The Bhartiya Janata Party's campaign for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections got a significant leg up Sunday with the party winning Assembly elections in three of the four heartland states — Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh — and emerging the largest party in the fourth, the national capital of Delhi.
Its main rival Congress was decimated in
Rajasthan,
Madhya Pradesh and Delhi, so much so that it came a poor third in the last of the three, unable to reach even the double-digit mark in the city-state it ruled for 15 years and claimed credit for its transformation.
The Congress ran the BJP close in Chhattisgarh and was ahead in the initial stages of counting, raising hope that the 0-4 drubbing prediction may not come true after all. However, the neck-and-neck race eventually saw
Raman Singh's BJP racing past the post.
Sunday's other spectacular outcome belonged to the Aam Aadmi Party of
Arvind Kejriwal.
Making its political debut through the Delhi elections, the one-year-old party won 28 seats to the BJP's 31, while the Congress got a paltry eight in the House of 70.
Kejriwal himself ended up as a giant killer, trouncing three-term Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit in her New Delhi constituency.
But the results also meant no party got a majority in the capital, and with Kejriwal ruling out support to any political party to form a government, Delhi was staring at uncertainty — and possibly rule by the lieutenant governor — until fresh elections.
BJP president Rajnath Singh, however, was confident his party would form the government in all four states.
"Let me make it clear that we will form governments in all the four states and we will have our chief ministers there," he told a news conference, adding that the party gained from the popularity of its PM candidate, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who campaigned extensively in the four states.
But later in the evening, the BJP's chief ministerial candidate Harsh Vardhan said he would not stake claim to form a government as the BJP did not have a clear majority, and would sit in the opposition.
Modi did not speak to the media but tweeted his comments.
"I thank the people for reposing their faith @BJP4India. We assure you that we will work hard to fulfil your dreams & aspirations.
"People have spoken loud and clear! The verdict has shown yet again that people want development, not corruption & votebank politics.
"This is a wonderful beginning towards success in our Mission272+ and for fulfilling the dream of a Congress Mukt Bharat.
"The total number of seats Congress has won in all the four states today cannot even match the seats @BJP4India won in 1 state!"
Stunned by the verdict against the Congress, which also reflected the mood in the country against the UPA government ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi acknowledged the people's unhappiness over price-rise and other issues and stressed the need for "deep introspection".
Shedding the party's reluctance to name its prime ministerial candidate ahead of the elections, Sonia said the Congress will announce "him" at an "opportune time".
"It goes without saying that we are very very disappointed at the results. We accept the verdict of the people in all humility. Naturally this result calls for deep introspection. We have to understand and look at the many reasons for these defeats," Sonia said.
"We have to look into the way we took or did not take our message to the people and also we have to look at the way our own party is equipped or not so well equipped in running an election.
"Of course, there will be a number of reasons for these defeats. I know that many people were complaining. Obviously people are unhappy otherwise we would not have these results. Price-rise was also an issue that was affecting the people," she said.
"A great deal of work" had been done in Delhi "but obviously results tell us something else. We will introspect seriously and we will take all necessary actions to rectify our mistakes or our way of functioning," she said.
Rahul said the Congress has to "move ahead of just good governance" and "give serious space to the common man in our processes, in our systems and in our structures".
"Political parties today are not giving adequate voice to the man on the street and it is our job as an institution of the voice of people to do that. I fundamentally believe that I am going to put all my efforts in transforming the organisation of the Congress party together with the leaders of the Congress party and give you an organisation that you can be proud of and give you an organisation that has your voice embedded inside it," he said.
Rahul said the Congress has to learn a lesson from the Aam Aadmi Party.
"I think the Aam Aadmi Party has involved a lot of people who the traditional parties did not involve. We are to learn from that and we are going to do a better job than anybody in the country and involve people in ways that you cannot even imagine right now," he said.
Shortly after Sonia's remarks, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi expressed his "personal opinion" that the party has become "top-heavy" and there was a need to change its functioning to involve people at the grassroots-level.
"We have not been able to involve the young generation. We have not been able to respond to the hopes and aspirations of the young generation, which constitutes 65 per cent of our electorate. This is my personal opinion. Functioning in the party also has to change. It is top-heavy. We have to involve grassroots-level workers," Gogoi told The Indian Express.
While the Congress failed to dislodge BJP governments in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh despite 10 years of anti-incumbency, and despite the sympathy factor in Chhattisgarh following the killing of Congress leaders by Maoists, what came as a shock to the Congress was the fact that it was reduced to a single digit in Delhi even though the Sheila Dikshit government had a good governance record.
The AAP's resounding success could therefore be construed as an expression of a massive distrust and anger against the UPA government's omissions and commissions. What hurt the party more was the complete negation of the so-called Sonianomics that Ashok Gehlot's government had sought to implement in Rajasthan through freebies, only to be reduced to barely 10 per cent of the total strength in the Assembly.
Although Sonia's reference to the party's prime ministerial candidate as "him" did not leave much scope for speculation, Sunday's results have put a big question mark on Rahul's leadership skills and popularity.
Of about 26 Assembly constituencies spread over four states in which Rahul campaigned - discounting the fact that each rally of his was meant to cover many adjoining constituencies - the Congress won only 7.
He addressed 10 rallies in Rajasthan but the party drew a blank in all those constituencies. Coupled with this questionable mass appeal as a leader, the fact that Rahul was also micro-managing the election, right from selection of candidates to campaigning, was hardly a testimony to his leadership skills.
Reacting to the results, Rahul said: "People have given us a message through this elections. And we and the party have heard that message not with just our mind, but with our heart. The Congress party has the ability to transform itself, the Congress party has the ability to stand up to the expectations of the people of this country. And the Congress party is going to do that."
The drubbing has led to murmurs in the party about the "election management style" of the new team of leaders brought up by Rahul and also about the party's "over-dependence" on flagship schemes.
"We have to realize now that Central programmes like rural job guarantee scheme and food security scheme cannot bring us votes. If at all, it's the opposition-ruled states that are taking all credit for it. We have to come up with some innovative ideas in the next five months if we don't want to see similar results in 2014," said a Union minister and senior Congress leader.
The Congress has sought to dismiss suggestions about Sunday's trend continuing in parliamentary elections saying the BJP had won three of these four states in December 2003 only to lose the 2004 parliamentary elections.
What the party has, however, chosen to ignore is the fact that parliamentary elections do reflect the Assembly elections trend in these states at least, which together send 72 MPs to the Lok Sabha.
Besides, unlike in the past when Assembly elections were confined to local issues, it is the massive anti-incumbency against the UPA government that has got reflected in these elections as evident from the rise of the AAP in Delhi.
