Editorial on Mamata Banerjee criticizing Congress’s lack of seat-sharing in the assembly elections

Knives are ready for Congress by its allies. Following the electoral defeat in three central states, the India Bloc meeting scheduled for tomorrow had to be postponed due to “unavailability” of some key leaders. What is worse, there has been a clear attempt among Congress alliance partners to distance the alliance from the election results: Mamata Banerjee described the results as a defeat for the Congress. There are a few reasons for this mischief. The Congress is rightly accused of not being willing to accept the demand of sharing seats with its allies in this round of election contests or inviting them for joint campaigning. Ms Banerjee had recently argued that the seat-sharing formula at the time could have overturned the results.

It would be interesting to examine Ms Banerjee’s claim in the light of data on voting patterns among specific demographic constituencies. Reports show that in Madhya Pradesh, the Bharatiya Janata Party won 26 seats reserved for Scheduled Castes, while the Congress won 9; In Chhattisgarh, although the BJP won fewer constituencies than the Congress, it managed to double its numbers; In Rajasthan, the BJP won 22 of the 34 seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and received most of the support from Other Backward Classes in the state. Equally worrying for India will be the BJP’s attack on tribal dominated belts. In Chhattisgarh, it won 17 of the expected 29 tribal seats; The figures for Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan were 24 and 12 respectively. It is a matter of conjecture whether the formula for sharing seats among Congress allies could have stemmed this saffron tide among electorally important social formations. More worryingly, India needs to examine whether one of its main election issues for the general elections, the caste census, aimed at disadvantaged social groups, is generating political gains. The BJP’s proven narrative appears to have formidable opponents based on a combination of claims of majoritarianism, selective welfare and international triumphalism. Moreover, the disappointing results of this series of elections will also put India at a disadvantage in the war of perceptions, a key element of modern elections. Of course, the delicate political relationship of the past, shared by some of the coalition partners, is a point that the Prime Minister never fails to highlight, with his slowness in drawing the battle line on time and his frequent accusations of , cases. In short, BJP has put not only Congress but also the opposition alliance in trouble.