Punjab and Uttarakhand may be regarded as marginal states in the larger scheme of things, but the Congress’s defeat is all the more glaring because — unlike say UP or Bihar where the party has been steadily declining over the past several years — there were good reasons to hope for a good result.

Although Uttarakhand was carved out of UP less than a decade ago, the Congress organisation in the hills has been far more vibrant than in the dusty Indo-Gangetic plains. In Punjab too, the Congress has a sound base which, dormant during the years of militancy, managed to revive itself quite handsomely. And on the ‘development’ front, both N.D. Tiwari and Captain Amarinder Singh, even critics concede, did a great deal in terms of setting up SEZs, industries, and creating employment opportunities. The old ‘bijli sadak paani’ did not play much of a role in either poll.

Congress poll managers are already trotting out the standard excuses to explain the twin defeats — anti-incumbency, the alienation of the ‘aam aadmi’ due to the Centre’s inflationary policies, the “arrogance” of Amarinder Singh and the “old-style politics of patronage” that marked Tiwari’s ‘lal batti raj’.

These factors certainly played a role. In Uttarakhand, where prices of essential commodities always get amplified because of transport costs from the plains, the steep inflation over the last couple of months laid the ground for discontent that the BJP-RSS combine’s sustained grassroots campaign skilfully exploited. The rampant infighting between the Harish Rawat and N.D. Tiwari camps in the state and Amarinder Singh’s undemocratic ways of functioning also contributed their bit to the defeat.

... contd.