In Gujarat polls, Congress up for the worst electoral defeat in history

Hitherto, the worst electoral performance of the Congress in Gujarat has been in the 1990 Assembly election, wherein the party got mere 33 seats and 30.74 per cent vote share. With dwindling electoral resonance among the voters, the party may breach this score further on both counts in the ensuing election. Also, as per our study, the grand old party may slide to third position on around 50 assembly seats, predominantly in southern and eastern regions, signifying another low.

This decadent state of the party seems ironical. While a section of national media and political commentators are offering conjectures about the revival of the Congress on account of Rahul Gandhi-led ongoing ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, the committed Congress voters in Gujarat are not even taking the cognisance of the same. Rather, they express a deep sense of disillusionment with the party for taking politics and the role of opposition extremely casually.

On the question of leadership, the average Congress voters’ sense of relatedness stops with the local leadership, with no resonance with the regional or national counterparts. In sum, Gujarat rejects Congress again; the party voters reject Rahul Gandhi.

Seen in the backdrop of 2017 election, when he led an intense Congress campaign, this loss of image among the core voters seems colossal.

Seen from the ground, the desertion of Congress voters has a region and community specific story. While the party seems to retain its base in the northern part and faces relatively slow rate of decline in the Saurashtra region, in the Central, Southern and Tribal region, it stares at a near wipe out.

In particular, the decline in the party in the Tribal region, which has been its old bastion, is a devastating blow as it shatters Congress’ national leader’s normative aspiration to emerge as the votary of the lowest strata of the society, an image gesture continuously seen in the social media posts related to ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’.

Further, the story of desertion of the weakest section from the Gujarat Congress continues if we analyse their shrinking support base in terms of the caste and communities. While the dominant Patidar community has been hostile to the party in the post-KHAM period, since mid-1980s, their traditional support base like Kolis, Ahirs and other OBCs in the Saurashtra region, Thakors (OBC Kshatriya), Darbars (upper caste Kashtriyas), Maldhari castes like Rabaris, Bharwars (all OBCs) in Northern, Central and Southern region, are veering away from the party in significant numbers.

At present, the communities’ political self-identification has moved from being Congress supporters to being open-minded about the political parties wherein the caste profile of the candidate would overwhelmingly determine their electoral support.

However, it is among the Dalits, Tribals and the Muslims, the three committed segments of Congress base, wherein the party faces the most intense decline. This saga of decline is perplexing as these segments have been with the Congress even in the last 27 years.

Further, economically being at the margins, these communities should have further mobilised behind the Congress as inflation is a tangible issue this time and anti-BJP civil-society which has given their full blown support to the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, is leaving no stone unturned to translate the economic precarity of these subaltern communities into anti-BJP vote. Yet, there seems few takers for the grand old party among the social margins.

The running thread behind the desertion of the traditional voters remain the same: an immense lack of trust in the intent and conduct of the leadership and the party. To the majority of its traditional voters, the party has acquired a Bikau (sellable) image in the backdrop of a significant number of Congress MLAs who won on party ticket in 2017 joining the BJP. This has played into two ways. To a significant section of voters who revealed to move to the BJP from the Congress, a common justification has been on this plank, that is, if the Congress MLAs would end up joining the BJP, why not vote for the BJP directly. This is true more about the OBC castes.

On the other hand, a vast majority of the Dalits and Tribals and a significant section of the Muslims, particular the youths are leaving the Congress for new entrants in the states like the AAP and justifying the same on the emerging trust-crisis afflicting the Congress.

In this backdrop, the state of Gujarat Congress signifies Canadian author, Merle Shain quote, “Whether the melon falls on the knife or the knife falls on the melon, it’s the melon that suffers.” The sentiment on the sad state of Congress affair was captured in the remarks of a local party worker at Anand district who quipped in Hindi, “Congress Lagatar Harti Hai Kyunki Humare Paas Na to Neta Hai Na Netagiri (Congress loses as we have neither the leader nor the leading temperament).”

Sajjan Kumar is associated with PRACCIS, a Delhi based research institution.

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