Realising well that the road to power to Centre for it goes through states, Opposition Congress seems to have gone for a change in its political strategy during the pandemic and has focussed on demolishing the much-hyped models of BJP and NDA-ruled states like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar while simultaneously keeping the heat on Modi dispensation at Centre.
While debunking the "Gujarat model" riding on which Narendra Modi-led BJP had to come power at Centre, seems to be the prime focus of the Congress leaders, the party and its ally RJD in Bihar have taken all-out efforts to puncture the 'Sushashan Babu' image of Nitish Kumar in Bihar, highlighting the issue of the collapse of the health system in the state.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who had been tasked with reviving the perennially falling fortunes of Congress in Uttar Pradesh, has latched on to the imagery of floating bodies in Ganga to put Yogi Adityanath government in the dock. Even Rahul Gandhi has been repeatedly attacking Modi, who is an MP from Varanasi, reminding him with sarcasm of his statement in past that he came to Varanasi at the call of Mother Ganges.
After the double debacle in Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019, the realisation has grown in Congress that its hopes of coming back to power at Centre cannot happen in one go without it having won the states first. In 2017, it made the first serious bid to win UP by going into alliance with Samajwadi Party but the attempt bombed.
Towards the end of the year, however, its attempt was met with some success in Gujarat, the home state of Modi and Amit Shah, where it managed to checkmate the BJP at 99 seats, a substantial fall from its earlier performances. Its focus on winning elections paid off in 2018, when it won in three states -- Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.
In 2019, Congress got a windfall gain with NDA ally in Maharashtra Shiv Sena deserting the BJP bandwagon, while Congress also managed to substantially improve its tally in Haryana, a state which it had lost in a big way in 2014.
BJP's loss in some other states as well where Congress is not the principal gainer like Jharkhand, West Bengal and Delhi, has given the Congress hope that the ruling party is no longer invincible in states. So the main Opposition party, while keeping the heat on the Centre, has also planned to keep the states in focus. Giving Priyanka Gandhi the charge of UP, which has 80 Lok Sabha seats and where the BJP got plus 60 per cent votes in the last Lok Sabha polls, is part of the strategy.
Seeking a white paper from the government on its Covid-vaccination strategy, Congress leader Rajiv Shukla on Thursday alleged that BJP-ruled states and the Centre were hiding data pertaining to deaths due to Covid and demanded they reveal the real figures.
A close look at the Twitter timeline of Congress leaders amid the pandemic reveals, how even senior central level leaders of the party have been training guns on the BJP Chief Ministers, seeking to hurt the BJP in the states first,
Latching on to a news report about deaths in Gujarat, Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan said, "this is terrible!! 1.23 lakh deaths in 71 days, that’s 1744 deaths per day. The much hyped Gujarat model always worked with concealing the data and fudging reports."
Tagging a photo of a burial, All India Mahila Congress said, "Gujarat issued 1.23 lakh death certificates between March 1 and May 10, but registered only 4,218 Covid deaths.
Gujarati newspaper Divya Bhaskar exposes BJP’s Gujarat Model! It is time PM Modi & HM Shah become answerable to their sins!"
With Modi and Shah now in Centre politics, there is a feeling in Congress that the state is slipping from the BJP's hands and 2020 could be a game for it. Congress Working President Hardik Patel
On May 20, Congress went for a video campaign on Twitter countering UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's remarks about controlling Covid-19 and alleging "BJP government in UP has left the health system to God (Ram Bharose) Whatever statistics are being given, the fact is that statistics are being hidden and people are being pushed into the grip of Corona.
"BJP has made UP the laboratory of its failed governance. There are bodies everywhere on the sandbanks of Ma Ganga. The BJP government is trying to hide deaths and crush the voice about it," Congress said from its Twitter handle.
AICC communication department chief Randeep Surjewala tweeted a video of a dilapidated hospital building of Bihar saying "O God, there is treatment, ICU and operation theatre in this medical college building in Bihar. Perhaps that is why Modi and Nitish Kumar are saying everything is fine (sab changa si).
To counter the Congress attack, BJP leaders have raised questions about the Kerala Model of governance of CPI-M, targeted AAP-ruled Delhi Delhi, the MVA-ruled Maharashtra, Trinamool Congress-ruled West Bengal and Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.
BJP's losses in West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu in 2021 state elections has given Congress a breathing space and it is hoping to make gains in 2022 when seven states including UP, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh will go to polls. In UP it has no organisation and in Punjab, its unit is divided.