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Congress Regains Ground as Campaigning Draws to Close
Pervez Bari
Arab News
BHOPAL, 29 November 2003 — With only one day left for campaigning to end, the air was thick with election fever in Madhya Pradesh yesterday as in three other crucial north Indian states — Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Delhi — which go to polls tomorrow.
In the last phase of election campaign in Madhya Pradesh, ruling Congress party, after being forced on the back foot by the resurgent right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), now seems to have recovered some lost ground.
The Congress, led by its charismatic Chief Minister Digvijay Singh single-handedly, is trying hard to give fillip to its sagging spirits and disprove all pre-poll surveys that have claimed swings in BJP’s favor.
Opinion polls tip the BJP to win at least Madhya Pradesh and possibly Rajasthan or Chhattisgarh as well.
However, Singh, a known strategist, seems to be belying all such reports and is set to repeat 1998, when the BJP was defeated despite its tall claims and poll surveys in its favor. The caste equations also now appear to be working in Congress’s favor.
The Congress is unanimous on the leadership of Chief Minister Digvijay Singh, whereas in BJP, there is great resentment over the projection of mercurial Uma Bharti as the chief ministerial candidate. Though federal ministers Vikram Verma and Sumitra Mahajan might not be showing their dissatisfaction in public with Bharti, both of them are trying their best to prevent her from becoming chief minister.
Congress spokesman Suresh Pachauri has said that his party is even ready to forge a coalition of like-minded parties to keep the BJP out of power in the state.
“My party is confident of winning an absolute majority in the assembly polls but, if there’s any paucity, then the Congress will form a government with support from secular and non-BJP parties. The scales are tipping in my party’s favor,” he said.
More than 90 million people are eligible to vote tomorrow, but campaigning has been muted and sparked little interest in many areas outside the main cities.
In the harsh, western desert state of Rajasthan, where survival depends on the annual monsoon, voters complain bitterly of severe shortages of water and power. Teachers, who will staff the voting booths, haven’t been paid in months.
Forty-two-year-old Champa Lal, who grows chillies famous around the ancient city of Jodhpur in Rajasthan, says critical power shortages are wrecking his livelihood.
“I only have power for irrigating for four or five hours a day,” he says as he supervises workers laying out thousands of chillies on the white sand to dry, the air heavy with the scent of spice. “If we had power, this entire area would be green with chillies,” he adds, waving his arms toward barren fields.
At a nearby village, the campaign has brought some temporary relief to B.N. Chauham, a 75-year-old retired engineer.
“We are now getting power eight hours a day,” he said. “It’s because of the elections.” But at the end of the day, he sees little hope for progress. “Whether it’s Congress or BJP, they never come here — they only come during elections,” he said. “Nothing has changed. It will stay the same no matter who wins.”
(Additional input from agencies)
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python (Alquds, 1/25/03. |
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