ELECTIONS '98 COMMENTARY
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Congress put up news faces in MP, and reaped the benefit

The Congress's strategy to deny party tickets to ''non-performing'' members and field a large number of new faces has paid rich dividends in the just-concluded assembly election in Madhya Pradesh.

On the other hand, its rival, the BJP's gambit of retaining all but a few of the sitting MLAs backfired, according to a computer analysis of the poll results by UNI/C-Voter.

The Congress put up 62 new faces in the constituencies held by it and 40 of them were successful. In the new house the party has 71 new entrants among its 173 members. By this tactical move, the Congress was able to retain almost 60 per cent of its seats.

The BJP denied tickets to only 18 of its 118 members. Twelve of these new candidates made it to the assembly, a 66 per cent success rate.

In contrast, more than 50 per cent of the renominated 100-odd old faces lost.

The analysis indicates an anti-establishment factor working at the micro-level, in that the voter rejected old faces in favour of new ones.

The Bahujan Samaj Party also lost most of the seats defended by sitting members. It, however, managed to retain its tally of 11.

In the Baghelkhand region, which has 56 seats, the Congress had won 32 seats in the 1993 polls. This time its tally went down to 25, losing seven seats to the BJP. The BJP won 24 seats here, gaining 10 from its 1993 tally of 14 seats. The BSP lost two seats and retained only two. The Baghelkhand region has a number of backward class voters who seem to have migrated from the Congress to the BJP. But here again, despite the positive swings for the BJP, the Congress managed its negative swing from crossing the critical mark which otherwise could have caused a total rout.

In the Bhopal region, the Congress won a majority of the seats, bagging 18 out of a total 32. The BJP lost four seats to the Congress and had to be content with only 13 seats. But the scene was in contrast in the scheduled caste-other backward class-dominated Chambal region, where the BJP won 16 out of the 32 seats at stake. It was a quantum jump of seven seats from its previous tally of nine. The BSP put up an impressive performance in this region, winning six seats and increasing its tally by one. The Congress won only seven seats, losing seven to the BJP and one seat to the BSP. The fact that the BSP has maintained its lead in this region while the BJP gained from the Congress shows further realignment of upper caste votes from the Congress to the BJP. The BSP seems to be enjoying its support base of SC votes in this region bordering Uttar Pradesh.

The Congress lost six seats in tribal-dominated Chhattisgarh region, but still managed to win 46 out of the total 88 assembly segments falling in the 11 parliamentary areas of this region. It defied all pre-poll surveys and the exit poll, which showed the BJP in the lead in this region. The BJP, though, gained five seats but fell well short of a majority by winning just 36 seats. The BSP gained one seat to prop up its tally to three. Chattisgarh showed a phenomenal degree of contrasting results in different districts in the same region. The Congress swept the Bastar district by winning most of the seats while the BJP swept the Bilaspur district by winning 16 out of total 18 seats. These zigzag micro-level swings could have confused the finding of most of the pollsters.

The Congress swept the Mahakaushal region by winning 27 out of the 40 seats here. Here the Congress has consolidated its hold and augmented its tally from the 23 it held in the previous election. The BJP, on the other hand, lost two seats which brought its tally down from 13 in 1993 to 11 in this election. Besides gaining two seats from the BJP, the Congress also gained two seats from independents.

The shot in the arm for the Congress came from the Malwa and Nimar regions where the party won 50 of 72 seats at stake. This is a jump of 12 seats, coming directly from the BJP's account which could win only 19 seats and losing 14 seats here. This region clearly illustrates the phenomenon of anti-establishment at micro level. Though this was a BJP bastion due to its urban nature, the voters did not support the sitting BJP MLAs who were renominated by the party. In contrast, the Congress candidates were relatively new and fresh. Had the BJP applied the same strategy, it could have changed the fortunes of the party in the state.

UNI

Assembly Election '98

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