BJP’s Hindi heartland dominance calls for Opposition bloc to rethink 2024 strategy

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Sunday suffered a near wipeout in the Hindi heartland as it lost 3-1 to the BJP in the assembly polls, signalling the need to redraw its strategy for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

The party was trounced in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and is now left with only Himachal Pradesh in the north. It is ruling in only three states on its own and is in power in Bihar and Jharkhand as a junior partner in alliance with regional parties.

However, its victory in Telangana gave a boost to its consolidation in southern India where it is in power on its own in Karnataka.

Congress’ loss in the key states has also weakened the grand old party’s position in the INDIA bloc where equations are set to change, as other opposition parties would challenge its position as the fulcrum of the alliance.

While Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav had lashed out at the Congress over refusal to share seats in Madhya Pradesh, more rumblings within the opposition bloc have begun after the results on Sunday with JDU’s K C Tyagi saying that this is not a defeat of the INDIA bloc but of the Congress, as it ignored other partners.

Kerala chief minister and CPI-M leader Pinarayi Vijayan said the Congress thought it had already won and couldn’t be defeated and this led to its downfall.

Referring to the SP-Congress “ugly faceoff”, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi said this could have been avoided and asked the Congress to show more generosity. “You are a big party and taking on a bigger responsibility in the INDIA alliance, then you have to show some generosity,” she said adding that the Congress needs to introspect where it is lacking in direct contests with the BJP.

Internal rifts and factionalism within its state units added to the Congress’ woes in these assembly polls, which were considered as semifinals to the 2024 general elections. The big announcement of freebies, the Caste Survey and the Old Pension Scheme, which worked in some other states, also did not work in its favour in these elections.

Notwithstanding this, pollsters feel that factors that contributed to the party’s loss include the anti-Sanatan row, allegations of appeasement, besides the inability to counter anti-incumbency in states ruled by it. The Panauti remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a negative personalised attack on him also seemed to have backfired on the party in these elections.

The party’s so-called ‘soft Hindutva’ card also did not yield any significant results.

The BJP’s organisational strength, its Hindutva card and the Prime Minister’s development pitch and talk of national pride in campaigning seemed to have worked well for the BJP, which pulled a stupendous victory despite projections by pollsters to the contrary.

The BJP leaders asserted that the electorate has preferred ‘Modi ki guarantee’ against the ‘Congress guarantees’ in these elections.