Beating the odds - Can the Congress do it again?

Brijesh Kalappa
07 December 2013, 01:23 PM IST

In April 2013, I was at Mysore when I was told by a friend to rush to Bangalore since Mrs Gandhi was going to address an election rally at the Palace grounds. Asking our taxi driver to hurry up, we reached the Palace Grounds in time for the rally, but there was some delay in Mrs. Gandhi's flight. Karnataka Congress leaders were imploring people in the sprawling grounds to rush into the rally venue- repeated entreaties could get only about 10000 people into the grounds when Mrs Gandhi arrived and conveyed her message to the people. After the rally got over, we were walking out when I was accosted by a senior journalist friend from Delhi. He asked me, "So what is your assessment?". I replied earnestly that the Congress will get upwards of 120 seats- an assessment I had made in a write-up too. "What?!!" he snorted pointing to the rally grounds - "do you have any idea how many people were at Modi's rally a couple of days earlier?!" I said "about a lakh, why?!" He then lectured me on the need to maintain my credibility, saying that "people like you can't be seen fibbing like this- at least tell us journalists at a personal level what your unbiased opinion is." I gave up. The INC got 122 seats in the assembly elections in Karnataka, I had assessed in my blog that the number could go up to 135, wrongly assessing that the JD(S) would get 30 seats while they got 10 more than expected.

Five states Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Delhi and Mizoram have gone to the polls with virtually every survey and exit poll writing the political obituary of the Indian National Congress. But writers using their skills to write off the Congress have not been unknown in the Party's 127 year history.

In perspective, let us take a look at what the electoral issues are as projected by the media. In both Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh the BJP governments have been in place since 2003- a ten year term in office accompanied with much approval for the Government, with not even the slightest whiff of anti-incumbency, according to most of the Press. In Delhi, just as in Rajasthan there is said to be extra-ordinary anti-incumbency. Not much is said about Mizoram.

Both Mrs Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are conscious of the fact that disturbing workers to fill maidans during an election is against the Party's interest, further, they cannot speak derisively about opponents, nor can they promise the moon. But, their body of work speaks for them. They have been the prime movers behind some extraordinary pro-people decisions - Bharat Nirman, which has spurred developmental works in villages, waiving off loans to farmers while also insuring them for remunerative prices, creation of a Ministry for Minorities for the very first time while implementing recommendations of the Sachhar Commission, the passage of the RTI Act, which is arguably the biggest tool in our hands for halting corruption, Right of Education, through which, every child has the opportunity of obtaining elementary education, the mid-day meal program for children coupled with scholarships for the poor and for the minorities with particular attention to the girl child, the right to employment has been through the Mahatma Gandhi NREGA, and a Food Security Act which assures food for the deprived.

In Madhya Pradesh, the INC has fought with unity. The youthful charisma of Jyotiraditya Scindia with the experienced support of Digvijaya Singh, Kamal Nath and Rahul Ajay Singh will ensure an upward push of 30-40, which will result in about 110 plus for the INC in a house of 230 seats. In Chhattisgarh, the INC will form the government with 45 plus seats for the INC. In Delhi, the AAP will get 2-3 seats, while the BJP will get about 30 seats. As in 2008, the Press will have to eat humble pie, when they had predicted loss for Sheila Dikshit. In Rajasthan, Vasundhara Raje is fighting a lonely battle which may be enough to scuttle her chances of becoming CM, while Mr. Gehlot has done an awful lot in terms of welfare programmes. In Mizoram, the INC has a fighting chance of coming back.

I've stuck my neck out. If I'm wrong, these may be dismissed as the rantings of a person who believes in the centrist ideology, Those that are wont to shower abuse on those that speak for the middle path, as against the extremist one of the BJP- are welcome to do so.

Criticism does not win elections and crowds are attracted to a person who revels in abusing and hitting below the belt. It is exactly this kind of crowd that got the pundits wrong in 2008 and yet again in 2009- when they were all unanimously writing the UPA's epitaph!