By Chanakya

Coming off the massive victory in Karnataka and basking in the afterglow of Rahul Gandhi’s successful Bharat Jodo Yatra, the Indian National Congress now gears up for two major fights in the coming months. One will be its struggle to regain control of Madhya Pradesh, while the other will be to retain control over Rajasthan. Assembly elections to these two important states will virtually pave the path to next year’s general elections and will indicate how much weight Congress has before it can take on the heavyweight Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2024.

True, the Congress is on a comeback path on the power of its development and anti-corruption agenda, but undermining the organisational strength of the BJP will be the Congress’ biggest mistake. One such incident almost happened in Karnataka when aspiring chief minister Siddharamaiah declared that he would be banning the Bajrang Dal when he comes to power. It was a sane claim, but the narrative was quickly changed by the BJP from Bajrang Dal, an outlier outfit, to Bajrang Bali, a god. Congress was lucky that the people realised the difference. Karnataka has a knowledgeable population. In the backward states of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, however, such mistakes could prove very costly. One cannot discount the insistent social media campaigning of the BJP IT cell.

To be fair, the Congress IT cell seems to have gained enough momentum to counter the BJP IT cell trolls with enough sober, yet intelligent firepower. More than public speeches, people these days seem to be relying on social media forwards.

Let us take a look at the key states going to the polls.

Madhya Pradesh

Madhya Pradesh is slated to go to polls by the end of this year. On May 22, five promises were made to the people of Madhya Pradesh. These promises are almost the same as what was made in Karnataka. The Congress’ official Twitter handle said: “Congress’s promise to the people of Madhya Pradesh. We fulfilled our promises in Karnataka, now we will fulfil them in MP too.”

While the state’s chief minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, has publicly pooh-poohed Congress publicity campaigns, there is no doubt that the BJP has been shaken by the massive loss in Karnataka. At the same time, that victory has boosted the morale of the Congress no end.

Chouhan said: “Who cares about Karnataka results? This is Madhya Pradesh. Here, we will register a record victory with great fanfare. What do they (Congress) have? We have Narendra Modi. We have party workers who toil night and day. Congress comes nowhere close. I still have many cards up my sleeve.”

Maybe so, but Chouhan faces attacks from all sides, including former ministers Ajay Bishnoi and Bhanwar Singh Shekhawat. Also, Jai Adivasi Yuva Shakti Sangathan (JAYS) is trying to make an impact in Malwa. This will definitely have an impact on some seats.

Infighting

There has been subdued infighting in the BJP and that is now coming out in the open. There seems to be growing discontent in the BJP’s Vindhya unit, because despite winning many seats in the region, it was not given proper representation in the cabinet. For all these reasons, there is a slight disarray and disunity in the BJP. While the party was already reeling under it, the Karnataka results have added fuel to the fire and the Congress’s increased enthusiasm has posed a new challenge for the BJP.

The Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY) seems to have reached further into desperate lands than the ruling BJP had in Karnataka. In Madhya Pradesh, the BJY and Rahul travelled around 382 km, especially across ancient tribal areas such as the Malwa plateau. People he had come in contact during the BJY, would have been influenced to an extent, and if the Karnataka experience sees a repetition, then the influence of the BJY would be substantial. In Karnataka, out of 15 tribal seats, BJP could not win even a single one.

In the 230-member Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly, 20%, or 47 seats are reserved for the Scheduled Tribes (ST). According to experts, about 70 to 80 seats in the state are dominated by tribal voters.

Not that the Congress will have it easy, though. In 2003, the tribal community contributed significantly to the BJP’s return to power in the state. In the next two elections, the BJP continued to get support from the tribal community and remained in power. But in 2018 the tables turned and the BJP, which had won 31 ST seats in 2013, was limited to 16 seats in 2018 and the Congress’s seat share increased from 15 to 30, allowing it to form the government.

The BJP had won a total of 109 seats and Congress won 114 seats in the polls. The margin of victory was so narrow that the BJP was bound to form the government had the tribal voters sided with it.

Rahul has predicted that the Congress will win 150 out of 230 seats in the upcoming assembly election later this year. “Karnataka election result will be repeated in Madhya Pradesh,” Rahul told reporters after the party’s meeting on election preparedness.

“We had a detailed meeting just now, and our internal assessment indicates that after securing 136 seats in Karnataka, we are now projected to win 150 seats in Madhya Pradesh,” Rahul was quoted as saying by news agencies.

In a video shared by a news agency, when asked about the Congress party’s chief ministerial candidate for Madhya Pradesh, Gandhi chose not to provide a direct answer but emphasised the party’s goal of winning 150 seats.

