Ominous defeat: Congress gets a drubbing in key state polls

BJP emerges clear winner; leader of newly formed Aam Aadmi Party defeats Delhi CM.

NEW DELHI: India’s Congress party was headed for a bruising defeat in key state elections, in the capital as well, as early results showed on Sunday, underlining the struggle it will face to cling to power in a national election due by May.

The centre-left party’s main opponent, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was the clear winner in three big states that went to the polls, though with the count still on it was a neck-and-neck race in a fourth.

Markets are closely tracking the outcome of the polls, seen as a test of support for the BJP’s business-friendly candidate for prime minister, Narendra Modi.



“BJP’s victory across the states is spectacular,” Modi said on Twitter shortly after arriving at his party’s headquarters in New Delhi, where he congratulated party workers and leaders. The Congress party’s poor performance in the state assembly elections may bring fresh pressure for an overhaul of its national campaign, which is headed by Rahul Gandhi.

Sonia Gandhi, the leader of the party, told reporters that Congress would ‘introspect seriously’ following its defeats, and – standing beside his mother – Rahul promised a transformation of the party to reverse its fortunes.

While the results are expected to add to the momentum Modi has built in recent months, India’s fragmented political landscape makes national elections harder to predict.

In three of the four state elections counted on Sunday, the election was a two-way race between the BJP and Congress, which is unusual in a country whose states are increasingly governed by powerful regional parties.

In the past, strong state results have not always translated into success in national elections.

In Delhi, the one state which saw a three-way contest, the BJP’s likely victory after 15 years of Congress rule was tempered by an unexpectedly strong showing by the new anti-corruption Aam Aadmi (Common Man) Party, which could deny it the majority required to rule.

“I would like to congratulate the people of Delhi for starting a trend of honest politics,” said Arvind Kejriwal, leader of the fledgling Aam Aadmi Party, after he unseated the capital’s chief minister Sheila Dikshit in her own constituency.

A shell-shocked Dikshit said she would “analyse later what went wrong”. “All I can say is that the people of Delhi have taken a decision which we respect,” she added.

Supporters of the new party celebrated outside its headquarters, waving brooms to symbolise sweeping out rotten politicians after years of spectacular corruption scandals. Final results were expected by early evening for the elections in Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

Early results showed a resounding third-term victory for the BJP in Madhya Pradesh. That stoked speculation that Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan, seen as more moderate than Modi, could emerge as an alternative candidate for prime minister if the BJP struggles to lure enough allies to form a ruling coalition.

BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh was the tightest race and the one possible bright spot for Congress, which stood a whisker behind its rival by late afternoon. Congress has benefited from voter sympathy after much of its state leadership was wiped out in an attack by Maoist militants there earlier this year.

A small north-eastern state, Mizoram, is due to report results from its election on Monday. Exit polls forecast Congress lost ground there, as well, to local ethnic parties.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 9^th, 2013.