Ruling party suffers defeat
Pivotal loss for Congress in nation’s biggest state bodes ill for heir to Nehru-gandhi dynasty
MUMBAI, INDIA— The governing Indian National Congress party and the Nehru-gandhi dynasty suffered a defeat Tuesday in a pivotal election in the country’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh, calling into question their political mandate at a time when the party and the family are already struggling to advance their agenda. Political analysts said the results in Uttar Pradesh and the four other states holding contests, just two years before national elections, would make it more difficult for Indian policy-makers to rally together to bolster a slowing economy and improve the performance of a government that has been under attack for corruption scandals and slow decision making. Instead, the outcome suggested that Indian politics probably would remain deeply divided along regional lines for the foreseeable fu- ture. Neither of the country’s two large national parties — the Congress and the opposition Bharatiya Janata — appeared to have won a clear mandate Tuesday. There were far bigger numbers for regional parties that voters thought would look after their interests better than parties run from New Delhi. In Uttar Pradesh, with a population of 200 million, the regional Samajwadi party was on track to win a majority in the legislature, dealing a stunning defeat to the incumbent party, another regional group led by a lower-caste politician, Mayawati, who was once seen as a potential prime minister. (She uses only one name.) The other big loser was Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the NehruGandhi family that has governed India through most of its independence. (He is the great-grandson of India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.) Gandhi, 41, had staked significant political capital on reviving the party in the state, which was a stronghold for Congress until the early 1990s. Political analysts said the Congress’s poor showing in Uttar Pradesh raised doubts about its ability to win re-election at the federal level in 2014, and about Gandhi’s prospects as a future prime minister. In New Delhi, Congress governs with the support of several regional parties, at least one of which has publicly threatened to withdraw its support over policy differences. “Congress needs more coalition partners to retain power in 2014,” said C. P. Bhambhri, a professor at of Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. “It will be difficult for Congress to repeat the 2009 election performance.”
Perhaps the only consolation for Congress is that Bharatiya Janata also performed poorly in state elections, especially in Uttar Pradesh, where it was running a distant third.
“It’s clearly a bad election for the Congress,” said Ashutosh Varshney, a Brown University political scientist.
Uttar Pradesh “was the biggest prize, but no one expected Congress to win,” Varshney said. “Congress improved its tally, but that was not enough.”
Rahul Gandhi had turned down offers to serve in India’s national cabinet, saying he wanted to focus on Uttar Pradesh. So Congress’s defeat there is a particularly significant setback for Gandhi, who said Tuesday that he accepted responsibility for the party’s poor showing.
Some analysts are already beginning to look past Gandhi to his younger sister, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, as a potential political heir.