THE PROBLEM IS NOT JUST ABOUT DYNASTIC POLITICS

These days Tejashvi Yadav is the target of intense trolling. Before him the Huda family in Haryana and Thackerays in Maharashtra got the same treatment. So, is the battle of victory and defeat in electoral politics a tussle between dynasts vs the rest? Absolutely not.

- SHASHI SHEKHAR

If dynastic politics was the only bane, then Hemant Soren in Jharkhand would have suffered a drubbing as was seen in Maharashtra and Haryana. Bucking incumbency, he returned even stronger. He proved that to win an election, you have to break the strategic contours of your opponent before humbling them.

Taking a leaf out of the playbook of his opponents in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, Soren launched his own ‘Maiyya samman’ scheme and brought in other welfare plans to address the needs of every segment. Even then, anti-incumbency could have played spoilsport, but his arrest came as a shot in the arm. The state poll saw his seats increase while the Congress was unchanged at 16. The trend is clear in states wherever the Congress is the junior partner. Despite a supporting wave, the party is incapable of cashing in.

We can mull on the fact whether giving freebies just before the elections has emerged as a strategy to secure victory? This is only the partial truth, Arvind Kejriwal had started this trend and became its victim. After offering almost all basic amenities for free, the Aam Admi Party emptied out the entire exchequer. The once cash-rich Delhi was hit by a cash crunch that slowed down development. And the results were evident in the Delhi polls.