Friday, July 3, 2009

Poll savvy strategists

2,300 IIPM students get jobs

Many forums were set up to tap cong's captive votebank, report Pramod kumar & priyanka rai

Even before the results were out the Congress was sure it was going to win. But what surprised even the most optimistic Congressmen was its massive seat tally of 206. The Grand Old Party had begun backroom manoeuvring months ahead of the elections. Digvijay Singh had proposed Jai Ho as the Congress slogan in April itself – the month when the party's campaign committee met to thrash out a viable poll strategy. He had said the slogan would send out a positive message to voters about its welfare schemes. But, three of the seven committee members vetoed it.

But after Rahul Gandhi endorsed it, AR Rahman’s Oscar-winning Jai Ho was heard at every pre-poll rally. The BJP's Bhay Ho, on the other hand, found no chord among voters who found it a poor imitation. A reflexive act that came from fear and calculation, rather than from the heart.

The idea to go it alone in UP and Bihar was exclusively Rahul's. When the SP came to the UPA's rescue after the Left walked out on it over the nuke deal, the Congress felt it was an ally which could be trusted more than many others. That was when the first talks over seat distribution between Amar Singh and Ram Gopal from SP and Digvijay Singh, Rita Bahunguna, Rahul Gandhi began. But they failed after Rahul got upset by Amar Singh’s condescending attitude towards the Congress. It was also not willing to give it the number of seats it had asked for. Rahul had reacted by saying, “Nothing worse can happen now. Either we have an honourable settlement or no settlement. We will go it alone”.

In an interview to TSI Salman Khursheed had said after the party’s abysmal performance in the UP assembly elections it had reinvented itself. The emphasis would be on following a "scientifically thought out" election strategy. Congress insiders say the changes made in the party structure were part of this new gameplan. The very day the delimitation commission redrew the demographic contours of the constituencies, Rahul was nominated general secretary in charge of youth affairs. The next step was to form ‘Future Challenges’. The committee was tasked to attract Congress’s captive votebank -- the minorities, Dalits and upper castes. Virappa Moily was made the forum's head, with Rahul as one of its members. But Moily was soon replaced by Diggi Raja, and the committee rechristened as ‘Opportunity Between Challenges’. New faces were brought in. As its core members, Pranab Mukherjee, P Chidambaram, Ahmed Patel, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Moti Lal Vora, Sam Pritoida and Janardan Dwivedi came up with many out-of-the box ideas. Besides, five more committees were set up to interact with economists, social scientists, minority leaders and farmers.


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