Poll-vaulting Ambitions

Successive bypoll victories spur the Congress on in Madhya Pradesh, even as fears of renewed infighting remain

- Deepak Tiwari

After being out of power for the past 15 years, the Congress seems to be bouncing back in Madhya Pradesh. It has won all four assembly byelections held in the state in the past one year—Ater and Chitrakoot last year, and Mungaoli and Kolaras this year.

The Congress is banking heavily on relatively young leaders to turn the tide in its favour in the BJP’s citadel. The winners of the bypolls are all below age 40, while state Congress president Arun Yadav is 42. Jyotiraditya Scindia, MP and the party’s probable chief minister candidate in the assembly polls due later this year, is 47.

The last Congress chief minister in the state was Digvijaya Singh, who is now 71. His 10-year rule, marked by bad roads and poor electricity supply, is remembered so unfavourably that the BJP rode on the spectre of a ‘return to the days of Digvijaya’ to win the previous three assembly polls. This time, though, both the parties will be trying to woo a new generation of voters who have little memory of the Congress rule.

Despite being out of power for so long, the Congress has been able to keep its support base largely intact. In the previous assembly elections, it won 37 per cent of votes, against the BJP’s 42. A major share of Congress votes came from dalits and tribals. The BJP, however, has been reaching out to tribals through the social work carried out by the Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad, an RSS affiliate.