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2008-make or break year for Congress |
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B. I. Saini
As the United Progressive Alliance, UPA, approaches its last full year in power at the Centre, it is make or break for the Congress, the leading light of the coalition.
The Congress has suffered reverses in state Assembly elections, which do not augur well for the party at a time when national elections are less than one and a half years away. In the latest round, a defeat was on the cards for the Congress in Himachal Pradesh, where the party was fighting anti-incumbency and where the voters recently never returned the same party to power in successive elections. But the party's defeat by a big margin in Gujarat was unexpected, as the Narendra Modi-led BJP overcame anti-incumbency to romp home for a fourth term.
Earlier in the year, the Congress lost Punjab and Uttarakhand to the BJP and its allies, without much of a fight. But the party's biggest disappointment was in the country's most populous state-Uttar Pradesh, which sends 80 members to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament. Bahujan Samaj Party's Mayawati was able to beat back the Congress as well as the Samajwadi Party, which was then ruling the state, and the BJP with the help of her social engineering plank.
The year 2008 will bring Assembly elections in several states including Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Rajasthan, where the BJP is in power at present. The Congress cannot afford to just depend on the anti-incumbency factor to defeat the BJP, as it will have to take care of the Mayawati factor also, as the BSP supremo has already made known that she will play her card of social engineering in these states also. The Congress is well aware that the BSP contributed to an extent to its poor show in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.
The first challenge to the Congress is expected to come in the Assembly elections in Karnataka, where the BJP may try to exploit the sympathy factor to sway the voters.
The Congress also faces a challenge from the Left, which may pull the rug from under the feet of the Manmohan Singh government, even if the Congress scraps the nuclear deal with the United States under pressure. The Left would not like to share the Congress burden of anti-incumbency at the Centre, when Lok Sabha elections are held in 2009.
The Congress will have to move boldly on the political chess-board and not shy away from taking on the Left in national interest if it is retain public support. At the same time, the party has to walk the tight rope to keep the UPA partners on its side.
The party also has to realise that national elections are increasingly becoming a sum total of elections at the state level. The Congress cannot afford to rest on the charisma of the Gandhi dynasty alone. It has to build up state level leaders to revitalize the party and win elections.
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