Rajasthan, four other states to go to polls in November-December, counting on 11 Dec

Headquarters of the Election Commission of India in New Delhi | Manisha Mondal | ThePrint

Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram to vote on 28 November. Rajasthan and Telangana go to polls on 7 December. Chhattisgarh elections to be held in two phases.

New Delhi: The Election Commission of India Saturday announced the dates for assembly elections in five states, setting the countdown for what is being referred to as the semi-final before the crucial 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Chhattisgarh elections will be held in two phases – 12 and 20 November. Madhya Pradesh and Mizoram will poll on 28 November while Rajasthan and Telangana will vote on 7 December, announced EC.

The counting of votes for all the states will take place on 11 December, said EC.

The model code of conduct comes into effect from Saturday.

The elections are eagerly watched as they will serve as a representative sample of the voter mood across the country — being held in states in the western, central, northeastern and southern regions — ahead of the 2019 general elections.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will go to polls as an incumbent in three states, thus battling not just a possible anti-incumbency sentiment at the national level but also in the respective states. The polls also come at a time when the BJP is firefighting on multiple fronts — rising fuel prices, allegations on the Rafale deal as well as ire from traditional votebank upper caste.

Rajasthan

In the 200-seat state assembly, the BJP had won 160 in 2013, decimating the Congress and reducing it to 25. In the Lok Sabha polls to 25 seats that followed, the BJP did exceedingly well, eliminating the Congress completely. The state in recent times has witnessed an alternating pattern of coming to power between the BJP and Congress.

The Vasundhara Raje-led government, however, has seen increasing unpopularity, reflected adequately in the Lok Sabha bypolls in Ajmer and Alwar earlier this year where the BJP faced embarrassing defeats, the same seats it had won with huge margins earlier.

A spate of cow-vigilantism related lynching incidents has further dented the BJP’s image in the state. Moreover, Raje’s open differences with the central leadership — especially BJP president Amit Shah — have also played out negatively for the party. The delayed appointment of Rajasthan party president because of a Shah-Raje tussle is a case in point.

For the Congress, meanwhile, this is a do-or-die election. With the earlier bypoll results hugely in its favour, its chances have been looking promising. However, the party’s internal tensions and lack of clarity on its chief ministerial candidate will affect its prospects. The not-so-secret uneasy relationship between Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Sachin Pilot and former CM Ashok Gehlot also gives the BJP a chance to portray the party as a divided house.

Moreover, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati’s recent outburst against Congress and declaration that it will not fight in alliance with it in any of the assembly polls could also harm it.

Madhya Pradesh

The 231-member assembly has been a BJP bastion, with Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in his third consecutive term now. In 2013, the BJP won 166 seats, while Congress won 57.

Unlike Rajasthan, the BJP hopes Chouhan’s personal popularity and credibility will help tide it through once again. Chouhan, however, has a difficult balancing act to perform. The upper castes in the state have been agitating against the government, alleging the BJP is pandering to Dalits.

Samanya Pichhada Evam Alpsankhyak Varg Samaj (SAPAKS) — a conglomeration of upper castes and OBCs — have now floated a political party which claims it will contest in all the seats in the forthcoming polls. While the upper castes are angry with the central government for restoring the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act after the apex court diluted it, the Chouhan-government has been attempting to assuage them on one hand, while trying to continue its Dalit outreach on the other.

Farmer unrest — seen through violent protests in Mandsaur last year — is also a source of worry for the BJP.

The Congress, meanwhile, is once again a divided house with many claimants for the top slot. While Kamal Nath is PCC president, Jyotiraditya Scindia is the campaign committee chief and former CM Digvijiya Singh is the coordination committee chief. It is no secret that all three operate as independent factions, and have, thus, prevented the party from putting up a cohesive and formidable fight against the BJP so far.

Mayawati’s decision to fight alone is also going to hurt the Congress significantly. In the state, Dalits constitute a little over 15 per cent of the population and have 35 of the 230 assembly seats reserved for them. The BJP, earlier worried about Dalit consolidation behind BSP-Congress, is now breathing slightly easy.

Chhattisgarh

Another BJP stronghold where its Chief Minister Raman Singh is set to complete his third successive term now, Chhattisgarh is where the Congress fancies its chances given the narrow margin of difference between the two. In the 2013 assembly elections, the BJP won 49 out of the 90 seats with a vote share of 41.04 per cent while the Congress won 39 seats with a vote share of 40.29 per cent.

While the BJP hopes to fight this election on the development and welfare plank, the Congress is attempting to play on the 15-year anti incumbency sentiment. The coming together of former CM Ajit Jogi and Mayawati’s parties has come as a huge blow to the Congress. Jogi, who was with the Congress earlier, had a bitter fallout in 2016 after which he formed his own party Chhattisgarh Janata Congress.

The BSP has just one MLA, but the BJP believes that there are as many as 8 to 10 seats where the BSP could play spoilsport for the Congress. The state, with a Dalit population of 11.6 per cent and 10 assembly seats reserved for SCs, is fertile ground for BSP to play spoilsport.

Mizoram

This is the only remaining of the seven northeastern sisters where the BJP is currently not in power. The party, which has made ruling Northeast a top priority, has been working hard to wrest Mizoram as well, trying to establish its presence on the ground across the 40 seats. The Congress is currently in power with 34 seats, and the BJP has had no real presence in the state so far.

In the six northeastern sisters of Assam, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland, the BJP managed to come to power either by winning elections, forging alliances or by managing to wrest power through other means.

In Mizoram, a BJP team was sent to the state in February itself with the mandate of testing waters, beginning voter outreach and building the organisation ground-up. The mandate is to operate much like Tripura, where the party ousted the Left from a long-held fortress.
The state is crucial for the Congress, being one among the only three it is in power in currently, besides the union territory of Puducherry.

Telangana

Telangana, with a 119 seats, is perhaps the most interesting battleground. The assembly polls in Telangana, otherwise due middle of next year, have been advanced after the state assembly was dissolved on 6 September following the recommendation of the Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao (KCR)-led cabinet.

In 2014, the KCR-led TRS had won 90 seats, while the Congress had won 13 seats. The BJP had won five seats, while its then ally the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) had won 15.

The BJP, which was looking at southern states as important areas to grow in so as to fill in any deficit in other parts in the 2019 polls, finds itself floundering in the state. Its poll-preparedness in the state is evidently half-baked. No credible state leader with electoral presence and no ally either has meant the party is looking uneasy in Telangana.

Meanwhile, the Congress, TDP and the Left have come together. Given the BJP government had refused to grant special category status to Andhra Pradesh, which led to TDP’s exit, even Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSR Congress would be wary of cosying up to the BJP, afraid of a backlash in Andhra.

KCR, meanwhile, appears confident and prepared, thus dissolving the assembly ahead of time. Telangana sends 17 members to the Lok Sabha and is thus, important for all stakeholders to bolster their numbers in the lower house.