look news india
Franchise Policy of Congress: The crushing defeat of Congress in Haryana elections is another blow to the voting rights policy of the Congress high command. The Congress came to the verge of collapse due to the policy of the Congress high command of making a single leader the all-powerful ruler instead of adopting collective leadership in the states. However, in Haryana also, Congress adopted the same policy and gave Congress franchise to former Chief Minister Bhupendra Singh Hooda.
Questioning the existence of Congress
Bhupendra Singh Hooda and his son Deependra Singh Hooda had all the power from deciding Congress candidates to election campaign. The father-son duo of Bhupendra Singh and Deependra Singh have angered other Haryana Congress leaders and arbitrarily raised questions over their political careers. But questions have also been raised on the existence of Congress in Haryana.
Two very important vote banks in Haryana are Jat and Dalit voters. Out of these, Jat votes will remain with Congress because of Bhupendra Singh Hooda. Whereas the assessment was that because of Kumari Shailaja, Dalit voters would stay with Congress. In such a situation, Congress needed to save Bhupendra Singh Hooda as well as Kumari Selja. Instead, Shailaja was left completely in the dark. Another Jat leader Randeep Singh Surjewala was also sidelined.
Why did BJP benefit?
BJP took full advantage of this. On one hand, BJP succeeded in alienating Jat voters from Congress by fielding Dushyant and Abhay Chautala. On the other hand, Seljan succeeded in drawing the Dalits towards himself and especially away from the Congress by raising the issue of injustice done by the Congress. The Dalits who did not want to vote for BJP voted for Chandrashekhar Azad and Mayawati. Ram Rahim also distanced Dalit voters from Congress, which benefited BJP.
This policy of Congress caused huge losses in many states.
Congress's franchise policy has already caused huge losses in many states. In Gujarat, Congress got completely destroyed due to the franchise given to Ahmed Patel. Ahmed Patel did nothing arbitrarily to eliminate Congress leaders outside his own group, hence the Congress collapsed due to internal strife.
In Madhya Pradesh, the people rejected the 15-year rule of BJP and returned power to Congress. At that time the Congress high command had given voting rights to Kamal Nath. Angered by Kamal Nath's arbitrary ouster of young leaders including Jyotiraditya Scindia, Scindia joined BJP and the Congress government fell and Congress collapsed in Madhya Pradesh.
Congress also allowed Ashok Gehlot to arbitrarily give voting rights in Rajasthan. This angered youth leader Sachin Pilot and the high command did not care about it and BJP lost in Rajasthan also. Similarly, in Chhattisgarh, Congress gave voting rights to Bhupesh Baghel, due to which the name of Congress got tarnished. In Assam, Congress gave voting rights to Tarun Gogoi while dissatisfied Himanta Biswa Sarma joined BJP and is now the Chief Minister. Harish Rawat in Uttarakhand, Captain Amarinder Singh in Punjab etc. are also examples of Congress's franchise politics due to which Congress was wiped out in their states.
