Rahul Gandhi recently threw an open challenge to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), claiming that the Congress would defeat the BJP in the 2027 assembly elections in the state. However, he highlighted several challenges the party faces in accomplishing his ‘Mission Gujarat'. The Leader of Opposition alleged that a section of partymen in the state has been in "collusion" with the BJP and that only after getting rid of such leaders the Congress will be able to do well in the state, where it has been out of power for 30 years now. Speaking to Congress workers in Gujarat on Saturday, Rahul said that the revival of the party in the state was not a “two-to-three-year” but a “50-year project” adding that even if the party had to remove “20-30 people”, it would do it.
Rahul's comments have sparked controversy. “From alleging his party, people, constitutional institutions, and media, he has started blaming his own people. I'll suggest he do self-introspection instead of blaming others," said BJP leader Sudhanshu Trivedi, highlighting the Congress's internal struggles.
The 2022 Experience
No matter the rhetoric, defeating the BJP in Gujarat is no easy task. The Congress was routed here in 2022, winning just 17 seats (60 less than in 2017) with a 27% vote share (a drop of 15 percentage points). In contrast, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which was just making its electoral debut in the state, ended up bagging an impressive 13% votes—at the expense of the Congress. This also resulted in a record mandate for the BJP, which got 156 seats with a 53% vote share.
The 2022 results were a big setback for the Congress considering its performance in 2017, when it had won 77 seats and scored a 42% vote share, pushing the BJP to less than a hundred seats; the latter got just seven more seats than a simple majority.
There are three things the Congress must focus on to change its fate in Gujarat.
High Command Needs To Introspect
One, to be fair, Rahul is not wrong in his analysis about Congress leaders in the state jeopardising the party's prospects. Each assembly term, it sees a clutch of MLAs switching to the BJP. The usual trajectory is that they resign, become BJP candidates in by-polls, and return to the assembly.
Between 2017 and 2022, some three dozen Congress MLAs and leaders joined the BJP. Even in the current assembly, the party's tally is down to 13. Four MLAs resigned, joined the BJP, and then won the by-polls held recently.
Even so, the Congress high command cannot escape full responsibility for the party's sorry state. Even after its stellar performance in the 2017 elections, when it had benefited from the Patidar agitation, it ended up losing young firebrand leaders like Hardik Patel and Alpesh Thakor to the BJP. While Patel alleged that there was a lack of seriousness about all issues in the Congress's senior leadership, Thakor said that "weak leaders" were at the helm of affairs and that the OBC community wasn't getting the representation it deserved.
The Congress had consistently enjoyed a strong vote share of 38% to 42% between the 2002 and 2017 elections. However, internal sabotage and its inability to present an alternative vision gave way to the opposition AAP to claim some space in the state. According to exit polls after the 2022 polls, 13% of Leuva Patels, 6% of Kadva Patels, 6% of OBCs, 20% of SCs, 5% of STs and 41% of Muslims deserted the party, in comparison to 2017. Had AAP not been in the fray, the Congress theoretically might have won 55 seats in the last assembly polls.
Find Serious Leaders
Herein lies the second correction. Today, the Congress needs, more than anything else, to identify leaders who stand with the public, fight for them and respect them, and have the Congress in their heart. Those who do not fall into this category need to be weeded out. The control of the organisation, in the words of Rahul, should also be with such leaders. “The moment we do this, the people of Gujarat will want to storm into the party,” he has said.
In order to make this possible, the old guard will need to make space for new leaders who can take on the BJP on the ground, raising local issues. The AAP's losses in Delhi and the dent in Kejriwal's clean image are opportunities that the Congress must bank on in order to regain the vote it had lost to the party in Gujarat.
Woo The Urban Voters
Finally, while the Congress has a strong base in Gujarat's rural areas (109 seats), the BJP has the upper hand in urban seats (74). But, with Gujarat's high urban population, the Congress cannot really afford to go down without a fight in such constituencies. In 2017, it was leading 62-43 in rural areas against the BJP, while in urban areas, it trailed at 15-57. Of the 36 purely urban seats in three big cities—Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Gandhinagar—the Congress could win just five. To improve its tally in these areas in 2027, the Congress will have to win over the dominant middle class here, which favours a ‘business-friendly' BJP over an apparently ‘pro-Muslim' Congress.
Without these three steps, it would be difficult for the Congress to even dream of making a comeback in Gujarat, the BJP's strongest fortress.
(Amitabh Tiwari is a political strategist and commentator. In his earlier avatar, he was a corporate and investment banker.)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
