Manifesto For Change

A Concerted Push and Anti-incumbency Get the Congress a Victory Beyond Expectations. But Now It Has Some Tall Poll Promises to Keep

- Rahul Noronha

Ever so often, a film with relatively untested actors but a strong script humbles a release featuring the reigning superstar. It wasn’t a Friday in Chhattisgarh when the assembly results came out, but the Congress, led by state-level leaders, trumped Raman Singh, the BJP’s longest-serving chief minister.

In the most decisive mandate delivered in the history of the 18-year-old state, the Congress swept the BJP out of power and did so without Ajit Jogi, its former chief minister or any leader with a significant mass base. So, how did the Congress script this emphatic victory?

First, a flashback to January 2016. Ajit Jogi’s son Amit, a Congress MLA, is expelled from the party after an incriminating tape surfaces in which he is heard allegedly ‘fixing’ a bypoll in 2014. Pradesh Congress Committee chief Bhupesh Baghel, a known Jogi-baiter and one of the two architects of this Congress win, acts swiftly against Amit, forcing his father too to leave the party. Baghel tells the central leadership that he was involved in sabotaging the prospects of several party candidates in 2008 and 2013 resulting in their defeat by small margins. He says the party is better off without Jogi. Rahul Gandhi, then the party vice-president, believes him.