Opinion | Congress Should Now Learn: It Can't Always Be About Rahul Gandhi

The Opposition predictably cried foul after crashing to a humiliating defeat in the just-concluded Bihar assembly polls. However, instead of whining like sore losers, the Opposition should take a long hard look within to identify reasons that paved the way for its easy destruction.

Victory may have been a long shot given the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) formidable election machinery. But the Opposition should have tried at least to put up a better fight and post a more respectable tally than the dismal 35 seats it won out of a total of 243.

Multiple factors shape an election outcome. However, the Opposition stumbled from the very beginning when it failed to craft a cohesive alliance of parties representing a wide cross section of social groups, and, more importantly, parties willing to work together unitedly to ensure seamless vote transfers to their partners.

Burdened By Others

It is evident from the vote share numbers that while Tejashwi Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) managed to keep its core Muslim-Yadav base intact to top the list at 22.76 %, its Mahagathbandhan partners failed to pull their weight in the alliance. The Congress, Mukesh Sahani's much-hyped Nishad-dominated Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) and even the Left flopped. Not only was their strike rate pathetic (VIP did not win a single one of the 12 seats it contested), judging from the RJD's poor seat tally of 35, Mahagathbandhan allies either did not or could not shift their votes to help it in the rest of the 108 seats it contested.

There was dissonance at every stage. The Congress is everyone's favourite whipping boy. However, it must accept the lion's share of the blame in all humility for the Mahagathbandhan's shambolic campaign in Bihar. The party was more keen to build up Rahul Gandhi's profile than anchor the alliance as the Grand Old Party and the only one with a national presence.

Solo Doesn't Cut It Anymore

Rahul Gandhi made several visits to Bihar from January, but each trip was tailored to feed Congress interests instead of propping up the Mahagathbandhan. His high-voltage vote chori campaign through the villages of Bihar was a solo run, with Tejashwi Yadav included at the very end.

And at no stage did he endorse Tejashwi Yadav as the Mahagathbandhan's chief ministerial candidate, even when pressed by the media. In fact, local Congress leaders muddied the waters for the RJD leader with hints about a possible Chief Minister from their party.

It was an astounding display of arrogance. The Congress has no organisation to speak of in Bihar, and a fortnight-long Vote Adhikar Yatra by Rahul Gandhi was not going to change ground realities. The yatra made for good photo ops, like his dip in a village pond with local youth. But nothing more.

It was left to Tejashwi Yadav to lobby for himself to lead the alliance as the chief ministerial face, a position that rightfully belonged to him as the head of the only party with enough muscle to challenge Nitish Kumar and the Janata Dal (United) (JD-U).

Internal Fireworks

When the Mahagathbandhan finally took the plunge to announce Tejashwi Yadav as their chief ministerial candidate, Rahul Gandhi virtually vanished from Bihar, leaving strategy and campaign planning to party president Mallikarjun Kharge and former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.

The party's inflated opinion of itself was evident even during the seat-sharing negotiations. After making impossible demands, it finally settled for 61 seats but refused to budge from that number. As a result, the Mahagathbandhan was forced into “friendly fights” against its own allies in six seats.

There were innumerable other blunders. For instance, the VIP's Mukesh Sahani also pitched for an incredibly high number of seats although his Nishad community makes up less than 2% of Bihar's population. On the insistence of the Congress, Tejashwi Yadav reluctantly agreed to give him 12 seats. And when Sahani threatened to quit the Mahagathbandhan, the Congress again forced Tejashwi Yadav's hand to declare him the deputy chief minister candidate.

The AIMIM Story

The story with Asaduddin Owasi's AIMIM is equally unfortunate. Although he proved his mettle in the 2020 assembly polls in Bihar by winning five seats in Muslim-dominated Seemanchal and also deprived the Mahagathbandhan of half a dozen more seats by dividing the Muslim vote, the Congress flatly refused to include him in the alliance this time.

Owaisi made public appeals to the Mahagathbandhan, but the Congress party's Telangana blinkers saw him only as an opponent in Hyderabad rather than an ally with value addition in Bihar. This time, too, the AIMIM proved to be the Mahagathbandhan's nemesis in Seemanchal. It won the same five seats again. A detailed analysis of the results will indicate the extent of damage in other Muslim-dominated seats.

In addition, Owaisi's campaign criticising the Mahagathbandhan for ignoring Muslim aspirations by not naming a Deputy Chief Minister candidate from the community seems to have hit home. It was left to Tejashwi Yadav to counter this allegation with repeated assurances that there would be many more deputy chief ministers if the Mahagathbandhan formed the next government. Unfortunately, such comments only made the alliance look directionless without a clear vision for governance.

NDA Is A Different Story

The contrast with the NDA is stark. The ruling alliance had its own share of hiccups. Parties bargained hard for seats. And in a major blow to the JD(U), both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah declined to endorse Nitish Kumar as the chief ministerial face.

However, unlike the Congress, the BJP is fleet-footed, flexible and keeps its ears open to feedback from the ground. As the campaign proceeded and it became obvious that Nitish Kumar remains Bihar's most bankable face who has the unflinching support of a loyal support base among the Extremely Backward Castes and women, the NDA changed its narrative.

From being invisible at the start of the campaign, Nitish Kumar became a talking point as the campaign progressed. There was increasing chatter about his sushasan babu image, a prevailing sympathy sentiment for a leader probably fighting his last election, and the absence of anti-incumbency against his government despite its non-performance in the last few years.

The election-eve handout of Rs 10,000 cash dole for over 1 crore women, announced just an hour before the Model Code of Conduct came into force, sealed his popularity. Although legal, there are questions about the ethics of cash transfers while the Model Code of Conduct is in effect. But it seems to have worked spectacularly for the NDA, with women posting a record turnout to beat their menfolk by 10%.

The NDA's spectacular triumph poses an existential threat for the Opposition. Instead of pointing fingers at the Election Commission, the Mahagathbandhan should set its own house in order to remain relevant.

(The author is a senior Delhi-based journalist)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author