BJP picked up from where Congress left - women power

The outgoing Congress chief minister of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh Digvijay Singh, pilloried in this bruising electoral campaign by the Bharatiya Janata Party was asked after he was swept from power yesterday, whether he felt he had been electrocuted.

His reply "you say there is no electricity here, so how can that be..." was a pointer to the BJP's strategic vision that won it the three key states of Madhya Pradesh, the neighbouring sliver of Chhattisgarh and the surprise prize of Rajasthan.

The BJP set the agenda for these elections. They not only changed the rules of the electoral game, they carried the battle into the Congress' backyard, refusing to use the temple card that brought them to power in the first place.

The irony is: they used the saffron clad 'sanyasin' - in the forefront of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, infamous for her 'ek dhakha aur do' (one more push) slogan at the razing of the structure - as their poster girl in this central state.

It was Uma Bharti who tripped up the complacent Congress in these largely tribal-rural constituencies that it long took for granted.

Fielding Bharti had raised fears that MP would see a repeat of Gujarat. Elections to the western state saw the burning of a train filled with pilgrims followed by a pogrom of Muslims that brought a consolidation of the Hindu vote and the much villified BJP strategist Narendra Modi to power.

But the pro-reformists in the BJP realised that Madhya Pradesh, like the other Congress ruled states was ripe for picking on far less emotive but equally charged issues.

After power and mineral rich Chhattisagarh was hived away from MP, and a separate state created three years ago, the central Indian state faced huge shortages.

Digvijay's "soft infrastructure" drive saw funds earmarked for village schools, clinics and wells in the rural areas, leaving little for the basics - roads, power and drinking water - through the rest of the state.

Licking wounds

The story maybe no different in other parts of India. But, Digvijay, had forgotten that the people who voted him to power ten years ago have moved on. Globalisation and the info-tech economy have brought newspapers, radio and connectivity into the villages, and with it higher expectations of a better standard of living.

While in some cases, as in caste riven Rajasthan, caste considerations may impact on his vote, the rural Indian who blindly voted for a secular Indira Congress is long gone.

This is doubly so as the BJP jettisons the inflammable politics of "Hindutva" which brought them to power and embraces Prime Minister Vajpayee's brand of "developmental" politics. The voter can see the difference. Says analyst Prem Shankar Jha, "There's a major shift taking place from traditionally inherited patterns of loyalty to performance."

Admittedly, Sonia Gandhi's Congress is already at a huge disadvantage. Until it lost the three major states yesterday, it ruled 17 big ones, but has no power at the centre. All three states that it lost yesterday are on the so-called "Bimaru" (sick) states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, where the social indices are at rock bottom.

While key allies like regional satrap Chandrababu Naidu and Orissa's chief minister Navin Patnaik get millions from the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government in developmental assistance, the Cong-ress ruled states get little.

The BJP at the centre also works the levers of investment, backed as they are by the big guns in the telecom and private power industry. The BJP's savvy ministers will tap into the pool of investment that has transformed India's image as an economy that is on the threshold of a major boom to bring investors into these central Indian states.

The Congress has wooed neither big business or industry. It's foggy vision and archaic meth-odology is both flawed and limited, it's leadership increasingly out of touch with the emerging new India.

Curiously. it is flat-footed even in the old India. Tried and tested food for work schemes alleviated drought hit Rajasthan run by Ashok Gehlot, voted the best chief minister in a recent survey.

But it amounted to little in the face of the BJP's strategy of co-opting the Congress 'mantra' - reservation of jobs for impoverished upper castes - and fielding the charismatic Vasundhara Raje who drew the powerful Jat and Gujjar communities to the BJP fold with the promise of change.

In fact, the choice of Raje, and for that matter Bharti despite her dubious credentials to lead, point to a party that is unafraid to induct and indeed empower a second string. These are the BJP's Generation Next leaders, who straddle both worlds - the rural and the urban - with ease. They are backed by electoral strategists like Pramod Mahajan and Arun Jaitley, who like their mentor Lal Krishna Advani are masters of the electoral idiom.

Congress debacle

Despite the Dilip Singh Judeo 'sting' they hit the ground running, and lasted the distance. That a male dominated party like the BJP fielded two high profile women as chief ministerial candidates contrasts with the Congress' inability to throw up not just women leaders but leaders in general.

It was severely handicapped by the loss of Madhavrao Scindhia and Rajesh Pilot, both of whom died in accidents two years ago. Sonia has been unable to pick her generals, an uncanny knack that stood her husband Rajiv in good stead when he took over. He was able to attract many of today's Congress leaders like Gehlot and Tarun Gogoi in Assam who continue to be key to the Congress.

Sonia's reputation as a vote-catcher is fraying at the edges. It is imperative therefore for the ageing party to bring in a new standard bearer, even the untested Gandhi scions Rahul and Priyanka.

Also, the straight fight this time between the Congress and the BJP worked to the advantage of the saffron party.

Smaller parties with their own caste following like Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samjawadi Party, the Nationalist Congress Party and Bahujan Samaj played the spoiler, eating into Congress votes. Sonia's touch-me-not brand of politics has shut the doors on alliances.

But she cannot afford to do the same from here on. The BJP would like to see the return of the two party polity in India, as it frees them to pursue their agenda of economic reform unencumbered by alliance politics.

If the once powerful Congress does not want to be reduced to a political pygmy it must shed its old style court politics. Or the rightwing party that has relentlessly moved centre stage in this assembly election will make the Congress irrelevant in 2004.

It's no wonder Digvijay Singh says he's bowing out of electoral politics for another ten years.