Five states are set to go to the polls at the beginning of the next year, and these include Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Punjab. The Opposition is being very careful not to label the coming Uttar Pradesh elections as a semi-final because they are not very sure if they can wrest the state away from the ruling BJP.
The state chief minister Yogi Adityanath is in full election mode with the Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav emerging as his chief competitor. The Congress, despite Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s high-profile presence, is still to take off in the state.
However before one writes the Congress off, it is in a much better position in three of the other states that are also going to the polls— Uttarakhand, Goa, and Punjab. The farmers’ agitation against the central government will work against the BJP in both western UP and Punjab. In the former, it is the RLD that may benefit from the farmers’ fire but in Punjab that vote could have gone to the Congress. But, the party seems to have scored a series of self-goals with the infighting between the state CM Capt Amarinder Singh and the state PCC Chief Navjyot Singh Sidhu. This has seen the Congress ceding space (especially in the opinion polls) to the Aam Admi Party. If the Congress loses Punjab, then to a large extent, it has only itself to blame.
Ditto for Uttarakhand where its star campaigner and chief ministerial face Harish Rawat is too busy fighting fires in Punjab than managing the UP campaign. His latest Panj Pyare faux pas has shown, he is not as comfortable with all the political nuances of Punjab as he is in Uttarakhand. And this is the man that the Congress has chosen to firefight between the Captain and Sidhu. The deployment of Harish Rawat in Punjab instead of letting him focus on Uttarakhand exemplifies all that is wrong with the Congress strategy.
Speaking on the roundtable, suspended Congress leader Sanjay Jha commented that the Congress needs to focus on the low-hanging fruit instead of wasting its energies after unattainable goals. He said that the chase for the vote share was all very well but when the opposition is facing someone like Narendra Modi then it needs to pool its resources and let each ally focus on the winning seat. Hence, it makes sense to take Priyanka out of Uttar Pradesh (maybe the Congress can ally with the SP so as not to cut the anti-BJP vote, but Akhilesh Yadav is very wary of the Congress). Some even suggest that Priyanka would be better utilized in Punjab where she has some sway over at least one of the two warring leaders. Sidhu knows all too well he owes his elevation to the Gandhi siblings and only they can keep him in check.
This brings us to the Congress leadership issue. If the party feels it has a strong chance of winning in three of the five states then it may elevate Rahul Gandhi back as party chief before the polls. In the end, it’s the balance sheet that counts. However, what many fear is that the Gandhis would like to wait post the UP polls before elevating Rahul, because he may not want that loss on his record.
For whatever reason, the BJP does have a fight on its hands in the next round of polls and if the opposition gets its act together, then this may become a semi-final after all.
