TRIO TO THE TEST
Their fate in December could determine which way 2019 will go for the BJP and Congress
It IS BEING TOUTED as a trailer to the country’s biggest political show—the General Election, scheduled in the summer of 2019. The hype around polls in three Hindi heartland states—Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh—is certainly not misplaced. The results on December 11, barely six months before the Lok Sabha election, will determine the electoral confidence and future course of action of the two national parties— the Congress and BJP. Currently, the BJP is in power in all three states and holds 62 of their 65 Lok Sabha seats.
If the ruling party loses in more than one state, it will be forced to revisit its strategy for the Lok Sabha election. A decline in electoral goodwill in these states may cost the BJP dear, as the plan to explore the country’s eastern and southern horizon is still untested. But more than that, it will hand Congress president Rahul Gandhi victory—at last—and set his party on the road to revival.
The opposite result will add currency to modernday folklore about the charisma of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah’s unbeatable election machinery. It will also simultaneously dent the Congress’s prospects of a national revival and deflate its hopes of becoming the pivot around which a grand alliance against Modi can coalesce next year.
What makes these polls fascinating is that the two national parties are in direct contest. The last such duel happened in December 2017 in ModiShah’s home state Gujarat. The battle there went down to the wire. The Congress failed to counter the BJP’s fiveterm antiincumbency, but reduced its tally to under 100 in the 182member house.
Antiincumbency is again the buzzword in the pollbound states, which will decide the fate of three chief ministers—Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan, Shivraj Singh Chouhan in MP and Raman Singh in Chhattisgarh. Antiincumbency is a particular threat to Raje—also the only CM in the trio who has not gained consecutive terms so far. Rajasthan has a history of alternating parties in power.
In Chhattisgarh, Singh, in power since 2003, faces a leaderless Congress, though the narrow victory margins of the past will be a concern for the BJP. However, results here won’t worry the central leadership of the two parties as it sends only 11 members to the Lok Sabha. So the spotlight will remain on Chouhan, who’s hoping to get elected for a fourth consecutive term.
One of the strongest and most popular leaders of the BJP to emerge from the states, the ‘Mama of Madhya Pradesh’, as he is known, faces the toughest test of his political career. A divided Congress may make things easier for Chouhan, though desperate lastminute political announcements indicate a sense of nervousness in the BJP veteran, whom Modi is said to have coldshouldered several times.
Yet, like his two counterparts, Chouhan too will rely on Modi’s campaign presence, which has changed electoral outcomes elsewhere. That the prime minister will be standing between victory and defeat is evident from the fact that Rahul has in his rallies attacked Modi and his policies and barely pointed his gun at incumbent chief ministers. That’s why December 11 will also be a referendum of sorts on the invincibility of Narendra Modi.