Delhi Elections 2015 : Can Congress make a comeback

By Deepak Parvatiyar

January 7, 2015

What a turnaround it has been for the Congress in recent times – down and out from a position when elections used to be between the Congress and the rest! The ensuing Delhi elections too is no different as the show has been stolen by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)!

Congress yet to Come to Terms with Past Poll Reversals

Unlike the BJP and the AAP, the Congress has been left behind in campaigning spree ahead of the 2015 Assembly polls in Delhi. It is only now that the party has started putting up hoardings with the slogan – ‘Toot gayi vikas ki dor, chalo ab Congress ki or’ – to remind about the break in the progress achieved in the 15 years of stable Congress government in the city state.

However, it has been a rather low key campaigning as compared to the other two rival parties. And understandably so! The last one year has been a disaster for the Congress and the party appears yet to come to terms with the poll reversals in the General Elections, as well as in state elections in Maharashtra,  Haryana, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir. Its slump had started in December 2013 when it was almost decimated in state elections in Delhi and Rajasthan.

Can the Congress stage a comeback in Delhi?

In the last few months, the party did make attempts to effect some changes by elevating relatively younger leader Arvinder Singh Lovely as state party president. However, the party’s high command culture and refusal to decentralise powers make such changes ineffectual. Neither recent statistics nor opinion polls suggest a Congress comeback  after it could win just eight out of the 70 Delhi Assembly seats in the last election. Its plunge continued as it could not even come a close second in any of the Assembly segments in the last summer’s General Elections in Delhi.

Rather than winning and forming the government, the challenge that the Congress faces this time is increasing the tally of its seats. The morale of the party is understandably low and reflected in the statements of its leaders who are avoiding getting into number games and refraining from commenting on the seats the party could win in Delhi.

This leads to the question whether the Congress can survive the Delhi elections? Consider that while the AAP not just dropped some of its sitting MLAs, and the BJP even got a few elected to the Parliament, the Congress not just retained its eight sitting legislators in its very first list of 24 party candidates that it released after much deliberations earlier this month, it even repeated most of the candidates who had lost last time. Besides, it also gave ticket to five time MLA, Shoaib Iqbal, who had won on a Janata Dal (United) ticket last time.

This does indicate two things – a) The limited options before the Congress, and b) the Congress’s unpreparedness to experiment.

Congress Faces Leadership Vacuum after Shiela Dikshit

However, the party claims it will introduce may new faces in the second list, which would be a “mix of senior and youth leaders”.
Pertinently, the party has nobody to project as its CM candidate after the exit of Shiela Dikshit, who was the chief minister uninterruptedly for 15 years. It is to be seen if this strategy of going without a CM face will work in the wake of Presidential style of campaigning by it rivals – the BJP as well as the AAP. The BJP is banking on the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi while its the main challenger, the AAP, has projected its supremo Arvind Kejriwal as the CM.

The Congress’s problem is also of having limited options. With no local leader in its fold to challenge Kejriwal, (at the time of going to the press, the party was still deliberating on the choice of candidate against Kejriwal from New Delhi constituency),  even roping in party vice president Rahul Gandhi to counter the Modi wave in Delhi could be counterproductive and a dismal performance could further jolt Rahul’s hold in the beleaguered party. Hence, despite her reluctance, the Congress still banks on Dikshit’s charisma by roping her as its star campaigner irrespective of the fact that she had lost last time to the AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal.

Congress’ strategy for survival in Delhi

The Congress faces a leadership crisis in Delhi at the moment. So, what should be the Congress’s strategy for its survival in Delhi? The party ostensibly has prioritised its strategies as mentioned below:

a) For the first time ever in Delhi, it decided to declare names of candidates even before the election dates are announced. This seems a desperate move to give ample preparation time to the candidates.
b) It seeks to make development and stability its main plank.
c) It banks on the party heavyweights hoping they deliver this time, including Dikshit. Top Delhi Congress leaders who lost last time, including former ministers Dr A K Walia (Laxmi Nagar) and Raj Kumar Chauhan (Mangolpuri), and heavyweight leaders like Mukesh Sharma (Uttam Nagar),  Subhash Chopra (Kalkaji), and Narender Nath (Shahdara), are again in the fray this time. The Congress hopes to gain by this strategy to opt for the old and trusted.
d) It seeks to kickstart its poll campaign with a ‘mega rally’ after January 10, to counter Modi’s election rallies in the city state. Yet it is fraught with risk in case the ‘mega rally’ fails to generate as much crowd as Modi’s rallies.
e) The party also strategises for a “micro-level approach” down to the polling booth that it hopes could help the party having some role in government formation. Even here it faces a competition from the BJP as well as the AAP.

With its back to the wall, the Congress is making all desperate attempts to garner public attention such as raising the issue of over one lakh ‘bogus votes’ in Vikaspuri and Mundka constituencies and demanding door to door verification of voters by the Election Commission. But can such methods work? The larger issue for the Congress indeed should be the restoration of its credibility among the electorates.