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| Lesson for J&K from Gujarat & HP poll | | | The BJP victory in the Assembly poll in Gujarat and that of the Congress in Himachal Pradesh have a lesson for main political parties in Jammu and Kashmir. The BJP win in Gujarat is actually the victory for Narendra Modi who fashioned defeat for the Congress. In the absence of Modi in the poll battle it would not have been possible for the BJP to win even a simple majority in the election. in Gujarat. If Modi failed to cross 115 seats it was the result of dissensions within the BJP.And if the Congress failed to cross the 63 seats it was the outcome of its failure to project a leader of stature in the state. The Congress had not a single leader whose stature matched Modi.Congress had placed most of its eggs in the basket of Keshubhai Patel, who had long back resigned from the BJP to form the Gujarat Parivartan Party. But Patel's poor show has not been of any help to the Congress and its plan to cause dent the vote bank of the BJP too misfired.Hence the poll outcome in Gujarat has a lesson for both the BJP and the Congress in Jammu and Kashmir.The BJP in Jammu and Kashmir has no leader of stature after seven MLAs were expelled from the party. The state unit of the BJP,whatever is left of it after the expulsion of seven MLAs, is a divided house.And since the Assembly election is just a year away it needs to learn a lesson or two from the poll results in Himachal Pradesh where the BJP won 26 seats against 41 in 2007.If the BJP lost the election in Himachal it was the result of prolonged tussle between the loyalists and the dissidents.
The Congress high command seems to be happy over its performance in Himachal but in reality it is disturbed over the failure of the party to cause a major dent in the Modi camp. It cannot seek satisfaction from the fact that the BJP won 115 seats in Gujarat against 117 in 2007.It cannot console itself from the fact that it won 63 seats against 59 in 2007 election. If the Congress high command is keen to infuse life and vigour in its state unit in Jammu and Kashmir it should first of all end the three-year long tussle for supremacy between the loyalists, headed by Saif-ud-Din Soz,and the dissidents, led by Ghulam Nabi Azad.Besides this the Congress high command has to revise its strategy while dealing with the NC leadership with which the Congress has been sharing power in Jammu and Kashmir since 2008.Events have created an impression in the state which has started convincing people that the Congress has been playing the second fiddle to the NC leadership in the interest of remaining in power.
Despite ant incumbency factor Modi was able to sail safe and that could happen when he played the development card. He has changed the industrial graph in Gujarat by encouraging private investment and initiated measures for completing various development schemes in a record time. Hence vote for Modi in Gujarat was vote for development. There is nothing like this in Jammu and Kashmir.The NC led coalition Government continues to be burdened by misgovernance, misperformance ,misappropriation of funds thereby enhancing the level of its anti incumbency factor during the next Assembly poll. Therefore the leadership of the NC and the Congress needs some sort of self-introspection so that the two parties are able to stem the rot that has crept in the two organizations. Top leaders of the NC and the Congress need to know that their losses would be a gain for the PDP. Even the BJP could be a gainer but the circumstances in which the saffron brigade finds itself has left it spineless with the result it may not be able to reap benefits from the losses in the Congress. Since the Assembly poll is a year away the Congress should not close its option on framing an alliance with the PDP. In fact the Congress should go alone in the poll battle and if it succeeds in having secret electoral understanding it can sustain its stature as a Government maker.
Agreed that neither the PDP nor the NC have the potential for winning absolute majority in the 87-member Assembly but it does not mean that the only way left for either of the two to be in power if one of two share power with the Congress. The Congress should first of all deserve the right to be in power.
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