Why Congress Victories In Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh By-Polls Do Not Guarantee Victory For The Party In 2023 Assembly Elections

The Indian National Congress (INC) would be well advised to not read too much into the by-poll victories in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh as they could well be non-indicative of the assembly elections due next year.

This is because these elections were won on the basis of hyper-local issues and leaders and do not impact state politics much. Let's understand how:

Sardarshahar

Rajasthan's Sardharshahar assembly constituency falling in the Churu district can be called a Congress bastion, or rather a Bhanwarlal Sharma bastion.

Sharma has been a six-time MLA from here. Four times on a Congress ticket and once each on Lok Dal and Janata Dal tickets. He lost only two times.

Rajasthan has been changing its government every five years for the last three decades. However, Sharma managed to save his seat even when the wave was opposite to him, like in 2003 and 2013.

The by-polls were necessitated by his death on 9 October this year. The Congress then chose his son Anil Kumar Sharma as its candidate who won by over 26,000 votes.

Thus, Anil's victory can be fully credited to the vote bank that his father had established and the sympathy wave that followed his demise.

Another interesting fact is that Sardarshahar has chosen a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA only once in the last three decades. He was Ashok Kumar who won the 2008 elections.

Kumar has been contesting against Bhanwarlal Sharma since 1998 but has managed to defeat him only once. The BJP again chose Kumar as its candidate for this by-poll.

However, this time, Kumar's defeat can be attributed to a third-party factor. Mostly, Sardarshahar has witnessed a bipolar election between the Congress and the BJP.

But this time, Hanuman Beniwal's Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLTP) made the contest a tripolar one. RLTP candidate Lal Chand Moond got 22.28 per cent of the votes. This was quite more than the victory margin.

Beniwal is a rebel BJP leader who created his own party in 2018 and became an MP from Nagaur in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

His party managed to get 8.24 per cent of votes in the 58 seats it contested and sent three members to the Rajasthan legislative assembly in 2018.

Moond is a Jat by caste and holds influence in the dairy community on account of being district president of the dairy federation.

Sardarshahar has a considerable Jat population with around 65,000 Jats forming a part of the electorate. Thus, Moond managed to get a good share of votes.

Congress too has a lesson to learn from Sardarshahar. It owes its victory to the local leader and the vote-cutting factor. It must fix its house before venturing into the assembly elections next year.

Bhanupratappur

Chhattisgarh's Bhanupratappur elected Congress candidate Savitri Manoj Mandavi as an MLA in the by-polls with a vote share of 44.88 per cent.

Savitri is the wife of Congress MLA Manoj Mandavi whose demise on 16 October this year necessitated the by-polls at this reserved for Scheduled Tribe (ST) seat.

Similar to Rajasthan, it's the influence of the local leader that gained votes for the Congress. Mandavi has been elected as an MLA from Bhanupratappur thrice (in 1998 when the constituency was in undivided Madhya Pradesh and in 2013 and 2018).

In 2003, he lost the election to BJP's Deolal Dugga by a margin of just 1,379 votes. Thus, the Congress did not gave him a ticket in 2008. However, he contested as an independent.

Though he was a runner-up in the 2008 elections, he pushed the Congress candidate to number three position and got a vote share of 24 per cent.

In 2013 and 2018, when he won on a Congress ticket, his vote share was 48-49 per cent. Thus, it can be concluded that half of his votes came from his own influence, rather than of the party.

This time too, his influence and the sympathy over his demise got votes for his wife. The another factor which cost the elections to the BJP was its own candidate.

BJP chose Bramhanand Netam as its candidate who was elected as an MLA from Bhanupratappur in 2008. However, this time controversies surrounding him sunk his electoral campaign.

Netam is being investigated in the rape of a 15-year-old girl in Jamshedpur in Jharkhand's East Singhbhum district and faces POCSO charges, the Congress has alleged.

The case was raised by Chhattisgarh Congress after BJP started targeting the party over the arrest of state's former NSUI general secretary Ruhab Memon in a rape case.

CM Bhupesh Baghel himself targeted the BJP candidate in a tweet. Even the polling day witnessed high drama when Jharkhand Police arrived at a polling booth to take Netam with them for questioning.

However, the same day, the Jharkhand High Court directed the police not to take any coercive action against Netam and hence he was not detained.

But the accusations had already damaged his prospects and he could get 30.37 per cent votes. Thus, the issues were hyper-local which took the Congress to victory and hence it should not get over-confident for the assembly elections with these results.