Decision to go alone in UP, Bihar helped Cong

The UPA victory was stunning not just because it was in line with the exit poll predictions. It was stunning for the sheer number of seats that the Congress-led alliance could win — a phenomenon that even the Congress leadership did not expect.

The near-chaotic scramble to woo allies that marked the day before the vote count concluded, is a thing of the past. The Congress leadership can breathe easy now. The voters handed out a near-decisive victory for the combine which took reins of Parliament in 2004 under similar circumstances. The final result surpassed the exit poll predictions for the UPA. The three key figures for the coalition’s win — Congress president Sonia Gandhi, general secretary Rahul Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh —  have been congratulated by the party and rightly so.

Amidst grumblings from the party workers that candidate selection was poorly handled, the UPA has emerged as the largest party bloc and the reasons are not far to see. Rahul undertook a whirlwind tour of the constituencies, Sonia and Manmohan too pitched in. While the credit for guiding the party organisation will go to Sonia, Manmohan’s effort was no less.

The credit for the decision to go it alone – that Congress will not enter into any alliance in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar – returned rich dividends for the party, at least in the cow belt state of UP, belongs to Rahul.

The undercurrent of support in the two states was not missed by many. The party strategy to take the battle all by itself to its rivals was the masterstroke that played a crucial role in the turnaround. Besides, the move to retain the alliance with DMK was another key decision for the victory. The anti-incumbency factor was undone by DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi’s decision not to ally with the DMDK of actor Vijayakant who took the anti-incumbency votes of the DMK, as much as PRP which took away the anti-incumbency impact of the Congress in Andhra Pradesh.

But then, in more ways than one, it was also a vote for Manmohan who steered the government ably for five years. The government was not scalded by any scandal. It would not be wrong to say that Manmohan’s clean image, backed up by the popular perception of personal honesty and integrity were the stuff around which the UPA victory was fashioned.

That the BJP and in particular its PM candidate L K Advani targeted Manmohan day in and day out, describing him as a weak PM may have helped the Congress cause. The Indian voter detests personal attacks and hate/revenge politics. The ceaseless attack on Manmohan Singh was perhaps not taken kindly by the Indian electorate, especially the urban voters.

The achievements of the UPA government was something that was not talked of much or highlighted by the media. The Rs 75,000 crore loan waiver scheme which helped hundreds of thousands of farmers, the job-guarantee scheme under which 4.4 crore people are believed to have benefited since 2006, the Bharat Nirman programme for construction of houses and roads, and better seed supply across the country helped the UPA greatly.

Interestingly, the UPA government gave the highest minimum support price for wheat this year and in the wheat belt of the country — UP, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab – the party did either exceedingly well or could revive itself dramatically.