On 8th December, 2013, the counting day for the assembly polls in key states – billed as the semi finals for next year’s general elections – the single biggest take away for political pundits and parties was that there is a perceptible anti - Congress mood among the electorate. There were a plethora of factors for the same as the Dr. Manmohan Singh-led UPA government has been hit with half-a-dozen major scams.

The nation’s official auditor, Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) estimated a loss to the State exchequer in what is known as 2G scam and Coalgate scam that could amount to Rs.1.76 lakh crore and 1.86 lakh crore respectively. Earlier, corruption on a massive scale was also alleged in the organizing of the Commonwealth Games in 2010, as well as a housing scheme for widows of war victims commonly known as the Adarsh Housing Society Scam, Westland helipcopter scam and the privatization of Delhi airport. To top it all, there has been the very unpopular price rise and the skyrocketing prices of onion, an essential food ingredient in most Indian dishes.

ELECTION	RESULTS
STATES	SEATS
RAJASTHAN	199
BJP	162
Congress	21
BSP	3
NPP	4
Others	9
MADHYA PRADESH	230
BJP	165
Congress	58
BSP	4
Independent	3
CHHATTISGARH	90
BJP	49
Congress	39
BSP	1
Independent	1
MIZORAM	40
Congress	34
MNF	5
Others	1
DELHI	70
BJP	31
Akali Dal	1
Congress	8
Aam Admi Party	28
JD(U)	1
Independent	1

Others interpreted the mandate 2013 as a strong saffron surge in the States of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh; a fewer lot saw a pro - Modi wave too. “There were definite dividends for BJP due to Modi’s popularity,” the BJP president Rajnath Singh told a press conference in the capital. A number of BJP leaders endorsed this with a key strategist frankly stating, “Had it not been for Modi’s aggressive campaign we would not have returned to power in Chhattisgarh and our position could have been worse in Delhi.”

A section of Congress leaders also said that Modi’s 12 major rallies tilted the balance against it in Naxal - hit Chhattisgarh where the party gave a strong fight and came very close to winning. “By a relentless, insidious, and personality - focused campaign, Modi has showed up the Congress’ face, Rahul Gandhi, as its biggest liability. If the BJP had put up any other leader against Rahul, the damage to the Congress would not have been so great,” wrote The Hindustan Times.

In the keenly contested elections, BJP retained power in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, stormed back to power with a historic mandate in Rajasthan and emerged as the single largest party in Delhi. For the Congress, the modest silver lining was Mizoram – that also due to local factors largely and the credit should go to the old-war horse Lal Thanhawla.

On the counting day, it was the newly floated Aam Admi Party (AAP) of anti - corruption crusader Arvind Kejriwal which stole all the limelight and Anna Hazare’s follower (Kejriwal) was rightly dubbed as the ‘man of the match’. In retrospect, poll pundits and political rivals had underestimated AAP to the extent that several BJP and Congress leaders had called it a small entity and a ‘vote cutter’.

Will Aam Admi ‘common man’ phenomenon repeat elsewhere? This question is on the lips of every political activist and pundit ever since the AAP, launched in October 2012, has managed to win as many as 28 seats in the 70 - member Delhi assembly. Many think that they can make some difference in key constituencies and play spoilsport for favourites and established players. They argue that even Narendra Modi has become cautious about AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal and his intent. Others think that it will not be able to sustain the popularity wave it rode to steal the thunder in the national capital. “It has made unrealistic promises and does not want to sit in a position of responsibility where it has to walk its talk. The very suggestion of being in government to implement its policy and promises appears to be scary for this party,” alleges Arun Jaitley of BJP. Lalu Prasad Yadav, who was jailed after being convicted in a corruption case and who has got bail from the Supreme Court says that the AAP phenomenon will die off sooner than later. While Rahul Gandhi said initially that his party will try and emulate the AAP formula of playing a game with ‘non traditional’ characters, several Congressmen and women say that the nascent outfit has been displaying arrogance. “The two missives Kejriwal shot off to Sonia Gandhi and Rajnath Singh almost trying to dictate terms to these two parties was the height of arrogance,” remarks one senior Congress leader.

The problem seemed to be mounting on the other hand for Congress as their best bet of 2013 – Rahul Gandhi as vice president – did not yield expected results. “I was doubly shocked, first by the clear decimation of my party in the country’s capital and Rajasthan and secondly the scale with which AAP impressed the people of Delhi,” commented a serving Union Minister. However, a number of political commentators and Congress spokespersons have sought to undermine the power of ‘Brand Modi’.

A number of Congress leaders including Rita Bahuguna Joshi have shown subtle sagacity in giving credit to BJP’s State leaders like Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Vasundhara Raje but insisted that there was “no Modi effect.”