One key person for Congress here will be Kamal Nath, who served as the state chief minister during Congress’ short-lived government in the state between 2018 and 2020. He said: “We discussed the strategy and the issues on which the party should contest these polls. We are all of the opinion that we will enter the poll fray unitedly.”

Besides Rahul Gandhi, Kamal Nath, Digvijay Singh, and AICC general secretary KC Venugopal, met party chief Mallikarjun Kharge to discuss the upcoming assembly election in the state.

Fifth most populous

Madhya Pradesh is the fifth most populous state of India and has a diverse population of many religions & communities. At the census 2011, out of 7.26 crore population, around 6.6 crores (90.89%) have returned themselves as followers of Hindu religion, 4.77 crores (6.57%) as Muslims or the followers of Islam, 5.67 lakhs (0.78%) as Jain, 2.16 lakhs (0.30%) as Buddhists, 2.13 lakhs (0.29%) are Christians, and  in addition 0.12% stated as no religion &  1.04% are other religions.

As per the Census India 2011, Madhya Pradesh has 15093256 households, population of 72626809 of which 37612306 are males and 35014503 are females. The population of children between the ages 0-6 is 10809395 which is 14.88% of the total population.

Rajasthan

Currently, Rajasthan is under the governance of the Congress party, led by Ashok Gehlot.

Rajasthan sees a good Congress stronghold, the big chink in the armour, so to say, being the infighting in the party, with deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot, son of veteran Congress leader, the Late Rajesh Pilot, having gone head-on against Gehlot on many occasions. Even recently, Pilot had started a campaign against Gehlot, till intervention from the Gandhis and Kharge settled the matter. This may blow up to be a similar situation as had been seen in Karnataka after victory, with both Siddharamaiah and DK Shivaklumar claiming the Chief Ministerial seat.

One does not believe any trouble will erupt during the election process, but post election there could be some problems and the Congress will, again, have use its fire-fighting skills.

Gehlot’s administrative acumen, especially with the party, has been well known. This is something the Congress will be depending on. The dependence has been so much that initial ideas of Gehlot emerging as the Congress presidential candidate had also to be shelved.

While the BJP is banking on its campaigner-in-chief Narendra Modi and anti-incumbency to snatch power, it has a weak representation in former chief minister Vasundhara Raje. She did not pick up too many accolades during her stint as CM and those memories still rankle.

Recently, Gehlot announced a slew of freebies, such as free electricity (till 100 units), and the BJP will, obviously match these. However, the BJP’s organisational prowess, under Vasundhara Raje, maybe a bit weak. Of course, the presence of Modi and Amit Shah, and truckloads of money, may turn the tides in certain places, though the Karnataka victory has really rejuvenated the Congress party and its voters, and the going will be tough for the BJP.

Raje is currently holding her own public events in the run-up to assembly polls. The BJP in Rajasthan has no woman mass leader of Raje’s stature. She has proven her might in both Lok Sabha and assembly elections.

BJP insiders claim their party’s internal assessments have indicated that should assembly elections be held in Rajasthan today, it would barely manage to get a simple majority. As the BJP hunts for a winning formula against the Ashok Gehlot-led Congress in the state, can it risk overreliance on potential defectors from the ruling party?

Several BJP leaders in Rajasthan, including those with an RSS background, say that while pursuing the aim of a ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’, “we are becoming a Congress-yukt BJP”. They question how election tickets can be denied to the traditional political families in the BJP at the cost of losing seats and how it is justifiable to give tickets, and even ministerial berths, to defectors from traditional Congress families just to win seats.

Observers argue that the BJP has a near-saturated base in Rajasthan, where it had won 163 of the 200 assembly seats while coming to power in 2013. So, the party cannot hope to expand its electoral footprint beyond a point and finish off the Congress altogether.

We will have to wait for the final outcome, but how the two major parties behave in the run up to the polls will determine a lot many smaller issues in each state.

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The drama that ensued, especially with Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot throwing his hat in the ring, was unbelievable. If the ‘revolt’ of 92 Gehlot-faithful MLAs staged – even submitting a mass ‘resignation letter’ on plain paper – is to be considered as normal democratic procedure, as top spokespersons of the party have been talking about, then that chaotic ‘democracy’ is not what the party wants, building up to the 2024 general elections. Gehlot was rebuked by Sonia and Gehlot even apologised in public. The MLAs said that in the absence of Gehlot, the next CM – if Gehlot had to leave his post – would be chosen by the MLAs themselves. This has never been the norm in Indian politics. Rahul Gandhi’s friend Sachin Pilot seems to have lost all power in the party.

Rahul steadfastly refused to take up the gauntlet, but continued with his Bharat Jodo Yatra which, it must be said, has been very successful so far. It has to be seen where his mileage stays when he moves north of the country, where the BJP has its main bastion.

