In a one-on-one fight with the BJP in its strongholds, the Congress on Tuesday won Chhattisgarh, was within striking distance of government formation in Rajasthan and was wrestling with a thin lead in a cliffhanger of a contest in Madhya Pradesh till results last came in.
In Telangana, the ruling Telangana Rashtriya Samithi (TRS) was comfortably home with 87 seats in the 119-member assembly, while the Mizo National Front (MNF) defeated the Congress in Mizoram with 26 seats in the 40-member State assembly.
The Congress got a clear majority in Chhattisgarh with 68 out of 90 seats; it was straining towards the half-way mark in Madhya Pradesh with 113 seats with the BJP close behind on 110 seats in the 230-member House.
In Rajasthan, trends and results till 9 pm showed the Congress just one short of the majority mark in the 199 seats for which elections were held. The BJP had dropped to 73 seats. With the CPI(M)’s two seats in the state, the Congress seems set to form the government.
While the final seat share was still being tabulated, it was clear that the Congress had made substantial gains in the three politically crucial Hindi heartland states, which account for 65 seats in the Lok Sabha. The BJP, which had won 62 of these 65 seats in the 2014 general elections, has lost substantial ground.
In Chhattisgarh, there was an 8.04-percentage-point vote share swing away from the BJP from the 2013 election — from 41.04 per cent, its share went down to 33 per cent. The Congress’s vote share increased by 2.52 percentage points from the 2013 assembly election, when it secured 40.29 per cent to 42.9 per cent of the vote.
Similarly in Rajasthan, where the BJP had secured 45.2 per cent of the vote share in the 2013 Assembly polls, its vote share dropped by 6.4 percentage points to 38.8 per cent, whereas the Congress’s share rose by 6.1 percentage points to 39.2 per cent in 2018. In Madhya Pradesh, the BJP has lost 3.8 percentage points of the vote.
‘Farmers, youth, poor’
A smiling Rahul Gandhi appeared late in the evening to credit his party’s much-improved performance in the three Hindi heartland states to “the farmers, young people and the poor”, whose issues, he said, would frame the vision for the Congress in the run-up to the 2019 general elections.
“It’s possibly counter-intuitive but I have a lot to thank Mr Narendra Modi for. It is in our defeat in 2014 and witnessing him squandering the great opportunity he got that I have learnt my lessons in humility and listening to the heartbeat of India,” said Gandhi.
The Congress President asserted that once his party assumes power in the three States, his first promise of a loan waiver for farmers would be fulfilled. He carefully laid out the outlines of the party’s approach to the next general elections in addressing issues of agricultural and general economic distress. “It is the farmer, the youth and joblessness, corruption and economy that will top our agenda,” he said.
Gandhi had clearly gained currency with regional parties, and even some NDA allies such as the Shiv Sena. “The courage of the voters has shown the country the way forward,” said Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted that “BJP ki ulti ginti shuru ho gai hai (the countdown has begun for the BJP’s defeat).”
Opposition leaders, including West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, DMK leader MK Stalin, Janata Dal (Secular) supremo HD Deve Gowda congratulated the Congress.
The Samajwadi Party (SP), which did not attend a joint opposition meeting of 21 parties on Monday and fought the assembly elections separately, committed its support to the Congress in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.