The exit polls of the Gujarat elections may not be good news to the incoming President of the Indian National Congress. He may be assuming office as president of the party two days before the results of the Gujarat elections are declared, but how the party fares at the election will be Rahul Gandhi’s to own up to. If Congress manages to substantially improve upon its 2012 performance, then he takes the credit for it. If the party seats fall further down from the number it won five years ago, he should also take the blame. 

He has been the face of the Congress campaign in the State, dwarfing local Gujarati Congress leaders, as he continuously shuttled between Gujarat and Delhi through much of the campaign period, so if the party does well he gets a pat on the back, but should it flounder will the party lay the debacle at his feet, or will he, as has often been done in the past to Congress presidents, be shielded by damage control exercises that party is so apt at?

The exit polls on the Gujarat elections, released minutes after voting for the second phase ended, show that the BJP will retain the State, maybe even marginally increase its tally in the Assembly. It has been in power in Gujarat for 22 uninterrupted years, with the Congress just unable to dislodge the BJP. Though the exit polls also show that Congress will increase its seats in the State, that is not good news for Gandhi and the party, and should the results go the way that the exit polls are showing, celebrations of yet another scion of the Nehru-Gandhi assuming leadership of the Congress party will be muted. 

December 18 is going to be a crucial day that will decide whether Rahul Gandhi has it in him to lead the party he has been unanimously elected president of. It was a foregone conclusion that he would be assuming the reins of the party at some point of time. Getting elected to the post in the midst of the Gujarat election campaign was a bold move, but to sustain that bravado, he will have to prove that he has it in him to lead the party, and a result in Gujarat in favour of the BJP would put a rather big question mark on his abilities, as BJP consolidates its position in the State that in the 2014 Lok Sabha poll gave the party every seat.

But Gujarat is one small campaign in the long battle ahead for the Lok Sabha in 2019. Before that comes about Gandhi will have to lead the party in the North East where some States will be going to Assembly polls, and then again get into the campaign grime and dust to regain lost ground in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. There’s a long haul ahead before Gandhi can focus on 2019. 

When compared to some more recent elections campaigns, the Gujarat battle plan was perhaps the best that the Congress had stitched together. The party was on a high in the State, after getting Ahmed Patel elected to the Rajya Sabha in August under some controversial circumstances, and then entering into an alliance with local leaders, that apparently bolstered its strength. All this perhaps gave Gandhi the confidence to get into the campaign that could be his make or break for the political battles ahead.

An Assembly election, however, is not a Rajya Sabha election. As the Gujarat poll results are awaited, the weekend ahead would probably give the Congress some time for a little retrospection and planning. For, if the exit polls are right, what next for the party?