Rasheed Kidwai

Senior journalist & author

The day Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati announced that there was no alliance with the Congress in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, Congress president Rahul Gandhi had summoned MPCC chief Kamal Nath to his 12, Tughlaq Crescent residence. Nath had gone braced with a list of likely candidates with 22 seats left for the BSP in Madhya Pradesh. As the discussions progressed, three poll surveys were presented, giving the Congress a clear majority in the central Indian state. Two hours later, Mayawati went ahead with her “no trucks” with the Congress announcement.

No mahagathbandhan

Nath, the longest serving parliamentarian in the 16th Lok Sabha, reportedly argued that there was no history of alliance politics in Madhya Pradesh. Moreover, the idea of a grand alliance or mahagathbandhan was never proposed for Madhya Pradesh or the other four poll-bound states. In response, Rahul is said to have favoured the "winner-takes-it-all" approach towards Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. The party president is of the view that unless the Congress wins MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh on its own strength, the 2019 Lok Sabha contest would end up as a one-horse race.

Barely a week later, the ABP News-C Voter survey showed the Rahul-Nath assessment as being on the right track. The survey predicted that in the 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections, the Congress would get a majority with 122 seats, the ruling BJP 108 seats, and the "others" no seat.

The projection of the "others" (the BSP, SP and Gondwana party) drawing a blank in the November 28, 2018 contest by a professional pollster is significant on many counts. The BSP, SP and Gondwana may be having 16.3 per cent of the votes, but they are not known to win seats. The only time the SP did well in Madhya Pradesh by winning seven seats, was in 2003 when the Congress, after 10 years of the Digvijaya Singh rule, had collapsed badly. As things stand today, the ABP-C Voter survey predicts the Congress getting 42.2 per cent votes against the BJP's 41.5 per cent.

Poll outcome crucial for Cong

For the Congress, the outcome of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh elections is crucial just not in terms of victory but also its survival. A cursory look at the political map of the country explains the grand old party's concern. The Congress has negligible strength in such big states as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Bengal and Tamil Nadu. It is pushed into coalition politics in other significant states like Karnataka and Maharashtra, while losing its political relevance in Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Odisha and some north-eastern stares.

A victory in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh will, therefore, not only boost the morale of a beleaguered Rahul but also showcase the party as one being capable of taking on Narendra Modi and being a national alternative to the BJP.

The Congress-BSP ties need to be viewed more minutely. During the 2017 Punjab state assembly polls, the BSP had informally wanted to forge an alliance with the Congress, but Capt Amarinder Singh showed scant regard for it and convinced Rahul that the Congress alone was capable of winning Punjab. Amarinder's instincts proved right. Now it remains to be seen if Kamal Nath's assessment would be accurate, too.

Maya infuriated

Behind the scenes, there were many events in Madhya Pradesh that reportedly infuriated Mayawati. The Congress made Devashish Jarariya, a young and promising BSP spokesman, switch sides. Jarariya, a lawyer from Gwalior, was a regular BSP representative on leading TV news channels, but he crossed over to the Congress without informing Mayawati. Out of the four BSP MLAs in the outgoing Madhya Pradesh Assembly, two are said to be in touch with the Congress. Mayawati is not known to tolerate defections from her party to other friendly parties.

The Congress gameplan in Madhya Pradesh is simple. It is counting on the voters' wrath against Shivraj Singh Chouhan and the 15-year rule of the BJP. It wants to pitch itself as the sole alternative. There is a huge upsurge of upper castes voters in favour of the Congress over amendments in the SC-ST (Atrocities) Act passed by Parliament recently.

The Congress managers were clear-headed that an alliance with the BSP may have forced a rethink among angry Rajputs and Brahmins, who are influential opinion-makers too. The farmers' disquiet against the Chouhan regime has been brewing for two years. In addition, Vyapam, the multi-crore jobs and professional exams scam, is fresh in the memory of first-time and other young voters.

The Congress in Madhya Pradesh is a vibrant organisation with regional satraps like Jyotiraditya Scindia, Digvijaya Singh, Nath, Suresh Pachauri, Satyavrat Chaturvedi, Ajay Singh and others calling the shots in their respective areas of influence. If the party cannot win on the basis of anti-incumbency and inhouse talent, there is no way that it would win riding on BSP-SP-Gondwana crutches. That explains the Rahul-Nath’s winner-takes-it-all approach.