Present imperfect

For this batch, the message is quite clear: the alleged magic did not work. The idea that a 30-something political freshman will come and his sheer presence will mesmerise the largest electorate in this country, cutting through all the existing social equations and political arithmetic, was a mix of excessive optimism and contempt for the people. It is a sign of the health of democracy that everyone, including the Gandhi family, has to go through the routines of democratic politics to earn a political living.

You don8217;t have to look for subtle statistics here:

8226; The party won 22 seats, similar to its tally in the 1991 assembly elections, but in terms of votes polled, this is the worst performance for the Congress. It could have been worse, but for a face-saving performance in the Amethi Rai-Bareli belt

8226; Not only did the party8217;s tally decline, it could retain only 7 of the 25 seats it won last time

8226; This is the third assembly election that the party has less than one-tenth of the seats in the assembly and a single-digit vote share.

THE batch of 2009 includes those Congressmen who saw this election as a semi-final for the real contest in the Lok Sabha elections of 2009. They may not have hoped for a dramatic increase in seats but did expect Rahul Gandhi8217;s presence to start pulling up the Congress vote share by a few points to touch at least 12 per cent or so, if not 15 per cent. Such a performance was to be the launching pad for Operation Resurgence in the Lok Sabha elections 2009.

For this batch of Congresswallahs too, the message is not very encouraging. If you looked at just the statistics, there is nothing to distinguish the Congress8217;s performance this time from what it has done in the past:

8226; The party8217;s overall vote share has, in fact, fallen a little since the last assembly elections, from 8.9 to 8.6 per cent

8226; The party could retain only 66 per cent of the voters who preferred it last time, a sign that it does not have the safe foundation of a core vote

8226; The social profile of the Congress vote in UP is almost the opposite of its profile in places in the rest of the country where it has a robust presence. The Congress gets more votes from the urban, educated, well-off and male voters than from the opposite end. The Congress8217;s rivals are firmly in control of different slices of what used to be the Congress rainbow: dalits and the poor with the BSP, upper castes mostly with the BJP and the Muslims mainly with the SP

8226; Rahul Gandhi8217;s popularity rating registered only a slight increase of two points, from 5 to 7 per cent, as a result of his campaign. His popularity is still not higher than the party and he is not yet a 8216;vote puller8217; for the Congress

8226; The party was unable to convert a general goodwill for its central government 8212; as many as 53 per cent of the citizens were satisfied with the UPA government in our pre-poll survey 8212; into votes in the assembly elections.

IF this election has any positive signs, it is only for the Congresswallahs of the batch of 2014 8212; those who have set their sights on the very long run. Here are some signs they can build upon:

8226; In a first-past-the-post system, the third or the fourth player tends to be eliminated from the race. That the Congress has retained its vote share 8212; unlike the BJP and Apna Dal 8212; when the opposition to the SP was focused around the BSP gives it something to start with

8226; Pre-poll surveys indicated that the Congress was either a first or second choice for about a quarter of the voters in UP. It could not encash its second preferences this time, but it does have a large pool of potential support

8226; Recent surveys in the state in the last two years have shown that the proportion of the electorate willing to vote for the Congress in a Lok Sabha election is twice as much as the one willing to vote for it in the assembly election

8226; The Congress has held a better vote share among the Muslims than earlier and Rahul Gandhi8217;s popularity increased significantly among the Muslim youth. This could be crucial in 2009 when the SP8217;s Muslim vote may be available for poaching. Similarly, the Congress8217;s upper-caste vote bank is big enough to start targeting the BJP8217;s vote bank in the next Lok Sabha elections.

THE problem for the Congress is not that it does not have a captive caste vote bank; this, in fact, could be an asset for future expansion. The real trouble is that there is no path to the party8217;s revival that does not involve the kind of hard work that Mayawati had put in in the last two years. And that is something the Congresswallahs of Uttar Pradesh are not used to.

Support base of Congress among different sections:

Assembly elections 2007

Young 10

Old 9

Graduate 11

Illiterate 7

Rich 12

Poor 5

Men 9

Women 8

Brahmin 19

Other Upper Caste 10

Hindu 7

Muslim 14