RS battle leaves Cong in crisis, but BJP's strategy comes cropper

The battle for 27 Rajya Sabha seats on Saturday was not just about six Union ministers trying to get re-elected to parliament or the opposition trying its best to prevent gains to the BJP, which is in a minority in the upper house.

Rather, it was about the ruling BJP trying to prevent senior Congress leaders like Kapil Sibal not making it all. The Congress too thought it could thwart chances of some independent candidates, who were backed by the BJP to deny the ruling party  winning  any extra seats. Therefore, it also fielded its own candidates in some states to grab seats from others.A master strategist, Sibal managed to show that the BJP’s strategy of importing a candidate like Preeti Desai Mahapatra from Gujarat in UP won’t work against him.

Right from day one, all eyes were on Mahapatra, a wife of a Mumbai builder, who entered the fray on the last day of filing nominations. She was said to be close to BJP top leaders. But Sibal ensured that he got the required number of votes of the legislators who were also wooed by Mahapatra's backers.

On the other hand,  the BJP succeeded in bringing into open the deep fissures in the Congress in Haryana. Former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda's displeasure with the party high command came into the open.

The major jolt for Congress was that its 14 MLAs cast invalid votes that led to the defeat of the party-backed Independent candidate RK Anand who was mainly fielded by its arch rival INLD.  As a result, Subhash Chandra, a media baron, easily defeated Anand, a senior lawyer and a former MP.

In Jharkhand too, the Congress failed in its attempt to secure victory for JMM candidate Basant Soren, son of party supremo Shibu Soren. The BJP succeeded in its strategy by fielding  a businessman leader from its own ranks who succeeded in drawing opposition votes to win—though  by a whisker. The state government’s move to arrest a  JMM MLA and a Congress MLA raised questions about the BJP’s methods to shore up support. But a larger message that came Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati.

A month after she had helped the Congress win the vote of confidence in the Uttarakhand Assembly, she played her cards carefully. She did not let her party’s surplus  votes to go to any party in UP. With the ruling Samajwadi Party on the slide, she did her bid to check a resurgent BJP in the state without showing she was helping the Congress.