Sumanth Raman
The importance of the elections to the assemblies of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram cannot be overemphasised.
Among the three Hindi belt states, the result in Rajasthan seems to be a foregone conclusion. Every opinion poll points in the direction of a Congress win, some going as far as predicting a landslide for the party. The Congress has done its homework in Rajasthan. By appointing the young Sachin Pilot as the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief and ensuring that, at least outwardly, there is bonhomie between him and the other obvious contender for the chief minister’s post, former CM Ashok Gehlot, the Congress high command has put the party in pole position to unseat the Vasundhara Raje government. Rajasthan changes governments every five years and so the result may not be a surprise. However, the margins will be a pointer to 2019, though the BJP is likely to pull in more votes in a parliamentary poll because of the Narendra Modi factor.
Unlike Rajasthan, in Madhya Pradesh, the same cohesive spirit between the contenders for the CM chair on the Congress side appears to be missing. Frequent sniping between Jyotiraditya Scindia and former CM Digvijaya Singh have put PCC chief Kamal Nath in a difficult situation. Still, the Congress hopes that once the campaign starts in right earnest, the leaders will put up a united face. Fifteen years of incumbency can generate a sizable negative sentiment and this is what the BJP and Shivraj Singh Chouhan are battling (13 of those years he has been the CM). The smart money is on the Congress to win Madhya Pradesh too, though not with the big margins they may get in Rajasthan.
Chhattisgarh is where the BJP really stands a good chance of holding on to power. Chief Minister Raman Singh also faces anti-incumbency after being in power for 15 years but BJP here has the added advantage of Ajit Jogi, the former Congress CM who has formed his own party and allied with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). The Jogi-BSP combo will split the anti-BJP vote, enabling Singh to scrape through. At least that is the logic. Though most opinion polls forecast the BJP with its nose ahead, the state could go either way or could end up with a hung assembly with Jogi playing the kingmaker.
Watch | All you need to know as Chhattisgarh goes to polls
The assembly polls in Telangana looked a formality when Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) leader and Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao dissolved the assembly before its term and decided to face the people. Until a few weeks ago, a TRS victory was seen as a certainty — not anymore after the tie-up between the Congress and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). The TRS does not appear to be facing any large anti-incumbency as KCR is seen as having been one of the main forces behind the creation of the state and has been in power only for the last four-and-half years. With an opinion poll last week giving the edge to the Congress-TDP combine, KCR would rue early dissolution of the assembly and calling for a snap poll.
In Mizoram, Congress leader and incumbent Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla has come under some pressure to hold on to his citadel. The BJP, resurgent in the North-East, sees Mizoram as the last bastion in the region and is determined to make a big impression in the polls. Having wooed a few disgruntled leaders from the Congress side, the BJP hopes to be able to replicate its success in the other states in the region. However, Mizoram, with over 80% Christians, won’t make it easy for the BJP. The party that will benefit from anti-incumbency is the main opposition party, the Mizo National Front (MNF).
Will the results of these State Assembly elections be mirrored in the Lok Sabha elections in 2019? Yes and No. For one, there are still five months to go and there can be events in the interim that can influence voting patterns. Obviously, the Lok Sabha election is for all purposes a referendum on the Narendra Modi government and a significant proportion of the electorate that votes against BJP governments in their states may have a soft corner for the Prime Minister. However, it is almost certain that the clean sweep that the BJP made in states such as Rajasthan in 2014 is not going to happen.
While the vote share of the BJP is likely to increase in the parliamentary election in comparison to the assembly polls, thanks to the Modi factor, it is unlikely that the difference would be very large. In 2014, between Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, the BJP won 62 out of the 65 Lok Sabha seats. This time the party is going to see losses which could potentially cost it up to half of those seats.
The recent by-election results in Karnataka may not necessarily be a clear indicator of what 2019 could bring, though the BJP defeat in Ballari by a massive margin is ominous for the party. The other seats they lost were all JD(S) or Congress seats anyway and the BJP did hold on to the Shivamogga Lok Sabha seat.
Come December 11, we could get a reasonable idea if the die is indeed cast for 2019.
(Sumanth Raman is a Chennai-based television anchor and political analyst. Views are personal)
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