India’s governing Congress party was badly beaten in a key state election on Tuesday, a sharp rebuke that could cripple the already embattled national government over the final two years of its term.
With Congress coming in fourth place in the Uttar Pradesh polls, party icon Rahul Gandhi admitted defeat. Gandhi, seen as his party’s likely next prime ministerial candidate, had put his reputation on the line by campaigning relentlessly across India’s most populous state.
“I led this campaign and I was the person in front. The responsibility is mine,” Gandhi said, adding that his party had poor organization in the state.
Photo: Reuters
Mayawati, the bottom-caste Dalit (formerly known as untouchables) leader who is the state’s incumbent chief minister, also suffered a crushing defeat as the socialist Samajwadi Party’s victory was strong enough to allow it to form a government on its own.
“People have risen above caste and religion to vote for the Samajwadi Party and that is why it’s clear that we are headed toward a majority,” said Akhilesh Yadav, a top party leader, while votes were being counted on Tuesday.
The party secured 224 of the state’s 403 seats, according to the Election Commission’s final tally early yesterday.
Mayawati’s party took a major hit, winning only 80 seats, while the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took 47 and Congress just 28 — a marginal increase from the 22 it held before the vote.
Mayawati, who uses one name, drew criticism during her five-year rule for spending a fortune on public parks, complete with gigantic statues of herself and other party leaders, instead of reforming the health and education systems.
Ajit Kumar Singh, director of the Giri Institute of Development Studies in the state capital, Lucknow, said voters saw the Samajwadi Party as their best chance of ousting their mercurial chief minister.
“People were fed up with the dictatorial attitude of Mayawati,” he said.
K.V. Prasad, a New Delhi-based political analyst with the Hindu newspaper, said the verdict showed that the Congress party was out of touch with grassroots issues.
“It’s not enough to go heli-hopping and waving your hands,” he said, a reference to Gandhi’s crisscrossing the state via helicopter. “The electorate is more aware now.”
Prasad said voters knew that only the Samajwadi Party had the organization to realistically defeat Mayawati’s government.
Congress didn’t fare much better in election results from four other states. While it held onto power in the tiny, insurgency-wracked state of Manipur in the northeast with 42 of the state’s 60 seats, it lost control of coastal Goa, with only nine seats to the BJP’s 21.
In the state of Punjab, Congress lost to the local Sikh party Shiromani Akali Dal 56-46, with the BJP taking 12.
In the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, Congress scraped by with 32 to the BJP’s 31, with neither party winning enough seats in the 70-strong house to form a government on their own.
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