We expected a more civilised turn of events. When Gehlot approached Rahul for consent, Rahul just reminded him about the one man one post decision. Enough said.

Meanwhile, Sashi Tharoor has been left in the lurch. The only gain for this erudite statesman is that he may have a better command over Hindi now. He was learning it quickly.

We will wait to see how much control Sonia has on Kharge, the man who should win.

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The Indian National Congress is a party at odds with itself. The presidential election process itself is fraught with a great deal of anomalies, it seems. The idea of an election process was almost pushed down the Congress High Command’s gullet and that has not gone down well.

Prime candidate Mallikarjun Kharge has now resigned as the Leader of the Opposition in the Upper House of Parliament and is keenly waiting for the next instruction from his boss, party interim president Sonia Gandhi. Having filed his nomination, Kharge exhorted that the Group of 23 does not exist anymore, that all have merged into the Congress.

So that leaves the other important candidate, MP Sashi Tharoor, in a very awkward position. Tharoor, who had earlier said that he might reconsider about filing his nomination if Rahul Gandhi stood for elections, now sees that the so-called Group of 23 members (all those left) have sided with Kharge. So, considering Kharge is a staunch Gandhi loyalist, the allegations originally raised by the G23 members are today infructuous.

The third candidate KN Tripathi from Jharkhand, an unknown, will remain so, twiddling his thumb.

So what do we get from this? Confusion, of course, that is in the Congress DNA, but as per the erstwhile Theory of Chaos, is this going to get a special result? Unfortunately, no.

Let us break it up.

Two types of loyalists
While following the Indian National Congress presidential election process, one thing was clear. There are two types of Gandhi loyalists. The first type are the old ones, the veterans who believe that the Independence struggle of the Congress gives it and the Gandhi family the right to rule in perpetuity. These are the Sonia Gandhi loyalists. Kharge will fall this category. To an extent, so did Ashok Gehlot, the Rajasthan Chief Minister, possibly Sonia’s first choice.

The second are the Rahul Gandhi loyalists. Remember, when Gehlot went to talk to Rahul, doing his Bharat Jodo Yatra in the south, Rahul reminded him of just one thing: One man, one post. Rahul did not want Gehlot in the hot seat. Question is about what his feelings are regarding Kharge’s candidature.

Meanwhile, poor, erudite statesman and five-time Kerala MP Tharoor, has been brushing up his Hindi, saying that there is no question of a fight, that it is all in the family. Tharoor is a great statesman, but he is nowhere near Kharge as far organisational capabilities go. Though both main candidates are from the south, it is not as if this will anger the north Indian legislators, despite thi3er much larger number. Here is where Sonia’s influence is still strong.

The rest
There were others, looking for their place in the sun: Digvijay Singh, a complete Gandhi loyalist, Manish Tiwari, an on-end-off critic of the family, a former I&B minister, former Congress spokesperson and also a G-23 group member. Now that the G23 members have melted into the Congress, that threat is gone, it seems.

The murky run-up
The run up to the election was murky. Initially Gehlot had planned to keep the chief ministership of Rajasthan even as he became Congress president. The other alternative was to allow Sachin Pilot to become CM and Gehlot moves on as CWC head. Sachin is a Rahul man, and one thought this might work. But what happened was shocking. The 92 Gehlot loyalist MLAs – Congress has a strength of 107 in the 200-member assembly – declared that they would resign if ‘gaddar’ Pilot was made CM. The 15 Pilot loyalists were quiet.

This was a reference to Pilot’s ‘revolt’ against Gehlot, in July 2020, a time when he almost joined the BJP. This has been denied, though. While the young brigade has been denied, there seems little fightback.

The 92 Gehlot loyalists even ‘submitted’ their joint resignation, on a sheet pa paper, a letter that has stayed. This move was complete hogwash, because while resigning, an MLA has to do it in a proper format and submit it to the Speaker of the House/the Governor. A signature campaign on a plain sheet of paper is utter nonsense.

The obvious reading of the chaos was that Gehlot was the one who had orchestrated it. That is why Sonia had rebuked him and Gehlot had even apologised publicly. Gehlot was totally disinclined to be Congress President. Also the chief ministership of Rajasthan is a decadent Congress is an important post.

So Gehlot did not file his nomination. In the ‘choice’ of Kharge as top candidate, the Sonia faction has won. Rahul can hardly support Tharoor, now that even the G23 guys are with the octogenarian Kharge. Also, Tharoor has a mind of his own; that is a dangerous mix, along with his erudition, for the old guard of the party.

A farce, yet better than nothing
In the end, this is building up to be a farce of an election process. Even then, there is a lot Kharge can do, with the help of the old and new guard alike. So this will be better than nothing.

