Opinion - Editorials   

Unlikely victors

The Congress, weighed down by the terror attack in Mumbai and the economic slowdown, had braced itself for a rout in the latest round of Assembly elections. In the event, the party has drawn much comfort from the fact that it won a third consecutive victory in Delhi and came within a whisker of a majority in Rajasthan. But the euphoria in the Congress headquarters hides the party’s dismal showing in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh where it can be said to have snatche d defeat from the jaws of victory. The BJP’s triumphs in these two States certainly defied the odds, the more so for being shaped by Chief Ministers who shunned flamboyance and minority-baiting for a politics grounded in common sense and people’s basic needs. Consider the odds against Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. He lost the 2003 Assembly election to Chief Minister Digvijay Singh. Two years later, he found himself catapulted to centre-stage as the BJP’s third choice for Chief Minister. That he had to clean up after Uma Bharti and Babulal Gaur speaks to the challenges he faced.

Ms Bharti brazenly exploited her office for promoting Hindutva, allowing sundry sadhus and sants free access to the Secretariat, and forcing her cow-protection agenda on unwilling bureaucrats. Mr. Gaur pursued a policy so lacklustre that by the time his successor took charge, the consensus in political circles was that the Congress would have a walkover in the 2008 Assembly election. To everyone’s surprise, Mr. Chouhan was able to turn the tide, first by eschewing hard-core Hindutva and then by doggedly pursuing grassroots concerns. In neighbouring Chhattisgarh, Raman Singh showed a like disdain for highly divisive politics. The central plank of his campaign was the subsidised rice scheme for families below the poverty line. The importance of cheap rice (at Rs 3 per kg) in a State grappling with severe malnutrition and poor maternal health cannot be overemphasised. These achievements hold important lessons for the Congress, the BJP, and other major parties. In Madhya Pradesh, the Congress was a house divided with a clutch of chief ministerial aspirants trying to cut down one another. The party seemed to assume that victory would be easy given the problems Mr. Chouhan inherited. In Chhattisgarh, the Congress leadership was dogged by corruption and nepotism charges and also paid a price for the United Progressive Alliance regime’s collusion with the ruinous Salwa Judum project. The Congress needs to understand the importance of projecting a chief ministerial candidate with a clean record. The lesson for the BJP is that elections can be fought and won through quiet development work and without a socially disintegrative agenda.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Unlikely victors
Sound economics, smart politics
Fighting terrorism by reforming governance
U.K.’s racist party thrives while Labour fiddles
Tribute to a 100-year-old pioneer socialist
Why the United States got it wrong
Corrections and Clarifications
Needed, action
Hope amid threat
Contempt by choice?

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu