UP POLLS: Between anticipation and anxiety
The last ballot has been cast and the nation eagerly awaits the results of Poll Drama 2017, to be announced at the awards ceremony on March 11. The nominees for Best Campaign Artiste are many: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal. Likewise, there's a long line-up for Best Campaign Director, although the frontrunner is the redoubtable BJP chief, Amit Shah.
But the Best Disappearing Act in Assembly 2017 award can only go to Priyanka Gandhi or Prashant Kishor. Which leads to the question: what was the Congress thinking? Given the high stakes involved in the elections, the grand old party's campaign was peculiarly uneven, to say the least. It began on a high note by drafting Kishor, the legendary election strategist, who was to script the party's campaigns for all the elections, from 2017 to 2019.
Kishor meandered from Punjab to UP to Uttarakhand with his team of I-PAC (Indian Political Action Committee) activists, a shadowy presence credited with all manner of Machiavellian strategems to ensure a Congress victory in each state. Numbers were crunched, lists drawn up, questionnaires sent to prospective candidates and an army of volunteers recruited. Mission Kishor generated a buzz, admittedly more in the airwaves than on the ground. A veritable Scarlet Pimpernel, the elusive Kishor was sought here and there and everywhere.
Two-thirds of the way through the campaign, he disappeared. Three months before polling, media headlines began tracking the “Unravelling of Prashant Kishor”, speculating on “Why the Congress and Prashant Kishor are headed for a breakup” and finally declared “Congress dumps Prashant Kishor”. Some blamed the Congress Old Guard's distrust of the young public health professional's new-fangled schemes; Rita Bahuguna Joshi, skipping deftly from Congress to BJP, exposed the internal rift over Kishor by saying he could be a poll manager but not a “director”.
Others said Priyanka Gandhi's refusal to head the UP campaign led to a falling out. Congressmen had high expectations of their charismatic Princess; she alone could give the indefatigable Narendra Modi a run for his money. Her stellar role in structuring the alliance between SP and Congress stoked rumours of a Priyanka juggernaut rolling out of Lodi Estate to flatten the opposition. Alas, Priyanka proved even more shy than before and her blink-and-you-miss-it peformance did not even qualify as Supporting Campaign Artiste. The question of “Modi versus Who?” remained unanswered.
After all the hype, she barely showed up in the campaign at all, even in the family burroughs. Her mother, too, was nowhere on the scene, leaving the heavy work to the least charismatic member of the Gandhi family. When the Congress proposes to unleash its brahmastra remains a conundrum for all except the denizens of 10, Janpath. Perhaps she will be seen in a leading role in Gujarat later this year, in the avatar of avenging goddess bearding the two bearded gentlemen in their den. Or perhaps she will headline in 2019, when Modi seeks to script a sequel to NDA II.
She was very much involved in backroom operations. Each Congress candidate in UP received two or three personal phone calls in the course of the campaign, asking if all was well and whether any assistance was required from the central leadership. There's also little doubt that her bonhomie with UP CM Akhilesh Yadav helped script the alliance. Granted, the much-hoped for Bihar-style mahagathbandhan did not materialise but it was an excellent twist in the UP plot. Alas, the execution was poor, with a hastily put-together script resulting in a haphazard allocation of seats.
The best that can be said of the Akhilesh-Rahul jugalbandi is that it managed to keep the PM pinned to UP in the last leg of the campaign. In Uttarakhand, the burden of the campaign was left to incumbent CM Harish Rawat, which served the party well until Modi showed up. His four spectacular appearances, Congressmen admit, tipped the teetering scales BJP-wards. This, despite the fact that the BJP does not have a chief ministerial face (or perhaps it has too many). The Congress was once again left floundering for an answer to Modi.
By contrast, Modi's two rallies in Punjab did not have much impact, but the BJP has no stakes in the state in any case. Here, the Congress wisely left the campaigning to Captain Amarinder Singh (in the running for Best Supporting Campaign Artiste).
As the moment of truth approaches, the nominees are jittery but excited, caught between anticipation and anxiety. Cold feet cloaked in bravado, querulously throwing reptilian and bovine epithets at each other, they prepare to read their future in the constellation of numbers spit out from polling booths on March 11. Win or lose, the pressure on Priyanka to appear front and centre may now become too insistent to ignore.
SONIA was nowhere on the scene, leaving the heavy work to the least charismatic member of the Gandhi family. When the Congress proposes to unleash its brahmastra remains a conundrum for all except the denizens of 10, Janpath. Perhaps she will be seen in a leading role in Gujarat later this year, in the avatar of avenging goddess bearding the two bearded gentlemen in their den. Or perhaps she will headline in 2019, when Modi seeks to script a sequel to NDA II.