Modishock: Groping for its plank, Cong clutches at Himachal straw

While Gujarat arrested the BJP’s downslide and the Congress’s upward movement, Himachal will determine whether this was an aberration or an ongoing phenomenon.

The BJP hopes that terrorist strikes in Doda and Jammu—they have been taking place with a regularity—will impact Himachal Pradesh in the new climate created by Gujarat, even though the hill state has a minuscule Muslim population.

The Congress, on the other hand, has started to pore over the caste breakdown and the possibility of forging new equations in the state which has a 38% Rajput population. Its CLP leader Vir Bhadra Singh is a Rajput and the party has to make a dent into the 25 per cent SC vote.

Although Sonia has appointed a committee headed by Manmohan Singh to plan the strategy for the coming nine Assembly elections—the committee had its first meeting this evening—the fact is the party isn’t clear what line it should take.

‘‘We have first to decide how we counter this campaign based on hatred, fear and revenge, and the lines of the campaign we are going to run. Only then will we be able to put into place forces which will carry it out,’’ said Ambika Soni, Political Secretary to the Congress President.

‘‘Do we match their campaign, in which case what will happen to the country?’’ asked CWC member Ghulam Nabi Azad. The Gujarat results, however, had ‘‘consolidated the Congress further,’’ he said.

Another member of the CWC, Ahmed Patel, expressed confidence that Gujarat would not be repeated elsewhere. Referring to his party’s defeat in Rajasthan by-elections, Patel said, ‘‘If bypolls were to decide which way a state will swing, then the Congress, which won all the byelections in Gujarat, including all the local elections, should have captured the state.’’

Meanwhile, the BJP managers are already devising their strategy. For instance, they plan to project Dilip Singh Judeo, a Hindutva flagbearer who has been in the forefront of the campaign for re-converting Hindus converted to Christianity, as its future chief minister in Chhatisgarh and he has already been given his brief. Judeo will frontally go to town against conversions and take on Ajit Jogi.

Though the incumbency factor is enough to help the BJP wrest Rajasthan from the Congress, as things stand, the BJP hopes the spillover effect from Gujarat will reinforce its efforts in places like Jaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Tonk and the ares of Rajasthan bordering Pakistan.

As it is, Vasundhra Raje Scindia appears to have clicked as the BJP chief in the state after some teething problems. She is married into a Jat family.

Though Jats were really not a major factor in the three bypolls where the Congress lost, the disenchantment of the Jats with the Congress is worrying the party. Hoping for chief ministership since 1973, the Jats are no longer prepared to accept crumbs thrown at them.

There is also a move, as yet a fledgling one, to launch a third front in Rajasthan, which would hurt the Congress. The idea is essentially to win over the Jats, and this may be spearheaded by Ajit Singh. He may make common cause with people like Hari Singh, who was Secretary of the Jat Mahasabha and was at one time with the NCP.

The demand for the removal of Gehlot which has started to be voiced has also to be viewed against the backdrop of whether a Jat should be made the CM in Rajasthan, but changing the horse midstream has its own problems.

Though Madhya Pradesh CM Digvijay Singh has promised to avenge the defeat of his party in Gujarat, he too has to worry.

The BJP may now unleash Uma Bharati as the party chief in Madhya Pradesh and the Hindutva wave could affect parts of his state.

The shift of the tribals in the Gujarat-bordering constituency of Sagwara in Rajasthan, where the Congress lost in the bypoll, could also have its impact on the tribal areas of Madhya Pradesh.