In the election trends so far, the Congress is ahead in Chhattisgarh & Rajasthan, with MP posing a ‘takkar ka chunav’ with BJP.
New Delhi: As early trends of the five-state assembly election results pour in, the Congress seems set to snatch Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), while Madhya Pradesh continues to be the “takkar ka chunaav (tough battle)” it was expected to be.
Meanwhile, the ruling Telangana Rashtriya Samithi (TRS) has taken a comfortable lead in Telangana, and the Congress might lose its only remaining state in the Northeast, Mizoram, with the Mizo National Front (MNF) ahead.
The BJP is a three-term incumbent in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, with a five-year rule in Rajasthan.
For the battered Congress, which has been at its electoral lowest since 2014, a victory in at least two key Hindi heartland states would come as a breather.
This, despite the bitter breakdown of alliance talks with Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which was expected to dent the Congress, mainly in Chhattisgarh.
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The biggest upset
For the BJP, hanging on to Madhya Pradesh now becomes imperative to maintain a semblance of winnability.
Farmer anger as well as a business community disappointed with policy decisions such as demonetisation and the goods and services tax (GST) rollout have been dampeners for the BJP.
For the Congress, the absence of a clear, declared CM face has meant the voter has remained a little unsure.
The BJP was facing its toughest challenge in Rajasthan, with Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje’s massive unpopularity, but with the current trends, it is Chhattisgarh that seems likely to be the biggest upset.
In Rajasthan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s last-minute carpet-bombing may have helped the BJP cover the margin to an extent, especially given the embarrassing defeats it faced in bypolls in the state earlier this year.
Telangana seems to be clearly going the TRS way, despite the Congress having stitched together an alliance with the Telugu Desam Party and the Left.
As an apolitical observer, one feels a regular interchange of power between different parties is good for the people of the state and for the health of the democratic system itself. The sense of invincibility and permanence that gripped the incumbent after the magnificent victory of 2014 has done no one any good.