In Ahmed Patel’s victory, Congress showcases its fighting spirit, now it needs to retain it

Will the Congress be able to showcase its fighting spirit that it displayed during the Rajya Sabha polls in Gujarat in the future too?

New Delhi, August 10: Those who are eagerly waiting for a strong opposition to emerge to counter the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah juggernaut can see a 'ray of hope' after Ahmed Patel, one of the top leaders of the Congress, managed to retain his Rajya Sabha seat in Gujarat in a battle of nerves and quick maneuvering.

In Patel's victory, the long-serving political secretary to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, many are reading many things. First, let us talk about the critics, who are perennially against the Congress which has been witnessing a series of electoral debacle in the hands of the ruling BJP.

They feel that it is naïve on the part of the Congress to celebrate the victory of Patel, who managed to get just 44 votes, in spite of initially having 57 members of legislative assembly (MLAs) in the 182-member Gujarat Assembly.

Moreover, it is because of the "foolishness" on the part of the two rebel Congress leaders-- Bhola Bhai Gohil and Raghavji Bhai Patel--who cross-voted in favour of the BJP candidate Balwantsinh Rajput, but ended up showing their ballots to the BJP leaders and thus violated the "code of secrecy".

The Election Commission, based on a complaint filed by the Congress, declared the votes of Gohil and Patel as invalid. With the two votes becoming invalid, Patel had to get 44 votes as against 45, a number which could have proven tricky for the Congress camp to win the battle.

Thus it was sheer luck cited by the critics which helped Patel to win the polls. They are also pointing to the fact that the BJP has succeeded in breaking the Gujarat Congress as a part of the Rajya Sabha polls, starting with the rebellion of the senior leader Shankersinh Vagehla, who left the party recently and is secretly believed to have joined the BJP camp.

Just a few weeks ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls, six Congress MLAs, one of them Rajput, resigned from the party and the assembly. That is when as a desperate measure the Congress flew out 44 of its MLAs from Gujarat to Bengaluru in Karnataka to avoid further "poaching".

All these dramatic events put a question mark regarding the unity in the Congress camp just three months before the Assembly elections in Gujarat. The Congress simply has no face to lead the party in the coming elections. Nobody knows what steps the grand old party is planning to take to save its "dignity" in Gujarat.

On the other side, the BJP house looks like a well-guarded fortress with 120 MLAs. The saffron party having its rule both in Gujarat and at the Centre currently looks invincible.

The election manager of the BJP, Shah, who is also known as a master strategist, told his party cadres to prepare themselves to win more than 150 seats in the coming Assembly elections on Wednesday.

The Congress, on its part, has failed to exploit the anti-incumbency wave in the state which started with Hardik Patel's agitation for reservation last year. Then the Dalits in Una protested after a couple of Dalit men, engaged in skinning of dead cows, were horribly beaten by upper caste men.

Several traders, especially those engaged in textile industry in Surat, are mighty unhappy with the Goods and Services Tax (GST) implemented by the Modi government recently. Gujarat saw several anti-GST agitations in the recent past. In spite of so many opportunities against the BJP, the Congress simply let them go, one by one.

With a diminished opposition--the BJP looks to retain power in the state in the coming elections. In Gujarat there are basically two big parties--the BJP and the Congress. Since 1998, the BJP is ruling the state.

Now, let us talk about a few "positives" of Patel's victory, which otherwise has been dented by too many 'accidents'.

First and foremost, after a long time, the Congress showed its fighting spirit against the BJP. Otherwise, since the 2014 Lok Sabha election debacle, the grand old party is easily giving away victory after victory to the saffron party.

The most recent ones are the Goa and Manipur Assembly elections, where the Congress got the maximum seats but still failed to form its government as the BJP with its quick-thinking brought several parties together under its umbrella to snatch away power from the Congress.

One might think that the Congress showcased its fighting spirit, especially by the old guard (as Congress vice-president, Rahul Gandhi, and his men were "missing" during the Gujarat battle), as it was about Patel, the Friday man of the Congress president.

If the Congress had lost Patel's seat in Gujarat, it would have totally lost its face in the national politics. After all, politics as they say is all about perception. The message, in case Patel had lost the polls, would have been that the Congress could not even win the seat for the closest-aide of Sonia.

That would have directly hurt the Gandhi family for sure. So, the Congress, this time, unlike in the past, decided to act quick and fast. It was astute on the part of the Congress to take its 44 MLAs to a resort in Bengaluru and keep them under the observation of Karnataka energy minister DK Shivakumar, known to be close to Patel.

That way, the party avoided more MLAs to switch sides. The smartest step taken by the Congress was to move the EC. The Congress managers realised that Patel might lose the polls, so when opportunity arrived they embraced it.

Armed with best of legal minds like former finance minister P Chidambaram and video evidence of violation of secrecy of ballots, the Congress approached the EC. It was a strong case supported by precedence which the EC could not ignore, in spite of pressure from the BJP to go ahead with the counting. At this stage also, the Congress kept its fight on, as a bevy of leaders made a series of visits to the EC office.

The script for the Gujarat Rajya Sabha elections was clearly written by Shah and his teammates, but something went wrong in the middle, a twist appeared in the form of Patel winning an unexpected win. It's a big blow to the BJP as it had concentrated all its money, muscle and mind powers to defeat Patel.

However, the BJP does not need any counselling. It has already revived from the loss inflicted by Patel. After all, the BJP won two Rajya Sabha seats from Gujarat, one that of Shah and second, union minister Smriti Irani.

The party can easily afford to ignore its loss by concentrating on its too many victories achieved in the last three years. It is the Congress, which is a losing horse, but Patel's win is surely a morale booster for the grand old party.

Now, time for the Congress to act quickly to outwit the BJP-- a much more muscular and popular party.

For the nation, it will be a battle between David and Goliath and of course it would be as interesting as a Hollywood thriller, the climax of which will unfold during the Lok Sabha elections in 2019.

However, one question still remains, "does Congress want to fight one of its toughest battles post-independence?"

OneIndia News