3:0 BUT STILL DILLI DOOR AST

Markets understand politics better than most political pundits. Tuesday’s outcome of the State polls, — with the BJP not doing as badly as feared, and the Congress not doing as well as expected — has firmed up the belief of market men that Modi very much remains in contention for a second straight five-year term in the parliamentary polls six months from now. Discounting poll uncertainty, and even the resignation of Urjit Patel from the RBI, Sensex and Nifty both registered gains on Tuesday. Market men from Tuesday’s results might have deduced that though the Congress has gained from a strong anti-incumbency, Modi’s BJP has not been humiliated. The party, which lost Chhattisgarh rather badly, but kept its head high both in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, cannot be written off for the coming parliamentary battle. That belief was further bolstered by the surprisingly good show put up by Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan. She defied the general pre-poll consensus that she was headed for a huge pasting. Instead, she has done fairly well, winning over 70 seats in a fiercely contested election which barely gave the Congress a simple majority. In 2013, the BJP had cleaned the slate, winning 163 seats to the Congress’s 21. Raje’s performance in Rajasthan was more than matched by Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Madhya Pradesh. Though both the BJP and the Congress polled a little over 41 percent of the popular vote, the Congress had inched forward in the number of seats. Fifteen years of uninterrupted rule by the BJP in both Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh had accumulated a lot of grievances which were bound to be reflected in the election outcome. Chouhan, like Raje in Rajasthan, has further strengthened his position in the State BJP. It is Raman Singh in Chhattisgarh who might have to make way for a new leader after his near-total rejection by the voters. The low-key challenger from the Congress Party, Bhupesh Baghel, replicated the BJP’s organizational model to beat the latter at its own game. His election as the next chief minister of Chhattisgarh is assured. But it is not clear as to who will lead the Congress in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Without doubt, the common wisdom is that had Rahul Gandhi not persisted with twin leaders, Sachin Pilot and Ashok Gehlot, and instead given the charge to the latter, the Congress could have done much better. In Madhya Pradesh too, there are two chief ministerial aspirants. Jyotiraditya Scindia and Kamal Nath will lay claim but Nath might get the nod from the party chief on the ground that at 70-plus it might be his last chance whereas the 47-year-old Scindia can look forward many more assembly elections. Of course, Rahul Gandhi can interpret the outcome as his own personal endorsement, but this will be slightly offthe-mark. His party benefited hugely from anti-incumbency, though his dedicated fan club will sing hallelujahs to him louder and longer. The 3:0 result in favour of Congress in the Hindi heartland if not read correctly can delude the party into believing that it has all but won back power at the Centre. It will do well to keep in mind the old Urdu adage: Abhi dilli door ast.

In Telangana, contrary to reports on the eve of the polling, K Chandrashekhar Rao’s Telengana Rashtriya Samithi, has won a huge victory, decimating the Congress-Telugu Desam Party combine. In Mizoram, the Mizo National Front soundly defeated the Congress to form the next government.

Of course, like the tale of the blind men and an elephant, each party will read the results from its own perspective. But from the overall national perspective, it is clear that Modi’s position as the tallest leader remains undiminished. The Opposition parties have to shed mutual antipathies to work together. Paradoxically, Congress’s relative good showing might have made the prospects of a Mahagathbanbdhan further difficult. It is because regional leaders would still be reluctant to recognize Rahul as their prime ministerial candidate. As for the BJP, it is time it realised that ordinary voters are concerned about rotikapda and makan rather than this nonsense about namechanging and revival of the Mandir row. Good governance alone can bolster the party’s claim for a second successive term at the Centre. Cow vigilantism should be left to the latest janeu-dhari convert to the cow politics.