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Assembly elections : Sonia goes on offensive

	September 08, 2003

Congress president, Sonia Gandhi has picked up where she left off at the no-confidence debate in Lok Sabha and has launched an all out offensive against the Vajpayee government. At every forum and campaign meeting, Sonia has been listing the NDA failures in the past four years of its rule. For the Congress, retaining power in the northern states of Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh is crucial. As the main and sole campaigner for the party, Sonia is busy highlighting the issues she had brought up during the no trust motion, which was easily defeated by the NDA.

She has called the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government at the Centre as one of frauds and scandals. It not only failed to keep the promises it made to the people but also introduced new problems due to mis-governance and lack of vision, she said. Addressing a public meeting in Rajasthan, Sonia Gandhi challenged her political rivals, especially the Prime Minister, to compare the governance in the Congress-ruled States to that of the BJP-led Government at the Centre. “Our Governments speak for themselves. By smooth talk and poetry you cannot bring in progress. It needs commitment. If you play politics with governance the nation cannot make progress.”

To expose the “shortcomings and misdeeds” of the NDA Government, the Congress had moved a no-confidence motion in Parliament recently, Sonia Gandhi recalled. “We felt that the mis-governance should be brought to the attention of the nation. During the debate the ruling front failed to give an answer to any of the issues raised by us,” she claimed.

“They kept on making the same old excuses and flimsy arguments. The targeted me personally.” She charged that the NDA regime was ``spreading mistrust and ill-will among the communities. There was an atmosphere of despondency among the public. All sections of people, farmers, workers, youth, women or Dalits, are feeling flustered under the NDA rule.”



Uttar Pradesh : BJP’s calculations go wrong

Even as the Congress goes on the offensive, the BJP is taking stock. It may appear confident about the outcome of the assembly polls in North in October/November, but many things are going wrong. The latest one is, of course, the collapse of the party’s coalition with the Bahujan Samaj Party. Though rumblings were there from the first day of the coalition formation, the BJP leaders did not expect the fall of the government so soon. There was some consolation though. Chief Minister Mayawati did not have the satisfaction of wrecking the government as the BJP preempted her move by withdrawing support to her and in the process, leaving her no option then to resign. Mayawati thus failed to get President’s rule imposed and fresh elections announced as the BJP let the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led coalition form an alternative government. The party is unsure about its subsequent moves and there is no denying that the BSP blow will affect the BJP prospects in the assembly elections.

The state of Uttar Pradesh has always been politically very important. Since Independence, it has been the general belief of political observers in India that the party which rules UP, rules at the Centre. This was perhaps the reason why the BJP opted for an alliance with its arch rival BSP to form a government in the state. But now that the alliance has broken and the party is out of power in UP, things are looking bleak for the BJP. The fear is that Samajwadi Party will consolidate the gains and if there is no rapproachment with the BSP in future, the BJP alone will find it difficult to hold its ground. There is also the possibility of the party militant cadres reviving the temple issue in a more vicious manner.



Rajasthan : Good monsoon brings cheer to Congress

In Rajasthan, the monsoon has brought relief to the people and has taken away a major poll issue of the BJP. The Congress had been dreading the adverse impact of another drought on its electoral prospects. The rains have pushed the politics of drought to the backseat. Farmers and agricultural labourers have gone back to work in their fields. The Kharif crop is nearly ripe and the total area under cultivation is over three times more than last year’s figure of 40 lakh hectares. Already there have been heavier than normal rain in most parts of the state, and the season still continues.

In the absence of any electoral issue till yet, the BJP is trying new slogans and strategies. The old electoral plank of mismanagement in drought has already been replaced by that of bad governance.

The monsoon factor has also altered the game of voter surveys and poll predictions. Most surveyors would now need to conduct fresh opinion polls in the new scenario. Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has been shown lagging behind his BJP chief ministerial candidate Vasundhara Raje in a recent opinion poll. Political observers feel this may change in favour of the Congress.