Even Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, who was the chairman of the Congress campaign panel in Madhya Pradesh said that Modi had no impact in the central Indian State.

Vasundhara Raje, who made a triumphant come back as Rajasthan Chief Minister, however, countered; “Modi’s campaign was a very big factor and did help as people have seen what he has done in Gujarat.”

A neutral observer and noted economist Meghnad Desai endorsed her views and said Modi’s campaign had helped BJP strengthen its grip in the desert (Rajasthan) where Congress has been almost decimated to 21 seats in the 199 member assembly.

The Congress vote share in Rajasthan nosedived to 33.6 per cent while in Madhya Pradesh, where Modi addressed 15 rallies, Sonia Gandhi’s party could not beat the incumbency factor of BJP’s Chouhan regime.

Seen as a ‘moderate face’ of Hindu chauvinistic BJP, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Chouhan managed a consolidation of a substantial number of Muslim votes into the party’s kitty. Importantly, even the so called ‘Modi factor’ did not apparently affect that Muslim support base of Chouhan.

So much is Chouhan’s popularity that BJP leaders say it was “difficult to spot a villager who was critical of our chief minister.”

Challenges for BJP

Nevertheless, the mandate in Delhi also left a few odd lessons for BJP which came so near the target. Importantly, there is a fear that an unpredictable behaviour of the electorate (as was in Delhi) could put a halt to the Modi juggernaut.

The BJP watchers say the 15-years of negligence of party organisation in Delhi and then in 2012 leaving it to Vijay Goel’s whims and fancies played maximum spoilsport. There were other factors too like the belated projection of Harsh Vardhan, a man with clean image.

In post - poll analysis, a number of BJP leaders like Dr. Murli Manohor Joshi and Arun Jaitley complained against the delay in projecting Dr. Harsh Vardhan.  There were some more specific and candid talks in this regard too. A section of leaders maintained that BJP leadership leaving the opposition space to Team Anna in 2011 has in the ultimate analysis proved to be the ‘costliest mistake’ especially in the context of the Delhi results. “In 2011 we left the entire Opposition space to Team Anna and players like Baba Ramdev. While Congress played its part by mismanaging the anti - corruption crusaders that led to the ‘Aam Aadmi’ phenomenon; BJP also failed,” said a key party leader.

Shell-shocked Congress: Clueless about Rahul Enigma

But all said and done, the real challenge from the 2013 mandate was for Rahul Gandhi and his ailing mother Sonia. Things are simply spiraling out of their hands and they seem to be clueless about many factors – from dealing with Narendra Modi’s popularity to unimpressive rallies by Rahul and also the clear unpopularity of the Manmohan Singh regime. “The Congress president Sonia Gandhi has a challenging task but her bigger challenge still lies in deciding the role for her son,” comments Congress watcher Vidyarthi Kumar.

Not many can disagree as some say that the ‘Rahul factor’ remains an enigma. “Nobody really knows what he is capable of, the suspicion is growing that perhaps Rahul Gandhi himself does not know,” says a Union Minister quoting =Time magazine.

As an attempt to answer some complex issues, Sonia crowned him as ‘No. 2’ – the party vice president in January 2012 but Rahul has not met the challenge. Worse, the party cadre are hardly enthused and thus when a huge crowd left a Delhi rally while he was still addressing it, the message went down too well.

In retrospect, poll pundits and political rivals had underestimated AAP to the extent that several BJP and Congress leaders had called it a small entity and a ‘vote cutter’.

Now, according to Congress sources, the stage is set to nominate him as the Prime Ministerial candidate on 17 January, 2014 during the AICC session in Delhi. But the party has given up. “Now, it seems even a chaiwallah can become Prime Minister,” commented Digvijay Singh, AICC general secretary and supposedly Rahul’s political guru.

Many sitting Congress MPs too admit on the condition of anonymity that winning the seat next time would be difficult. Skepticism has spread among sitting Congress MPs in West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and UP.  

A serving Minister from southern India told Eastern Panorama that even the hyped Food Security Act has failed miserably. In other words, they need to ensure that the ‘mood’ is changed in the country. “It’s too late in the day when we are unable to handle our own Prime Minister. We need to tap the half chances. We have to turn the image from being an ‘under achiever’ and as last year ‘The Washington Post’ called us,” lamented the Minister referring to the veiled attack on Dr. Manmohan Singh.

Several Congress MPs like Sanjay Singh have sent in feelers to BJP while Sunil Shastri, son of Lal Bahadur Shastri, has already joined the BJP.

So too did former Union Home Secretary, R K Singh and another retired bureaucrat R S Pandey, who was also the chief negotiator for the on-going Naga peace talks. “Who will join Congress this time around?” quipped Pandey summing up the mood among fence sitters in politics.

Swati Deb