Congress has history aplenty, but today, India’s electorate looks for a little more, for hope, for jobs, for financial security, for stability, for peace and harmony. These are the issues of the day, the issues that Congress must tackle, issues that The new Congress president must take head on. There is no escape from confrontation, not this time.

The situation could be quite like what we saw during UPA II with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Even Manmohan, an out and out Gandhi loyalist, one day threatened to quit if his decision on the nuclear deal he had carefully formatted was not allowed to go through. Manmohan, too, is an erudite person, though with no public base. But, sometimes, minions too get disgusted with too much control from the trop.

So Kharge can be controlled, the Gandhi family stays the supreme leaders, this time without even any accountability.

At square one?
These developments, sort of, leaves us back at square one. Will the Congress show any movement? It would have been better had Tharoor been promoted as vice-president of the party. That was the party could have had brains and brawn.

One can recall that in 1980 Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Arjun Singh was also vice-president of the Congress. Rahul was VP in 2013. It would be almost sacrilegious to leave out Tharoor, though 2024 being the target for reform, a bit more brawn could be incorporated.

The Rahul factor
Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra has seen tremendous response. The way he has mingled with the public, the children on the streets, has done a world of good for his personal image as not just a political leader and a member of the Gandhi family, but also as a sort of crusader.

One hopes the resonance he has gathered in the south continues through to the north. If you look at 2024 – and that is the normal projection – there many more parliament seats in the north, a state that will persist till at least 2026.

Things may change thereafter, because, following the 84th amendment to the Constitution, in 2002, Delimitation is to be done after 2026 if not postponed. The base year will be 2021 population.

Till such time we assume that Rahul will have to contend with the current mix.

Of change
That leaves us with the critical question: is it possible for Rahul to try and change the way politics is thought of in this country? Is there a possibility of decency, of more people participation? That thought gives rise to another possibility. Kharge would perpetuate the same type of Congress politics that we have come to know, the same type that has no takers today.

The frank message should be, immediate losses could consolidate into future gains. Give the country a new type of politics. Remember how the Aam Admi Party made headway?

It is not just cleaning up the process and the politics, it is about putting people first. There must be a leaner, saner model available. One needs to keep looking.

October 8 is the last date of nomination withdrawal. Gehlot had, aside, commented that Tharoor may withdraw. Let us see. Elections will be held October 17, with the results being announced on October 19.

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This election will happen after 21 long years.

For the past three years Sonia Gandhi has been in charge as the interim president after Rahul Gandhi stepped down as the party chief following the poll debacle in 2019.

The meeting, coming in the wake of Ghulam Nabi Azad’s exit from the party while levelling damaging charges against Rahul Gandhi saw some uncomfortable moments, with G-23 leader Anand Sharma raising questions over the electoral rolls.

Chairing the meeting, Sonia Gandhi said it was only to discuss the schedule and no other issue would be taken up. Sonia and party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were seen on one screen, but did not speak during the brief meeting. The entire CWC, including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, attended the meeting that lasted for less than 30 minutes.

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, party’s central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry, K C Venugopal, former union ministers Jairam Ramesh, Mukul Wasnik and P Chidambaram, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel were also present among others.

Anand Sharma, who was part of the G-23 dissident group, was also present in the meeting.

Several leaders, including Rajasthan chief minister Gehlot, have publicly exhorted Rahul Gandhi to return as the party chief. However, people familiar with the matter have maintained that Rahul Gandhi is persisting with his stance that he will not be the AICC president.

According to a report Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot is the front runner for the post, after the Gandhi family’s decision not to contest. The election process will begin on September 24 and culminate on October 17, where in case of a contest, votes will be cast. The electoral college has over 9,000 delegates.

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Congress leaders took to the streets on Monday as Rahul Gandhi appeared before the ED for questioning in a money laundering case, with the police heavily barricading central Delhi areas and detaining party leaders for violating prohibitory orders.

Rahul Gandhi arrived at the probe agency in central Delhi around 11 am after he started from the Congress office on Akbar Road accompanied by a large convoy of party leaders including Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Baghel. In view of the barricading, Gandhi took a detour to reach the probe agency’s office.

This is the first time that Gandhi has appeared before a central probe agency for questioning in a case. Congress MPs and workers had assembled at the AICC headquarters where Surjewala announced they would march peacefully towards the ED office and if they were stopped, they would be arrested.

Raising slogans in support of Gandhi, Congress workers started a march towards the ED office but were stopped by the police which had put up barricades all around the AICC office. Some Congress workers also mounted barricades. A large number of workers were taken into preventive custody for violating the provisions of Section 144 CrPC banning assembly of more than four persons, which was imposed in central Delhi.

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