How Congress faltered in Madhya Pradesh despite respectable vote share

Rahul Gandhi’s focus on OBCs alienated tribal areas, while Chouhan’s “double engine” government and sops swayed a significant share of voters.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan being garlanded by supporters during his visit to Raghogarh on December 8. | Photo Credit: PTI

The run-up to the election in Madhya Pradesh witnessed a cross-section of election pundits proclaiming an easy rebound for the Congress. Even Kamal Nath, the party’s chief ministerial candidate, exuded the optimism of an executive-in-waiting in public meetings and interviews, at times assailing political opponents in an out-of-character acerbic tone. He called Shivraj Singh Chouhan an “actor”, Jyotiraditya Scindia a “traitor”, and, as Congress insiders confirm, vetoed ceding even four seats to the Samajwadi Party, the Congress’ partner in the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA).

The widespread consensus over a Congress comeback was built on three main arguments: First, as a four-time Chief Minister who had been in power for nearly two decades, Shivraj Singh Chouhan looked like a jaded leader, and his ability to offer the electorate a new vision was hindered by the factionalism within his party. The BJP leadership’s reluctance to hedge its bets on him compounded the limitations of his appeal.

Second, with the Congress offering the people bigger blandishments, there was valid cynicism surrounding the import of Chouhan’s economic populism. Third, the BJP’s double drubbing in Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh had cast doubts on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s capacity to animate rural audiences.

In for a shock

But, on December 3, when the ballots were counted, the Congress was in for a shock. Against the BJP’s massive tally of 163 in an Assembly of 230, the Congress bagged only 66 seats. This was an outcome nobody had imagined, and the same election pundits are rushing to examine the causes of this setback. Expectedly, many have converged on the argument that Rahul Gandhi lacks acceptance in the Hindi heartland. This narrative partly stems from the heavily pro-BJP media’s resolve to not let Gandhi leave behind the caricature that years of BJP campaign have invented for him so that it precludes his emergence as a challenger to Modi.

But the voting percentages give a different picture. In Madhya Pradesh, which saw Chouhan transition his image from a moderate politician to a Hindutva hawk and Modi carpet-bomb the electoral landscape with his “guarantees”, the BJP has managed nothing remotely close to the nearly 25 percentage points lead over the Congress that it registered in the 2019 general election (the BJP polled 58 per cent against the Congress’ 34.5 per cent).

Chouhan dancing with tribal people during his campaign ahead of the State Assembly election, at Dhulkot village in Burhanpur district, on October 28.  

In terms of seat share, the Congress is far behind the BJP, but in terms of vote share, it polled a respectable 40.45 per cent against the BJP’s 48.62 per cent. This is not an insuperable gap, and it certainly does not suggest that voters are spurning the Congress because of any negativity surrounding Rahul Gandhi.

In the 2018 Assembly election in Madhya Pradesh, the BJP and the Congress were neck and neck with 41.02 per cent and 40.89 per cent vote share, respectively. The Congress had managed to cross the 40 per cent threshold again after dwindling to 34.5 per cent in the 2019 Lok Sabha election that was held in the impassioned atmosphere following the Pulwama attack.

A disinterested reading of the election outcome will require acknowledging that there were, to begin with, equal numbers of endorsers of the Congress’ and the BJP’ politics, or of Rahul Gandhi’s and Narendra Modi’s leadership, if one must model the election as a prelude to 2024. But as the electioneering progressed, Modi and the BJP were able to create an undercurrent for it, attracting the 6 to 8 per cent of fence-sitter voters, which Rahul and his Congress could not.

Here is where Rahul faltered. His decision to make the demand for a caste census, a handout from the socialist parties of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the fulcrum of his politics, was perhaps the biggest misfire. It was the force-feeding of a half-baked, ill-strategised election theme and not distrust in his leadership per se that played a part in the trickle of voters towards the BJP. The increasing alienation of tribal voters from the Congress and their crossover to the BJP upholds that observation.

In borrowing the caste card from regional satraps of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, Rahul failed to factor in the point that the rest of India was not Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. And to play it with an entirely different electorate, which does not share the two States’ history of aggressive caste-based political mobilisation, comes across as a desperate political bid to stay relevant.

Although the Congress campaign was an attractive cocktail of loan waiver assurance to farmers, assurances of pro-poor doles, hard-hitting messages against corruption, and just the right mix of religious exhortation, the constant harping on the caste census plank meant that these were no longer the sharpest, most powerful elements of their electioneering.

Kamal Nath held out the promise of 11 sops. A monthly incentive of Rs.1,500 for women, LPG cylinders at Rs.500, free electricity up to 100 units, restoration of the old pension scheme for government employees, and 27 per cent reservation in educational institutions and government jobs for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) were the chief among them.

