Stung by the Congress’s back-to-back defeats in Haryana and Maharashtra, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday said the party would have to focus on state-level issues besides national issues in Assembly elections and learn to convert “mood” to “victories”. Indulging in some blunt talk, he asked how long could the party depend on “national issues and national leaders” to fight state elections. The major takeaways from opening remarks of the plain-speaking Kharge at the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting in New Delhi were his emphasis that state issues cannot be ignored even amid larger themes of the party’s electoral narrative, the signal to his colleagues that it cannot be business as usual, with change required from the grassroots to the All India Congress Committee (AICC) level, and that party discipline was paramount. In Haryana, one of the major letdowns for the party is said to have been the infighting between senior leaders Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Kumari Selja. After the decimation of the party and the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance of which it is a part in the Maharashtra Assembly elections, the Congress faced criticism for relying largely on the same themes and narratives that had helped it punch some holes in the BJP’s Lok Sabha campaign, hoping those would give it electoral dividends repeatedly. The themes included Lok Sabha Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi’s “threat to the Constitution” slogan and emphasis on caste census with a promise a Congress government will breach the 50% reservation ceiling. “We may have lost the elections, but there is no doubt that unemployment, inflation, and economic inequality are burning issues. Caste census is also an important issue today. Issues like the Constitution, social justice and harmony are issues of the people. But this does not mean that we forget the important local issues in the electoral states. It is also important to understand the different issues of the states in detail in time and make a solid campaign strategy around them. Till when will you fight the state elections with the help of national issues and national leaders?” Kharge asked. Kharge claimed the mood was in favour of the Congress in the Assembly elections but pointed out that “the mood being in favour does not guarantee a victory. We will have to learn to convert the mood into results. What is the reason that we are not able to take advantage of the mood?” “We need to immediately learn from the election results and correct all our weaknesses and shortcomings at the organisational level. These results are a message for us. The most important thing that I keep saying is that lack of unity and statements against each other harm us a lot. Unless we fight elections unitedly and stop making statements against each other, how will we be able to defeat our opponents politically? Therefore, it is important that we strictly follow discipline. We have to remain united under all circumstances,” he said. Arguing that the party has to timely forge strategies, strengthen the organisation up to the booth level and be alert, cautious, and careful day and night — from the preparation of the voter list to the counting of votes — the Congress president said, “Our preparation from the beginning till the counting of votes should be such that our workers and systems work diligently. In many states, our organisation is not up to expectations. Our biggest need is to strengthen the organisation.” “The recent election results also indicate that we should start our election preparations in the states at least a year in advance. Our teams should be present in the field well in advance. The first task should be to check the voter lists so that the votes of those in our favour remain on the list under all circumstances. The next thing I want to say is that we cannot achieve success all the time by following the old path. You have to see daily what your political opponent is doing. We have to make timely decisions. Accountability has to be fixed,” said Kharge. Kharge also spoke of the criticism from within the party that it did not have a narrative in the Assembly elections. “Sometimes we ourselves become our biggest enemy. We ourselves will talk negatively and depressingly about ourselves and say that we do not have any narrative. Then I ask, whose responsibility is it to create the narrative and convey it to the public? This is a collective responsibility. The narrative that we had set at the national level is still applicable,” he said. The Congress president also spoke about EVMs but did not reiterate his demand for a return to paper ballots. “I believe that EVM has made the electoral process suspicious. The Election Commission is a Constitutional institution, so the less said about it the better. However, it is the constitutional responsibility of the Election Commission to ensure free and fair elections in the country. Questions are being raised again and again as to what extent this responsibility is being fulfilled. After the kind of results that came in favour of MVA in the Lok Sabha just six months ago, the result of the Assembly elections is beyond the understanding of even political pundits. The kind of results that have come are such that no arithmetic is unable to justify it,” he said. “We will have to improve the ways of contesting elections in every situation. Because times have changed. The ways of contesting elections have changed. We will have to make our micro-communication strategy better than the opponents. We will have to find ways to fight propaganda and misinformation. We will have to move forward by learning lessons from the previous results. The flaws have to be removed. Tough decisions will have to be taken with confidence,” Kharge said.
