NEW DELHI: A day before election results in Karnataka, Congress president Rahul Gandhi went into a huddle with senior leaders Ahmed Patel, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ashok Gehlot and K C Venugopal. His terse directive in case of a hung assembly was simple: Congress should reach out to JD(S) and offer the chief minister position.
The swiftness in sealing the deal with the Gowdas, ultimately swung the case for Congress. But the strategy gave a peep into Congress’s plan in the run-up to 2019: stall BJP at all costs.
The fall of the Yeddyurappa government inside three days is set to encourage Congress into accepting a diminution of political profile for the bigger battle against BJP. In the wake of his party’s success in Karnataka assembly, Rahul repeated that the opposition will coordinate across states to defeat BJP. This can be a tough ask as it might entail giving up claims in states where it enjoyed a strong presence but has declined.
After losing the election that it was convinced it would win, Congress has salvaged some pride in Karnataka and is eyeing a greater gain in the hope that the state will serve as a catalyst for opposition unity, an intractable issue in view of overlapping constituencies and competing claims to anti-BJP leadership.
The support expressed by opposition leaders, from Mayawati to Sharad Pawar and Akhilesh Yadav to Mamata Banerjee, in the wake of Karnataka row have emboldened Congress to stay the course even as it comes at a steep cost of sacrificing its own political interests.
Where Congress believes the “Bangalore bang” can help us in reversing the narrative of defeat around the party after successive failures across states with none of its incumbent chief ministers winning.
While Karnataka would be an alliance government with a junior role for Congress, the party will seek to draw sustenance that it has dented the aura of invincibility, not merely in winning votes but also in managing the power game, that Modi-led BJP has acquired post-2014.
The saffron success in forming governments in Manipur, Goa and Meghalaya, after finishing below Congress, sapped the spirit of party workers.
Karnataka could lift Congress, feel party leaders. Many see in it an echo of Gujarat Rajya Sabha polls of August 2017, where BJP went for broke by seeking to lure Congress MLAs to defeat its nominee Ahmed Patel. Congress won by one vote, and the win was credited to some extent with changing the atmospherics for December assembly polls where Congress ran BJP close.
As in cricket, many believe even a scrappy win in difficult times helps in regaining the confidence. Instilling belief in dispirited workers, after a long chain of defeats, is a must for Congress in the wake of coming contests in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, and the Lok Sabha polls.
