Feel good? No Congress wants them to feel sorry

However, far from learning any lessons from that humiliating defeat, the Congress is confident it can cash in on it in the coming Lok Sabha elections. The party firmly believes it will win because the people of Rajasthan want to apologise and make up to it for the December defeat.

In what even its own grassroot workers term a ‘‘bizarre political strategy’’, the Congress has decided that a ‘‘sympathy wave’’ will sail its boat to victory in the Lok Sabha elections. So while Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje gets ready for a ‘Dhanyavad Yatra’ across the state, the Congress hopes ‘‘sahanubhuti’’ will oil its wheels.

‘‘People of Rajasthan still can’t believe we lost,’’ explains Narayan Singh, recently elected Pradesh Congress chief. ‘‘They have sympathy for us and we believe that this will translate into our victory in the Lok Sabha.’’

At present, of the 25 Lok Sabha seats, the BJP has 16 and the Congress nine. With its new strategy, the Congress hopes to counter the BJP’s ‘‘target 25’’ gameplan for the upcoming elections.

But the party’s own workers are astonished at this new line of thought. Many of them admit that if ‘‘such ridiculous strategies are adopted, we will not even win one seat’’.

For the record, the Congress couldn’t have had a steeper fall from grace like it had in the December polls in Rajasthan, particularly as it was expected to do well. The party lost 100 seats, its numbers in the Vidhan Sabha reduced from 154 to 56.

But again the PCC sees a sign in those numbers. Pointing out that ‘‘even the BJP didn’t expect the margin of their victory’’, PCC spokesperson Riyazuddin Sheikh adds: ‘‘The people are in shock. We lost primarily because of the Jat factor, government employees and demoralised Congress workers. The people really didn’t have much to do with it.’’

Former chief minister Ashok Gehlot is a co-habitant of this world, happy in the thought that the people rated him, if not his government, highly. ‘‘Normally after a party is voted out there is celebration among the people,’’ Gehlot often says. ‘‘But after our defeat no one celebrated and that indicates that people were not thrilled.’’

Accordingly, at their meetings, the Congress has decided that in Rajasthan all campaign strategy will revolve around garnering the voters’ sympathy. ‘‘The feel good factor is a farce. In Rajasthan it is good governance of the Congress that will be the main factor. People know the Gehlot government did work,’’ says Sheikh.

The foundations of this strategy were laid at a recent meeting at the AICC headquarters. Chaired by AICC general secretary and Rajasthan in-charge Mohsina Kidwai, it was attended by Leader of Opposition B.D. Kalla, Singh, Gehlot, Natwar Singh, former PCC chief Girija Vyas, Balram Jakhar, Nawal Kishore Sharma and other senior leaders.

Having reached this conclusion, the Congress has stopped its defeat analysis too. The Pranab Mukherjee report that looked into the reasons for the December rout has been sidelined. Besides highlighting the role of government employees and Jats, the report had talked of leaders managing campaigns of their sons instead of wooing voters at large.