritual than an electoral journey. Moreover, its very name appeals to the already converted and does not try to veer away the BJP’s vote bank.
This year was electorally one that saw the BJP further strengthen its grip over India. It also carried some good news for AAP, which achieved the status of a national party within 10 years of its foundation, even if it would have hoped to do better than to win just five seats in Gujarat.
For the Congress, the year was bleak before Himachal Pradesh offered it some relief. The next year will determine whether the Congress stays the second most significant party of India. For that, Gandhi will have to plan and execute his political moves with precision.
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Vikas Pathak is a columnist who teaches at Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. The views expressed are personal.
Read his previous columns here
(Edited by : CH Unnikrishnan)
First Published: Dec 12, 2022 11:18 AM IST
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