Congress may be tops but BJP will fight for the last vote

AM Jigeesh The Congress may have come out on top in the five assembly polls but the BJP’s major push back, especially in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, where it was battling anti-incumbency and rural distress, has also exposed the Congress’ inherent organisational weaknesses, lack of resources and poor last-mile connectivity.

The Congress failed to make the most of an anti-incumbency wave against the BJP in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, but in Chhattisgarh, where the grand old party had a good number of leaders connected to the ground, it got a convincing victory.

The credit for protecting the BJP’s base goes to the RSS machinery that worked overtime to counter the campaign of the Congress highlighting the problems in governance, particularly in the rural sector. In States like Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, where more than 80 per cent of the people are associated with agriculture or allied works, the high-pitch campaign of the Opposition gained a lot of traction.

In Rajasthan, party president Madanlal Saini told

BusinessLine in an interview that no party in the world is as strong as the BJP at the level of polling booths. He said his opponents do not have workers and leaders at the booth level. The results prove that organisational problems of the Congress are a reason why it could not get as many seats as projected by pollsters.

The “communalisation” of the Congress’ traditional vote base of Dalits and tribals can also be seen as a reason for the anti-incumbency not getting translated into votes. The BJP-Sangh Parivar had constituted 21-member booth committees and the members of it met at least 10 households each during the campaign.

RSS support

The RSS members went to the voters and engaged them with conversations that countered the Opposition’s charges. The Congress has been alleging that the process of polarising the electorate on communal lines has gained much momentum in the last five years of the Vasundhara Raje regime in Rajasthan. But it was unable to pursue this line of campaign, as it did not have people on the ground.

However, the result is a clear warning signal for the BJP. Doing away with the MGNREGS, the burgeoning problems of the farmers, and unemployment and rural distress have alienated people from the party even in its strongholds. Though the BJP used the last-minute campaigning by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to form a counter narrative to the Opposition’s charges, the results show that it did not have a desired impact on the people.