Antonio Diniz
Have the Opinion Poll predictions really been correct? While the various agencies and psephologists who put their best available resources to work in order to arrive at some credible figures, will, as expected, be claiming success about their predictions on the National media and TV channels. However, the common men had their reservation about the absolute certainty of Opinion-polls and had made their own assessment about the poll results. Indeed the actual counting of votes has now proved exactly what the common men were expecting, that BJP would be winning both in Gujarat and HP and that Congress would be decimated in HP but most likely would improve its tally in Gujarat. This is what has exactly happened.
Now what does Rahul Gandhi stand to gain despite the electoral defeat? Many Congress sympathisers feel that he can take some credit that the decimation of Congress in Gujarat has been arrested, which augurs well to him and boosts his image and credibility as newly crowned President of Congress Party. Thus the improved performance in the Gujarat election will help Rahul Gandhi to place himself as an alternative leader and a serious contender to challenge Narendra Modi in 2019 National Election. On the other hand the BJP will be little unhappy despite their victory, as they couldn’t even maintain the 2012 number of seats inspite of Modi’s tireless and frantic campaigning and Amit Shah’s highly acclaimed electioneering machinery.
What the election outcome has proved is the truth about the existence of serious discontentment and disaffection amongst many sections of the voters in Gujarat, as a result the much acclaimed policies of demonetisation and hasty implementation of GST by the BJP government. Also there is a fear that this may dent BJP’s expectation of easy victories in four states that will be having polling in 2018.
Unfortunately the Congress could not fully capitalise on the unpopular sentiments created by these two mega events as well as the prolonged anti-incumbency factor. So Congress will have to do some deep introspection about it.
Finally where does this leave Hardik Patel, the young leader of Patidars who had led a violent agitation protesting about Modi’s Gujarat model of governance and demanding reservation for the Patidar community who eventually aligned with Congress hoping to turn tables against BJP? Being a novice in the game of elections he might have learnt a lesson or two and certainly he would be more wiser in the future.
