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What Ahmed Patel's victory means for Congress, a party that had forgotten how to win

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Anand Kochukudy
Anand KochukudyAug 09, 2017 | 15:13

What Ahmed Patel's victory means for Congress, a party that had forgotten how to win

The biennial Rajya Sabha elections in Gujarat on the 75th anniversary of the Quit India Movement turned out to be nothing short of a nerve-wracking thriller. In the end, Congress heavyweight Ahmed Patel, who is also the Political secretary of Sonia Gandhi, managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

In what was billed to be a contest between strategists Amit Shah and Ahmed Patel, the former virtually tried every trick in the book to deny a victory to Patel. It was a hard-fought win for the thoroughly demoralised Congress in Gujarat but the cadre would have been heartened to see their party putting up a fight.

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To use a cricket analogy, the Australian Test team from the mid-nineties to the mid-2000s was known to find a way to win from the most unlikely scenarios. In the process, sportsman spirit was often a casualty and victory at any cost became the motto. If they couldn’t win merely on the strength of their skills, the art of ‘mental disintegration’ of the opponents, developed by their ice-cool Captain Steve Waugh came in handy. It involved massive sledging, creating pressure through intimidation and in short, rank bullying. It took teams to make an extraordinary effort to win against them.

Winning had become a habit and they were not accustomed to losing. Though it may not be the best of comparisons, the mean machine of the BJP under the Modi-Shah duo has been having a similar run, especially in direct contests with Congress. (Congress last won in Karnataka in a direct contest with the BJP). If one were to look at Gujarat, it has been almost twenty years since the Congress has ruled the state and it almost seemed they had forgotten the art of winning, perfected of late by the BJP.

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In what would have been a straightforward election of three candidates - two from the BJP and one from the Congress - reflecting the strength of these parties in the assembly, BJP raised the pitch and tried to turn it into a prestige battle where Ahmed Patel was portrayed as Sonia Gandhi’s proxy and a defeat for Patel a psychological victory for the BJP in many ways.

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Photo: Press Trust of India

The contest was nothing short of riveting. Things looked ominous for Patel after wildcard Shankersinh Vaghela emerged after casting his vote predicting the defeat of Patel. Vaghela claimed he opted to vote for the BJP as Patel was losing anyway. In an election where every single vote mattered, the drama had only begun. By afternoon, the Congress bloc had voted and thinks looked better for them.

Around 4pm, Congress filed two applications to get the votes cast by two rebel MLAs, Bhola Bhai Gohil and Raghav Bhai Patel, for violating poll procedures. The party claimed these MLAs had shown their ballot papers to Amit Shah, in violation of rules. The petition got rejected by the Returning Officer (RO).

Congress was swift enough to approach the Election Commission of India (ECI) for overturning of the Returning officer’s decision. This was followed by a BJP delegation visiting the EC, led by none other than Arun Jaitley himself. Sensing trouble, Congress now sent a stronger delegation with Ghulam Nabi Azad and P Chidambaram among them; only for the BJP to return the favour. Thereafter the EC refused to meet anymore delegations to deliberate and take a decision.

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The EC decision invoking Article 324 of the Constitution thereby revoking the decision of its Returning Officer came around 11.30pm. But it took another couple of hours for the counting to begin as the BJP wasn’t giving this up easily. In another twist, BJP demanded that a decision be taken on their counter complaints on Congress MLAs before the ballots were counted. Finally, past 1.30am, the counting began and at about 1.50am, Ahmed Patel tweeted “Satyamev Jayate” confirming his win.

Ahmed Patel and his party would be relieved more than anything for pulling off a miracle at the end. It also turned out to be the culmination of a six-month old rebellion by veteran Shankersinh Vaghela. When the Congress leadership dithered over Vaghela over the past six months, they would have hardly anticipated such a scenario.

There can be two opinions on Congress’ handling of Vaghela. One school of thought might argue that Vaghela should have been declared as the Chief Ministerial face a la Amarinder Singh in Punjab as he still remained the most popular Congress leader in Gujarat by a mile. 2017 seemed Congress’ best chance to win against the BJP with a variety of factors favouring them.

There is another school of thought that is deeply suspicious of Vaghela’s old connections with the RSS and his failure to improve the Congress’ prospects when he faced off against Modi. In the end, Congress can be relieved that Vaghela could not inflict his revenge for being passed over.

Still, this victory of sorts might help the Congress in changing their fortunes in a state where a bunch of dynasts including Bharatsinh Solanki, Sidharth Patel and Tushar Chaudhary, with no clout beyond their bastions, are vying for leadership. But there are massive challenges as the organisation has virtually disappeared at the booth level. It is up to the leadership to rouse the cadre using this as a springboard to launch a massive campaign in the state.

A party that had forgotten how to win has pulled off an improbable victory, however insignificant, warding off everything thrown at them by a Machiavellian Amit Shah and his shenanigans. But rather than chest-thumping, they should get down to business and craft a template on how to keep this momentum alive.

Last updated: August 09, 2017 | 19:39
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