For now, both Gehlot and Raje are dismissive of electoral surveys. Gehlot called the latest survey “unreliable and inaccurate”. Raje was more reflective: “There is no replacement for hard work. More surveys would come, some even favourable and flattering. But that does not mean we would relax and stop working.”

Meanwhile, Gehlot has started consolidating his advantage. His latest move is to woo voters by opening recruitments, giving sops to teachers, filling the backlog of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) promotions, ensuring eight hours of power supply to rural areas and introducing a crop insurance scheme. Granting minority status to the Jain community was the latest in the series.



Madhya Pradesh : Populist measures

In Madhya Pradesh, Chief Minister Digvijay Singh has announced something to appeal to almost every segment: the majority community, OBCs (other backward classes), dalits (low caste people) and panchayats (local bodies) etc.

The minority agenda was a package of educational sops — scholarships for students in Classes 9 to 12 from Below Poverty Line minority families, a fund-a-madarsa scheme (Muslim religious schools), hostels, scholarships and stipends for minority students. But to keep his Hindu credentials clear, on August 11, Digvijay announced the cow as the state animal.

Having already done enough over the past few years to be sure of a good percentage of the Dalit vote, he has launched his initiative to wrest some of the OBC votebank from the BJP. On August 4, the Cabinet approved a Bill for raising reservation for OBCs from 14 to 27 per cent. On August 21, orders were issued for relaxing a ban on direct recruitment to fill some of these posts. And to ensure that the SC/ST vote bank did not feel miffed, a special recruitment drive to fill the backlog of SC/ST posts was extended till September 30.

If the BJP through the RSS has cadre right down to village-level, Digvijay has his panchayati raj (self-rule to local bodies). On Independence Day, public assets worth Rs 10,000 crore were transferred to gram sabhas (village bodies).

And on August 19, a rehabilitation package for “small sick industries” was announced. Among a host of concessions, it includes exemption from power cuts, suspension of power duties and waiving of minimum fee by MPSEB (Madhya Pradesh State Electricity Board) for the period of closure. And hoping to pick up seats in Bundelkhand, on August 8, the Cabinet decided a medical college would be established at Sagar. To ensure the CM’s own fortunes, the Cabinet on August 4 sanctioned a University of Higher Education in Engineering And Technology in Digvijay’s constituency of Raghogarh.

Chief Minister Digvijay is certainly in a hurry to do his bit for the electorate. It is to be seen how the BJP counters this offensive by the Congress Chief Ministers of two important states.



Delhi : Opinion poll, a morale booster for Congress

An in-house survey conducted recently has indicated that the Congress is likely to retain power in Delhi in the forthcoming Assembly elections. The party is expected to win 45 seats with a 49 per cent vote share while the BJP may get 23 seats and 39 per cent of the votes.

Political observers are of the opinion that though the Congress has an edge in the coming polls, the infighting, factionalism wrong ticket distribution and complacency could cost it dear and the rural population, which is unhappy with the regime, could upset the electoral calculations.

Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit is the leading contender for the CM’s post with 44 per cent voters pitching for her, while the BJP’s Madan Lal Khurana is way behind her with just 28 per cent votes.

The survey showed that 48 per cent of the respondents want the Congress government to continue while 40 per cent want a change. The 12 per cent undecided voters could however tilt the balance. The findings, given to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi recently, showed that about 72 per cent of the 7,300 voters in the sample dubbed the state government’s performance good/satisfactory. A little over one fourth rated the government’s performance as bad. To the party’s consternation this included farmers, upper castes and Punjabis.

Thus all in all, it appears that the Congress has the upper hand as this stand today. But elections to the state assemblies and the Lok Sabha are some time away. In Indian politics advantages could vanish as quickly as they come.

(For a more in depth analysis of the state elections and the Lok Sabha elections next year, read our Special Study on State elections 2003, Parliamentary elections 2004 : implications)