NEW DELHI: At the recent
Congress plenary session, Sonia Gandhi compared the coming Karnataka elections to the Chikkamagaluru Lok Sabha victory of Indira Gandhi in 1978, saying the contest would give a “new direction” to the country’s politics like it did four decades ago.
Not one to temper expectations, Karnataka chief minister
Siddaramaiah called it a clash between “communalism and secularism” which will be a “stepping stone” for
Rahul Gandhi to prime ministership in 2019.
Stakes in the southern state could not be higher for Congress which has hitched all its hopes of dislodging the Modi government on its performance there. It would be another ‘Congress vs BJP’ face-off, in which Congress has not succeeded since its decimation in 2014.
Congress believes a successful defence of its government in Karnataka would build upon the defeat of BJP in bypolls across states, especially in Gorakhpur and Phulpur in Uttar Pradesh, to send out a message that the saffron momentum had finally petered out. The flip side is that with the stakes raised, a defeat could be debilitating for Congress and the opposition.
Party leaders say once Narendra Modi is neutralised as the “X factor” in pulling votes, Congress would be strongly positioned to tap anti-incumbency in BJP’s multiple-term forts of MP and Chhattisgarh which along with Rajasthan, another saffron-ruled state, would go to the polls this year-end.
The impact of victory would not just be on the popular mood but also on “allies” which would be nudged to unambiguously join an anti-BJP front.