For farmers, Nath envisaged an ambitious “Krishak Nyay Yojana”. It promised 37 lakh farmers free power for agriculture pumpsets with a capacity of up to 5 horsepower, the withdrawal of “unjustified” police cases against farmers who participated in various agitations, rebates in power consumption for agricultural purposes, and continuation of the loan waiver scheme. In his public meetings, he called Chouhan’s government “anti-farmer” and repeatedly reminded voters that “under BJP rule, as many as 20,489 farmers have died by suicide”.

But clearly, farmers did not warm up to him. Interactions with a cross section of farmers reveal that what worked for the Congress in 2018 was the spectre of the Mandsaur police firing of 2017 in which five farmers were killed, generating widespread resentment against the Chouhan regime. The Congress’ loan waiver promise also acted as a magnet.

Highlights

• Against the BJP’s massive tally of 163 in an Assembly of 230, the Congress bagged only 66 seats. This was an outcome nobody had imagined, and election pundits are rushing to examine the causes of this setback.
• Rahul Gandhi’s OBC focus, which alienated tribal areas, and obsession with a caste census proved fatal are widely believed to be the reasons for the Congress’ poor showing.
• The BJP’s strong outcome is also being attributed to Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s astute social engineering and his economic populism.

Chouhan’s damage control

This time, Chouhan managed meticulous damage control by distributing incentives to farmers and by having his rank and file circulate a notion that the Kamal Nath government, which was in power between December 2018 and March 2020, had reneged on the loan-waiver promise. In the 66 seats of the farmer-dominated Malwa-Nimar region, the BJP upped its tally to 47 from 28 in 2018.

This reporter had correctly predicted the Congress’ reversal of fortunes in the farmer belts: “However, it is uncertain whether farmers will vote as decisively for the Congress this time as they did in 2018, reducing the BJP’s tally in the Malwa-Nimar farm belts (which has 66 seats) to 28 from 56 in 2013” (“In Madhya Pradesh, a tight contest between BJP and Congress”, Frontline, published online on November 17).

Another major factor that impeded a Congress victory was tribal people’s desertion of the party, which several political observers attributed to Rahul’s obsessive pandering of the OBCs, taking the focus off the Congress’ tribal outreach and assurances of economic welfarism for all.

In Madhya Pradesh’s 47 constituencies reserved for Scheduled Tribes, the BJP won 27. In fact, the BJP won 50 of the total 82 seats reserved for the Scheduled Castes and the STs, against 33 in 2018. The shift of the tribal votes also explains the BJP’s good showing in the Mahakoushal and Malwa-Nimar regions, where tribal people are present in significant numbers.

The BJP had stressed better representation of tribal people, reminding voters of the appointment of the first-ever tribal President, besides several tribal Cabinet members. The BJP also took a tough stance against religious conversion and harnessed the nationalistic tribal identity by felicitating tribal freedom fighters.

Kamal Nath, Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee president, with Digvijaya Singh and others at a review meeting in Bhopal, on December 5. An arrogant Nath vetoed ceding even four seats to the Samajwadi Party.   | Photo Credit: PTI

The Congress is at a complete loss about what went wrong. Abbas Hafeez Khan, its spokesperson, told Frontline that the party has summoned all its 230 candidates to Bhopal to dissect the election loss, though there seems to be little realisation that its overt OBC pitch is a non-starter.

When quizzed about this, Khan reiterated that this was a cause that is “ideological” rather than “political” for the party. “The demand for a caste census stems from our old commitment to espouse the cause of the underprivileged. We will continue to raise our voice for the farmers, tribals, women, and other disadavantaged lot,” Khan said over the phone from Bhopal.

Astute social engineering

The BJP’s good showing is also being attributed to Chouhan’s astute social engineering and his economic populism. Chouhan himself attributed the BJP’s stellar performance to the “double engine” government helmed by the party at the State and in the Centre. “The work done by the double-engine government, whether in the Centre or the State, such as the Ladli scheme, has helped uplift people and improve their lives,” he told mediapersons in Bhopal.

In the run-up to the election, Chouhan increased the incentive under his flagship Ladli Behna scheme from Rs.1,000 to Rs.1,250 a month and promised to raise it to Rs.3,000 if re-elected. He also announced that beneficiaries of the Prime Minister’s Ujjwala Yojana and the Chief Minister’s Ladli Behna Yojana would receive one LPG refill at Rs.450 every month.

In its November 17 online report, Frontline had downplayed predictions of the Congress’ facile victory, cautioning that “rural rage seems to be somewhat assuaged, as Chouhan is already doling out the sops, whereas Kamal Nath’s assurances are, as a college student from Bhopal described it, a promissory note.”

Jyotiraditya Scindia’s departure also proved costly for the Congress, as it suffered significant reverses in his pocket borough, the Gwalior-Chambal region, which it swept in 2018. Its tally in the 34 seats in the region came down to 16 from 26 in 2018.

As 2024 draws near, it will be an uphill task for the Congress to set the narrative in the Hindi heartland, although its over 40 per cent vote share underlines that all is not lost.