CONGRESS WRAP?UP: Overconfidence, delay may yet take their toll

Banking on media reports giving the Congress a huge edge in the elections, the party appeared confident of its chances even before the campaign started.

Updated on: Dec 1, 2003, 08:53:00 IST

PTI | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Banking on media reports giving the Congress a huge edge in the elections, the party appeared confident of its chances even before the campaign started. This was reflected clearly in a colourless campaign where candidates’ individual efforts were visible more than that of the party..

Delay in finalising tickets was the first blow to the launch of the campaign. Only about half the sitting MLAs - assured beforehand of a ticket - could begin early. Others began campaigns only after November 14, the last date of nomination.

Many candidates struggled to make last minute arrangements even to file nominations as the party declared tickets of about 28 candidates only on 13 November night. In real time, Congress candidates launched campaigns only after 18 November by when the BJP's campaign was in full swing.

The Congress opted for traditional electioneering methods like padyatra and corner meetings as “our. emphasis was on contact with each voter," said Congress spokesperson Jagdish Tytler.

For film stars, the Congress could only manage Rajesh Khanna and Sunil Dutt, both party leaders while a few candidates roped in small time Hindi and Punjabi singers.

What hurt the party most was that most publicity plans of the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee remained on paper, especially the campaign through technology. Only one MLA set up a website and there were hardly any takers for the SMS facility which several firms offered. There were also complaints that the party didn’t provide the campaign material till the last stage. Only a dummy model of Delhi Metro and a flyover were built.

The campaign mostly hovered around the image of Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, the Delhi government’s performance, anti-incumbency against the Centre and individual performance. National issues didn’t find much mention.

To its advantage, the Congress had its star campaigner, party president Sonia Gandhi, when it mattered the most. She addressed three rallies in Delhi on November 17 covering people from almost all constituencies. Overflowing crowds at her rallies were a shot in the arm in view of the poor attendance at BJP rallies.

The favourable opinion the party received in various opinion polls also kept Congress leaders from worrying during the campaign period. The Hindustan Times-CSDS survey for instance, gave the Congress 58 seats.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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