Caste to welfare, flat for Congress all cards fall in heartland

BHARAT JODO YATRA MAY HAVE HELPED THE CONG CONSOLIDATE ITS VOTES IN SOUTH, BUT IT FAILED TO TRANSLATE INTO EXTRA VOTES IN NORTH INDIA

- Saubhadra Chatterji

Sunil Singh is jubilant. The Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Jharkhand was a district in-charge for the party in Chhattisgarh, where it won comfortably. He points to two schemes launched by outgoing Congress chief minister Bhupesh Baghel, Ram Van Gaman Path and Godhan Nyay Yojana, the first a tourism circuit retracing Lord Ram's path through the state, and the second, a cow protection plus organic farming plan. Both were tuned to appeal to Hindu sentiments, which Singh finds strange. "When the original shop of Hindutva is with us, why would people go to their fake shop?"

It wasn't just Chhattisgarh -the Congress's Kamal Nath tried to leverage soft Hindutva for electoral gains in Madhya Pradesh, where party was routed and it wasn't just Hindutva. Across the three Hindi heartland states where election results were declared on Sunday, the Congress's dismal performance was the result of multiple factors.

At one level, on issues such as Hindutva and welfare, the Congress found itself being outdone by the BJP.

At another, neither its election machinery, nor its own attempt at social engineering paid offand once again, on both, the BJP did better.

And at still another, the Congress's inability to effect a generational change in leadership in two of the three states (Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan), contrasted poorly with the BJP's hard call of not announcing chief ministerial candidates in all three heartland states, one with an incumbent chief minister from the party and two with seemingly obvious candidates in former chief ministers.

It was almost as if Murphy of the famed law had written Sunday's script.

The only silver lining for the party was Telangana, where strong (and new) local leadership, an effective election management plan crafted by strategist Sunil Kanugolu, and anti-incumbency against the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi came together in a sweeping win.

Leadership, national and local