How Congress is gearing up to challenge BJP in Rajasthan

In the run up to the by-polls in Rajasthan, the ruling BJP is confident of its chances but the Congress is gearing up to give a tough fight to the former. The Congress is banking on a new strategy to ramp up support. The Congress' political strategy has changed as the battleground has shifted from Gujarat to Rajasthan.

In Gujarat, Congress president Rahul Gandhi adopted a strategy of appealing to Hindu voters by visiting temples and avoiding visits to religious places associated with any other community. Not only did he avoid religious places belonging to non-Hindu religions, he also did not touch upon issues that were thought to be pro-Muslims. This was Congress' strategy in a state where Muslim votes are not concentrated in pockets and therefore can't possibly influence overall election results.

In Rajasthan, however, the grand old party has changed tacks in its consolidation strategy. The Congress is banking once again on a strategy of not publicly engaging with the Muslims or their issues.

However, the broad poll plank is development and Congress era projects that were allegedly stalled by the Vasundhara Raje government. The Congress is banking on selection of candidates based on the caste arithmetic of the seats. This is something that the BJP does regularly and points to a new-found realisation in the Congress that if you want to counter the BJP, you would have to get down to micromanaging at some levels.

But Congress' strategy based on the assumption that the upper caste will vote for the party just because it will field a candidate from the community is a bit naive.

The Muslim votes are being courted in a much more subtle way - by focusing on how they are being targeted and victimised as a community.

That the Congress is alive to tailoring its strategies according to local demands is heartening to note. By not sticking to a pan-India stand on local issues, it has sent a message that it is ready to change, to transform and to innovate to take on a party ruling the Centre. In doing so the party appears ready to take on the BJP, which boasts of a dedicated bunch of cadres, disciplined and led overall by the redoubtable pair of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah - both 24x7 politicians, who are very comfortable in the dusty grind of day to day politics.

BJP is oozing confidence, banking on its organisational strength, social engineering and the unsaid, caste consolidation. The Ajmer, Alwar belt has a major chunk of Baniya, Rajput, Saini, some Jat, Meena and Dalit votes - a major section of the Brahmin and Yadav voters are thought to be pro-BJP. Then there is the obvious pitch of the party being in power at the Centre.

This is the very area where Pehlu Khan was killed. The refrain has not softened - in a hard-line stance the rightists claim that neither the Congress nor the socialists raise their voice when cow smugglers operate openly and raise a hue and cry when steps to protect cows are enforced (read alleged cow smugglers are lynched).

The subtle courting of Muslims votes coupled with the fact that the majority community is being wooed by the Congress at a time when the ruling BJP government in the state faces anti-incumbency would make for an interesting election - the small test before the big exam ahead in 2019.

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